{"id":988098,"date":"2026-08-08T03:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T03:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/988098\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T03:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T03:10:15","slug":"katy-girl-with-down-syndrome-finds-her-place-on-the-soccer-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/988098\/","title":{"rendered":"Katy girl with Down syndrome finds her place on the soccer field"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\"><strong>KATY<\/strong> \u2013 Athletes with slightly different physical capabilities often have more passion for their sport. For Naila Crow, her Down syndrome is only seen as an aspect of her life, and she learns differently than other athletes. <\/p>\n<ul class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 etvbxt font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Stack-vJ7SwH7U__StackBase-sc-1m5bkhd-0 evEXvX dsnUCb\"\/><\/ul>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Naila lives in Katy and this past summer, her parents, Ben and Irma, started taking her to soccer classes after hearing how much Naila\u2019s cousin enjoyed the facility and the coaches. Naila and Coach Eric Diaz instantly connected on their love of kicking the soccer ball around, and Coach Eric has been extremely patient when working with her. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">\u201cIt\u2019s one thing for an organization to let you in, but it\u2019s different for them to accept her, if that makes sense,\u201d said Irma Crow. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">\u201cAnd be patient and get the level of communication that she needs,\u201d said Ben Crow. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">\u201cAnd genuinely care, right?\u201d Irma said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a beautiful facility, but at the end of the day, having a human being who\u2019s so genuine and he\u2019s so mindful, and he genuinely wants to learn, he\u2019ll be like asking me all these questions about how her brain kind of works and how he can help her and what he should and shouldn\u2019t do and genuinely takes the time.\u201d <\/p>\n<ul class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 etvbxt font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Stack-vJ7SwH7U__StackBase-sc-1m5bkhd-0 evEXvX dsnUCb\"\/><\/ul>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful thing, I think I\u2019ve been put on her to, on this earth to bless people through the sport of soccer,\u201d said Coach Eric. \u201cIt\u2019s been an amazing journey; we\u2019ve had the whole summer, we\u2019ve been working, and just to see the progress, for me, that\u2019s what\u2019s most important with all our athletes that we work with.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Coach Eric and Naila plan to continue weekly soccer classes to improve her skills and help her score more goals. <\/p>\n<p>Start Here, Houston<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 bTVksG\">More Stories Like This In Our Email Newsletter<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KATY \u2013 Athletes with slightly different physical capabilities often have more passion for their sport. For Naila Crow,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":988099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[115909,4345,86900,23388,221,358,3187],"class_list":["post-988098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-down-syndrome","tag-houston","tag-houston-sports","tag-katy","tag-soccer","tag-texas","tag-tx"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117057698301468064","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=988098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/988099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=988098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=988098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=988098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}