Parent Passes Love of Soccer to Stag Son

Mohammad Mobaidin grew up in Jordan, moved to the United States when he was 18 and eventually enrolled at the University of Maryland. While living in Amman, Mobaidin played soccer, which is the most popular sport in many countries around the world.

“I was on the school team all the way through. I played some [team] handball, but we always stuck with soccer. We played on the street,” said Mobaidin, now a businessman.

While living in New Carrollton, he taught the game to his son, Amos, who graduated from last spring.

“We would kick the ball around in the yard,” said Amos Mobaidin, who later moved to the University Park-Hyattsville area with his family.

Amos, who was born in Silver Spring, began playing soccer when he was three years old. His older brother, Jasim, is a sophomore on the college soccer team with the Stevens Ducks of New Jersey.

Amos played two years of varsity soccer for DeMatha and is now a freshman on the men’s soccer team at Division III Catholic University.

He had considered trying to play at the Division I level at Towson or Santa Barbara in California.

“I really did not want to go to Division I,” he said. “It is too much of a [time] commitment.”

For now he is studying business at Catholic but may switch to architecture at some point. On the field he played in five of the first eight games and had four shots on goal for a team that was 5-3 overall.

“Obviously, you come in as a freshman and you are so far behind everyone else,” said the 5-foot-7 midfielder, one of the leading scorers for the in 2010. “It is a lot faster than high school or club. Everyone is bigger than you are.”

Mobaidin’s mother, Alice, graduated from , went to college in Colorado and now works in accounting after having her own radio show in Baltimore.