There was no clock in the old Catholic church, but Paola Kuri was so focused on the time she could hear the ticktock, ticktock ringing in her ears. It was a First Holy Communion like many she had attended as a little girl in Mexico City, and as usual, she was in another flower-printed dress that she couldnt wait to take off.As soon as the ceremony was over, Kuri bolted for the car. The boys might pick teams and leave her out if she didnt get to the soccer field fast enough. So, she slid on her jeans, next to her soccer jersey and tennis shoes in the backseat, and told her dad to step on the gas.It was like changing into my superhero outfit, Kuri says. When I got onto the soccer field, that was my world.The founder of?Fut sin Género (Soccer without Gender), an initiative to promote womens soccer in Mexico, Kuris obsession with the sport began as a three year old, kicking a ball in her parents backyard until the sun went down. A skinny girl with a thicket of blondish-brown hair that she stuffed into a baseball cap to look tough enough for the boys to let her play, she was a natural. Before the age of 10, she had earned a place as one of the best players in the neighborhood -- the only girl on the field.Kuris passion for soccer developed alongside a commitment to art. Before completing a communications degree from Ibero-American University, where she played soccer on an all-female team, she moved abroad to Italy to earn an MFA at Florence University of the Arts. In 2013, she and her brother Rubén co-founded Ethos Arte, an art fair that annually showcases more than 500 pieces from 60 emerging Mexican artists at the Expo Santa Fe.Around that time, Kuri also began contributing articles to a blog dedicated to womens soccer, Ellas Tambíen Saben?(They Also Know). Hoping to marry her love of art and sport, she interviewed 50 different people about what soccer means to them and posted the answers up alongside pictures of her body painted while wearing her soccer gear. Within hours, the post, #YoSoyFutbol (#IAmSoccer), was shared by notable figures in Mexico, including former national team soccer player Luis García and former first lady Margarita Zavala.I chose not to reveal the gender of any of the people, Kuri says. It was an important way of saying: It doesnt matter whether you are a man or a woman, soccer belongs to all of us, and we all love it for the same reasons.Kuris social media presence ballooned overnight. After receiving calls from newspapers and messages from people interested in discussing her project, she registered Fut sin Género and began work on campaigns promoting the sport.What weve done with Fut sin Género is hit the red button to start the conversation about womens soccer, Kuri says. We have a big task ahead of us -- we need to make a statement that will touch the whole country.For the past year, that statement was clear: Play a role in launching the first professional womens soccer league in Mexicos history.***Before Kuri arrived in the United States as a participant in the 2016 U.S. Department of State and espnW Global Sports Mentoring Program, the potential for a professional womens soccer league seemed likelier than ever.In May 2015, the Mexican Football Federation launched La Liga Nacional Femenil, the countrys first national womens amateur league. The inaugural season began with 158 teams from 19 states in two age categories: under-13 and under-16.There were 3,000 girls every week playing football, says Lucia Mijares Martinez, technical director of development for the federation.The second season would create an even wider impact, according to Martinez, with three age categories (under-13, under-15, under-17), at least five more states and a 25 percent growth in teams.Our objective (at the federation) is to motivate, engage and inspire girls in Mexico through football, Martinez says, We want to build a competitive league, train coaches and generate a platform for future womens football heroes.As Kuri returned from Los Angeles, where she spent three weeks in October and November being mentored by Joan Coraggio, group director for sponsorship and experiential marketing at Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles, the pieces for a professional league to follow the amateur league began falling into place.Then, the official announcement came on Dec. 5. The federation would launch Liga MX Femenil, a professional womens league consisting of 18 teams, for the spring of 2017.The announcement was the culmination of years of hard work by women like Kuri, Mijares Martinez and many others, including fellow GSMP alumna Cecilia Vales, who founded a nongovernmental organization, She Wins Mexico. From grassroots programs to reach girls in underserved areas of Mexico (Vales), to advocating for womens soccer from within the federation (Martinez), to rallying supporters and pushing the message of gender equality to thousands through social media (Kuri), women came together to claim a space on the field for themselves and many more to come after them.But the fact that one of her lifes greatest