By Andrew Adler
Community Editor
Wilson Harris, the former Lou City FC star now playing for Petah Tikva FC in Israel’s Premier League (photo by Amit Shasha)
It was nil-nil on a steamy summertime evening as Louisville City FC squared off against the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Watching (and cheering) were a record 14,673 soccer-besotted fans packing Lynn Family Stadium. At the 62-minute mark, a lean striker bearing #14 on his jersey sprinted down the right side of the pitch and seconds later delivered an explosive kick that shot the ball into the net past the outstretched arms of Tampa Bay keeper CJ Cochran.
Gooooaaalll!!!!
The #14 was 22-year-old Wilson Harris, Wilson Israel Harris, to be exact. Harris is a gifted forward who’d recently joined LouCity after a stint playing in Kansas City, Mo. His team’s lone goal sealed a 1-0 victory in this August 13, 2022 “Fill the Fam” match, notching an early milestone for an athlete who’d eventually become the second-most prolific scorer in club history.
Less than three years later Harris would be exchanging Louisville, Kentucky for Petah Tikva, Israel – signing this past January to play for Team Maccabi Petah Tikva in the Premier League – the top echelon of professional Israeli soccer (“football” in the predominant international vernacular). It was a big move up for the now-25-year-old Harris, who’d grown up in Los Angeles honing his craft with regional development leagues and who – at age 18 – had originally committed to playing for the University of Louisville.
But professional soccer was also calling Harris, who decided he’d be better served by turning pro sooner rather than later. So far his instincts have proved correct, as he’s now part of a team where he can grow as an athlete, in a country where he can embrace a new, potent flavor of Jewish living.
“It’s a step up for me in my career,” Harris acknowledged during a recent Zoom interview from Petah Tikva, Israel’s fifth largest city situated about 6 ½ miles east of Tel Aviv. “And I wanted to challenge myself by doing this.”
Another incentive is gaining an Israeli passport, “which makes it easier to be a domestic player.” At present Maccabi Petah Tikva boasts a number of foreign-born players, with Harris being its sole U.S. import. Founded in 1912, the squad is one of two soccer teams that call the city home (the other is Hapoel Petah Tikva FC, which occupies the second-tier Liga Leumit – one level below the Premier League).
Both teams play in the city’s HaMoshava Stadium – which has a nominal capacity of 11,500, almost exactly the same as Lynn Family Stadium’s space for 11,700 seated fans (at LouCity games, several thousand more can watch while standing.).
Last season Maccabi Petah Tikva won the coveted Israel State Cup, though this season – as of this writing the team’s record stood at six wins, six ties and 14 losses – circumstances are a good deal more challenging. This past September one of its leading players, center-forward Idan Toklomati, left the team for America to join Major League Soccer’s Charlotte FC.
Coming and going is a constant reality in the soccer universe (Petah Tikva paid LouCity a six-figure transfer fee to secure Harris’s services). Before deciding to make the jump, Harris performed a fair amount of due diligence regarding his prospective new team.
“They’re known for developing young talent and moving them forward,” he says. “I saw the list of players they’ve had in the past that have done well here, and the fact that they won the State Cup last year – the first time in like 72 years – which is pretty amazing. I knew I was coming into a good team and was going to have to fight. I still am, and I’m working hard. But it felt really good to get my first two goals in the Israeli Premier League. It was my first time scoring in a top division.”
One of those goals came at home on March 2 against Beitar Jerusalem FC – a vaunted Premier League team with a reputation for ultra-right-wing sensibilities and fans who may be, politely, be classified as “raucous.” Though Maccabi Petah Tikva ultimately lost the match 2-1, Harris’s 57-minute-mark strike was proof he could hang with his peers — even when more than 9,000 yelling, singing Beitar Jerusalem supporters jammed into Petah Tikva’s stadium.
“It felt like a home game to them,” Harris recalled, describing the occasion as “an out-of-body experience.” Scoring that goal “is probably one of my favorite moments in my career – just doing it against that team, with that history, that fan base.”
Not that his former team was a slouch in the passionate-spectator department.
“Louisville has the best crowds in the USL (United Soccer League, where LouCity competes); the best fans in the USL,” Harris says. “It was always amazing playing in Lynn.”
Indeed, LouCity — and Harris himself — have their own hyper-dedicated following. Take Melanie Pell and her son, Emmett, who turns 11 in March, who consider Lynn Family Stadium to be something of an alternate domicile.
“Huuuuge LouCity fan, huuuge Wilson fan, huuuge soccer fan,” Pell declares with evident fervor for the letter “u.” No doubt, she’s the truest of true believers: “I am a soccer evangelist.”
“We became season-ticket holders for LouCity and Racing (Louisville City FC) — the women’s professional team — in 2022,” Pell says, emphasizing her affection for Lynn, “so we are there all the time.”
Emmett, a fifth grader at Francis Parker School, participates in the club’s Academy training program for young players and pretty much bleeds purple, the team’s signature color.
“I spend all of my free time as a proud soccer mom,” says Pell, a stalwart member of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Federation of Louisville who is also active in national Jewish affairs as the American Jewish Committee’s Chief Field Operations Officer.
“With my son playing in the Academy, one of the byproducts is that he trains where the players train, so we see them all the time.” Emmett’s also “been a ball boy at a ton of games — we wait after every game and go down where the players walk around and give everyone high-fives and take pictures.”
Not surprisingly, Player #14 was a huuuge draw.
“Wilson was a hero — is a hero — our star striker,” Melanie Pell says.
“He was this incredible asset when he came to LouCity a couple of years ago and just emerged as an incredible goal scorer. To watch him develop and watch him grow and then to find out he’s Jewish and moving to Israel was like — what? I can’t stress enough how exciting it is for my child, my 10-year-old, to know that one of his soccer heroes is Jewish.”
“I definitely feel a big sense of pride being here and being Jewish,” Harris says. Making a new life in Israel “has opened my eyes to what it is to be a Jewish person and, especially, being surrounded by (its) people. Here on Shabbat everything closes on Friday and Saturday, so you can feel it. It’s a good reminder that every week you have the ability to reset with Shabbat, and I try to embrace that.”
This is Harris’s first visit to Israel, an adopted nation and culture that’s an ongoing revelation. “It’s opened my eyes to a lot of things that I’d like to take back with me to the U.S.,” he says.
Growing up as an only child, “we’d go to synagogue on High Holidays and have an occasional Shabbat dinner,” he says, adding that while both of his parents supported his decision to move overseas, his father was not only in favor, but unabashedly all-in.
“My dad helped me move,” Harris says, “and he had a sort of an awakening where he felt such a sense of pride. He went to Hebrew school in Miami when he was growing up, and kind of forgot about that – he just got caught up with life. Coming here is a great reminder for him.”
Plenty of challenges lie ahead for Wilson Israel Harris, from taking Hebrew classes to ratcheting up his soccer skills sufficiently to be a candidate for joining the Israel National Team. He looks forward to immersing himself in Petah Tikva’s foodie milieu, cultivate friendships with his new teammates and – in a testament to Israel’s beach culture, bring his tan up to L.A. standards.
Asked what he’d say to kids like Emmett Pell who consider him an exemplar of admirable living – Jewishly and otherwise – Wilson Israel Harris says he’d tell them: “You can be Jewish – you can make it in Louisville or out of Louisville. You can make an impact, whether it’s soccer or just being a good person – and continue to chase your dreams.”