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Safety Harbor Teen's Team Wins Power Soccer World Cup

Photo provided by Jessica Gorman

Danny Gorman holds the 2007 Power Soccer World Cup trophy after Team USA won the tournament in Tokyo, Japan.

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By BETH GADDIS | TBO.com

Published: October 18, 2007

Updated: 10/18/2007 01:35 pm

It was a shot Danny Gorman had practiced a thousand times at the Safety Harbor Community Center.

But this wasn't practice. This was the Power Soccer World Cup, an international wheelchair soccer tournament that concluded Saturday in Tokyo, Japan.

And it concluded with Gorman, who has been confined to a wheelchair for the past six years, clutching the championship trophy.

Gorman, 16, scored the game-tying goal to force Saturday's game against France into triple overtime, then scored the game winner -- the shot he'd practiced so many times -- in the second round of the shootout to give Team USA the victory.

The East Lake High sophomore was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy when he was 5 years old. He started using a wheelchair when he was 10.

Then, three years ago, he met Jesse Navarro, who invited him to watch a demonstration of power soccer by a team from Atlanta.

"One kick and he was a different person," said his father, Don.

"Before power soccer, the closest thing to real game action was my video games," Danny Gorman wrote for his Team USA Web site biography.

Gorman started to play for Tampa's power soccer team, and in January he tried out for Team USA. He made the team and has traveled to Las Vegas, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Minneapolis and San Jose, Calif. The big trip took place on Sept. 29 when he and his family went with Team USA to Tokyo for the World Cup.

The tournament lasted two weeks. Team USA logged seven wins and one tie. They played teams from Japan, France, England, Portugal, Belgium and Denmark.

Gorman's 11-year-old sister, Jessica, took the picture of him holding the World Cup trophy.

"Through power soccer, I have learned that in order to win, you have to work as a team," he wrote in his bio. "I have learned how to talk to people, and I have certainly come out of my shell because of the confidence I have built up.

"I never imagined I could be a world-class athlete."

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