ambitions was fulfilled earlier this month has not slowed Kuri down.This is just the first step, Kuri says. We still face challenges: the mindset of machismo and making womens soccer popular across Mexico. But weve opened a path to get there.With the same hardworking mindset, Kuri continues striving to get girls playing soccer. In recent months, she has partnered with prominent professional European soccer clubs to support the development of girls soccer academies throughout Mexico City. Kuri and her Ethos team are also at work recovering spaces in marginalized communities, painting the fields, restoring the grass, and partnering with shoe company Puma to provide balls and cleats for girls to play.Her brother, Rubén, has had the benefit of seeing Kuris passion from the time they were kids to now as co-founders of Ethos. He remembers when the cousins would get together to play soccer and Paola was the automatic choice for team captain. He also remembers the frustration he felt when his sister would leave the house dressed like a boy, thinking it wasnt fair that she had to become someone else just so she could play.I would try to make it better by telling her to at least wear some dresses and heels when she wasnt going to play, he says. And shed tell me, No, lets go to Puma or Adidas! To this day, we may have an important meeting, and well pass by a sports store, and Ill tell her, Dont even think about it! Its our little joke.As with his older sister, the success of Fut sin Género also caught Rubén by surprise. With messages of support and invitations to lead girls clinics coming in for Kuri from Monterey, Guadalajara, Tijuana and Queretaro, she has had to step back from some of her responsibilities in the art world. But, Rubén is happy to support his sister in her other life as an advocate.I believe you are born with a gift, and this is definitely Paolas gift, he says.The gift extends from the soccer field to the internet, where Kuri manages Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts with tens of thousands of followers. In every post, she seems to share the same message that she did in the #IAmSoccer blog post more than a year ago: Soccer belongs to everyone.The future of womens soccer in Mexico is not cemented despite the establishment of the womens league. Knowing that, Kuri was led through a mental exercise by her mentor, Coraggio, before leaving Los Angeles last month. In it, Coraggio challenged her motivations for wanting a professional league for women. It was an important part of the younger woman realizing the fire that drives her comes from somewhere deeper than just making history.We are challenging ideologies that soccer is only for men, Kuri says. We are making a statement for gender equality. For me, that matters more than anything.Brian Canever is the digital content manager for the Center for Sport, Peace, & Society at the University of Tennessee and works closely with the GSMP participants. Authentic Walt Weiss Jersey . -- Yogi Ferrell orchestrates pretty much everything in Indianas offence. Authentic Terry Steinbach Jersey . Dukurs winning time was 1 minute, 45.76 seconds, a quarter-second better than Russias Alexander Tretiakov. Lativas Tomass Dukurs was third, 1.41 seconds off the pace. Jon Montgomery of Eckville, Alta. http://www.cheapathleticsjerseys.us/authentic-glenn-hubbard-jersey/ . Tuesdays surgery at Atlantas Piedmont Hospital was performed by Dr. Xavier Duralde and Hawks team physician Dr. Michael Bernot. Authentic Rollie Fingers Jersey . 1 position. The Mustangs (6-0), who beat Queens 50-31 last weekend, earned 17 first-place votes and 287 points in voting by the Football Reporters of Canada. Western was last ranked first in the country in October 2011. Athletics Jerseys From China . - Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie never doubted he would bring back coach Dennis Allen for a third year despite back-to-back 4-12 records. CLEVELAND -- The last time the Cleveland Indians won the World Series, Dewey led Truman in the polls. The Chicago Cubs last title was 13 days after the first Ford Model T car was completed.Lovable losers known for decades of defeat meet in this years championship, a combined 174 seasons of futility facing off starting Tuesday night at Progressive Field.Clevelands last title was in 1948, when 16 teams from the East Coast to St. Louis competed in a just-integrated sport. The Cubs are trying to win for the first time since 1908 , a dead ball-era matchup at a time home runs were rarities along with telephones.No player is alive from the last championship Cubs or even the last to make a Series appearance -- Tuesday marks the 25,948th day since the Cubs Game 7 loss to Detroit in 1945. One player remains from the 1948 Indians, 95-year-old Eddie Robinson.It seems like its just forever, Robinson said Monday from his home in Fort Worth, Texas. When we got home from Boston, there was a monumental parade. It just looked like everybody in Cleveland came out on Euclid Avenue.One teams fans will let loose with the celebration of a