Once Orphaned in Brazil, Walters Finds a Home in Ledyard
By Jason Christley
Published on 12/21/2001
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One moment he was holding his older brother's hand, attempting to navigate the marketplace where streams of humanity sweep in various directions like ocean currents.
One moment, he was holding his brother's hand, attempting to navigate his way through Manaus, Brazil, a city of a million and a half people where the streets can resemble Times Square on New Year's Eve.
One moment, Paulo lost hold of that hand.
One moment.
And his family in Brazil disappeared.
In one moment.
Suddenly, Paulo was a three-year-old in Manaus without a family.
With no hope of finding his brother, Paulo sat down on the curb where he stayed until nightfall. That's when a policeman found him. Eventually, with only his first name to identify him, Paulo wound up in the Lar Linda Tanure orphanage.
“I can see my parents, I just can't see their faces,” Paulo says. “It's such a vivid memory. I'm not ashamed to talk about it. It's just how my life was.”
When Paulo was five, David Walters of Ledyard and his wife arrived with from the United States to adopt him. Walters had seen an advertisement in a religious magazine with positive feedback about the orphanage, which matches kids with families. So Walters arrived in Brazil with just a photo and a simple description of Paulo.
“They said he was very smart, very curious and very naughty,” said Walters. “That sounded like a healthy child.”
It turns out the orphanage's description of Paulo was appropriate: He had a habit of getting into everything.
Paulo Walters, now 17, is a robust and determined junior at Ledyard High School. He has been All-State in chorus. He sings in vocal chorus, jazz concert choir and carolers. He's been an All-Eastern Connecticut Conference swimmer. He's running indoor track this winter and is picking up tennis in the spring.
And, oh yeah, he's a pretty decent soccer player, too.
This fall, he helped guide Ledyard to the CIAC Class L boys' soccer title — only the second ECC school to win the state soccer championship. Selected All-New England, too, Paulo Walters has been named The Day's 2001 Boys' Soccer Player of the Year.
It might be easily assumed that, considering his Brazilian heritage, Paulo Walters would be a gifted soccer player. Brazil, after all, is the four-time World Cup champion, the only country ever to qualify for every World Cup, and home of Pele.
Walters' production, however, has been borne of hard work and the environment in which he was raised.
“You see what your children are good at,” David Walters said, “and you foster it. I'd like to be as good at anything as they are in soccer.”
While in Manaus, David Walters and his wife met and fell in love with Fabio, another child at the orphanage. A year later, they returned to adopt him.
“It was just about creating a family,” David Walters said. “Family is more about people who behave as brothers or behave as parents than it is about heritage or blood relations.”
Paulo didn't speak English, only his native Portuguese. The latter quickly faded as he picked up English in a few months. While he can't speak Portuguese anymore, it has allowed him to learn Spanish in high school easier because the languages are similar and the cadence and sounds are already in his head.
Ten months after the children were adopted, their mother passed away. Suddenly faced with the prospect of being a single father, David moved to Texas, where he raised them within a direct kick of the Mexican border. There, the two boys got plenty of soccer instruction pivotal to their growth. David would bring the boys back to Ledyard five years later when he married Barbara Gilbert, who has two grown boys of her own, and they would continue to try and nurture Paulo and Fabio with careful respect for their heritage — including soccer.
“It's part of helping an adopted child with who he is and where he came from,” Barbara Walters said.
David tells a particular story about the time when he, like many an American father, felt it was time to teach his youngest about America's Pastime — baseball. So he brought Fabio out to the yard armed with a new glove. But when he tossed the ball to Fabio, the child instead trapped it with the inside of his foot and brought it to the ground.
So baseball was out and soccer was in.
“For Fabio, I think it's in his blood,” said Paulo, who insists his younger brother is the better soccer player. “He just has the ... I don't know what he does.
“I think I do good because I work at it.”
Paulo played goalie on his Texas Premier teams. It wasn't until he made the Oakwood Premier U-14 team that he played the field. And he knew exactly why he was there.
