Recommended reading: Billy Witz's New York Times story on the way Major League Soccer player Andy Williams and his wife, Marcia, both Jamaican-born, have been embraced by Salt Lake City, particularly since Marcia was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.

Witz writes that when Williams was drafted by Real Salt Lake four years ago, his wife was fearful of moving to a largely white, Mormon community.

“I was terrified,” Marcia said. "My first thought was I was going to have to wear long dresses and I’d see men with many wives."

Now, the story says, she describes her neighbors as caring and color-blind.

“God must have put us here for a reason,” her husband said. “If we were in New York or Chicago, I don’t think the support would be the same.”

But whether the story ultimately has a happy ending depends on the finding of a match for Marcia for a bone-marrow transplant.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/sports/soccer/11soccer.html?ref=soccer