lifetime. But while history weighs on the supporters, Cubs manager Joe Maddon focuses his players with a now-centered battle cry of Win the Inning!Air conditioning is popular right now. So is color TV, he said. Youve just got to change with the times.Both teams worked out under cloudy skies as the new 59-by-221-foot scoreboard behind the left-field seats -- the largest in the major leagues -- trumpeted the Sisyphean matchup. While the Cubs play in Wrigley Field, the 102-year-old brick-and-ivy jewel on Chicagos North Side, the Indians are in a 22-year-old throwback-style ballpark originally called Jacobs Field.Led by Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo, the Cubs led the major leagues with 103 wins during the regular season, then beat San Francisco and Los Angeles in the playoffs. But since the playoffs expanded in 1995, only four teams with the best regular-season record won the title: the 1998 and 2009 New York Yankees, and the 2007 and 2013 Boston Red Sox.I promise you, our guys are going to be in the present tense, Maddon said. I think we all have a tremendous amount of respect for history and whats happened before us or not happened before us. But, you know, you go in that room right now, theyre very young. Really not impacted by a lot of the lore.Jon Lester, 7-1 in his career against Cleveland, starts for the Cubs and Corey Kluber opens for the Indians. Lester is 2-0 with a 0.86 ERA in three postseason starts this year and 3-0 with a 0.43 ERA in a trio of Series outings. He learned to prepare from watching Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett in Boston.They prepared the same way for this start as they would for a regular start during the season, he said.Kluber pitched shutout ball twice in the playoffs before allowing two runs in five innings in Game 4 at Toronto. His father, Jim, was born in Cleveland and rooted for the Indians growing up in suburban Highland Heights.I think every parent is excited iff their kid has a chance to play in the World Series, said the 30-year-old right-hander, who could win his second AL Cy Young Award in three years.ddddddddddddBoth teams were dealing with injuries that caused changes in planning. Indians manager Terry Francona, juggling all year because of health mishaps, said right-hander Danny Salazar will be on the World Series roster, which must be submitted Tuesday morning. Salazar has not pitched since Sept. 9 because of forearm tightness but threw a simulated game Sunday.Nothings official, so if we have another drone incident or anything with model airplanes or anything, we reserve the right to change, he said, a reference to the injury that limited pitcher Trevor Bauer to two-thirds of an inning in the AL Championship Series.Chicago appeared likely to include outfielder Kyle Schwarber, out since tearing knee ligaments on April 8. A person with direct knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press on Monday that Schwarber was traveling to Cleveland, but the person did not know yet if the slugger would be on the roster.The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the roster wont be announced until Tuesday.Schwarber returned to action last weekend in the Arizona Fall League.Reports are good, Maddon said. Hes swinging the bat well. Hes running really well.Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis was dealing with a sprained left ankle, hurt when he jumped and shortstop Francisco Lindor accidentally stepped on his foot while celebrating the last out of the ALCS.He might not be 100 percent, but I dont think its going to get in the way, Francona said.Cleveland fell three outs short of the 1997 title when Jose Mesa blew a one-run lead in the ninth inning of Game 7 at Florida and an error by second baseman Tony Fernandez led to the Marlins winning run in the 11th.The Series starts just after a ceremony across the street when LeBron James and the Cavaliers receive championship rings before their opener celebrating this years NBA title, the first for Clevelands big league teams since the NFLs Browns in 1964.Its a pretty neat set of circumstances, said Indians reliever Andrew Miller, the ALCS MVP. Obviously the fans wish they had won quite a bit previously, but I think the Cubs are even going to overshadow us in that history.While Chicago has many famous fans, among them actor Bill Murray and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Cleveland is rooted on by Tom Hanks and Drew Carey. And the Indians losing history received nationwide attention in the 1989 film Major League, featuring Charlie Sheen as Ricky Wild Thing Vaughn.Maddon prepared for the Series while watching some baseball movies, 42 -- we had to beat the Dodgers before I could watch it -- and Field of Dreams.Im that guy, he said. I cry easily, so the connection to the past is very important, very important.---AP Sports Writer Jay Cohen in Chicago contributed to this report. China NFL Hoodies Cheap NFL Jerseys Authentic Cheap Jerseys Online Black China NFL Jerseys Cheap Jerseys From China Discount NFL Jerseys Cheap Jerseys ' ' '