“I knew I was the worst one on the team and I was only on the team because I was big and fast,” said Paulo. “And I didn't like that.”
So he got better.
Paulo credits his Oakwood coach, Adam Linker, for having the biggest impact in developing his game.
And then there was also the presence of his younger brother. Fabio especially fuels the competitive spirit that pushes Paulo. Fabio possesses a great vision for the field, almost instinctively knowing how a play will unfold before it happens. Fabio used those same instincts to pick up chess relatively easily. Paulo did not. Instead, he studied it and played it for hours until he could beat Fabio on a regular basis.
“He has to be the better one because he's the older one,” Fabio said. “He doesn't like it when I beat him in something.”
The same goes for his play on the field.
“He goes in hard and he doesn't let up,” Fabio said. “If he can't beat that guy, he doesn't stop. He'll keep going until he can beat that guy.”
Paulo was one of the top all-around swimmers in the ECC as a freshman and sophomore. But the sport just doesn't hold the same appeal as soccer. Since he can't be content simply being average nor feel compelled to give it the attention he would need to become excellent, he decided to run track.
He was actually recruited by Loomis-Chaffee to play soccer and attended the Windsor prep school the fall of his freshman year. He started nearly every game and set a freshman record for goals in a season with 14. Once soccer season ended, however, he was unhappy being away from home.
That winter he returned to Ledyard — and his family.
“I don't know, I just didn't want to be there,” said Paulo.
One of the biggest problems that has faced Paulo on the soccer field was style of play. When he plays for his Premier team, players that are as good or better surround him. That allows him to play a faster pace — the one-touch pass, the give-and-go.
On the Premier level, every practice has to be perfect. There's always the risk losing a spot. Dog it on the field and you'll quickly find yourself on the bench.
In high school, where Walters is often double- and triple-teamed, he's challenged with doing what he can to maximize his chances.
“I just have to conserve my energy to make runs,” Paulo said. “I get a lot of chances, but the only reason I have enough energy to do that is to beat the guy up top.”
Of course, this can also give the impression that Paulo only plays hard when he wants to, making teammates do much of the work. It led to some hard feelings during the early part of the season at Ledyard.
At various times during the first half of the season, Ledyard coach Paul Read pulled aside Paulo, Fabio and midfielder Andreas Rothbauer, accentuating the team concept.
Finally, it sunk in. It may have been a stunning, mid-season loss to Griswold or their 1-0 loss to Woodstock Academy that cost the Colonels a shot at the ECC Large Division title, leaving them at 7-5. Whatever it was, following the loss to the Centaurs, Ledyard didn't lose — or allow a goal — over the final 10 matches.
“Sometimes it can be a little frustrating for him, but he did a great job adapting,” Read said. “He's not only a great player, but he's a great leader. The second half, he led not just by example but also with his leadership, working with the rest of the players trying to improve the entire team.
“We just needed to find our spots,” Paulo said. “I was always vocal. It was just always negative in the first half of the season. I got more constructive as the season went on and the team came together.”
Paulo realizes that Brazil will always be a big part of him.
He has his lucky yellow fleece — colors of the Brazilian National Team — he got in 1998, his first season at Oakwood.
“I have a lot of pride in Brazil,” Paulo said. “I like remembering Brazil. It's national pride, even though I don't live there. I think I still have a pretty strong connection.”
Because of their Brazilian physical features, people don't make the correlation between Paulo, Fabio and their parents. David Walters has often been in the midst of opposing fans without knowledge of their relationship and heard comments about his sons.
It's not something Paulo dwells on.
“I think people around here are used to it,” Paulo said. “At first it felt kind of awkward, I think because I was self-conscious about different races. As I grew older, it's like 'He's my father.' ”
Like many adopted children, Paulo will never know what life would have been like if fate hadn't interceded. He'll never know how things would have been in Brazil.
But he's found a home in Ledyard. He's found a family. He's found a home on the soccer pitch. And he's found a family in those around him.