Kitboys of summer: Atlanta soccer collective centers Black youth
As Atlanta readies itself for back-to-back summers of international soccer competition, Sekou Thornell hopes to see more opportunities for Black youth on and off the pitch.
In the lead-up to and during this summer’s FIFA Club World Cup, Thornell’s Atlanta-based soccer brand, Kitboys Club, will be hosting a series of events celebrating the sport and introducing the game to more Black communities through collaborating with various entities in the city. The series is being funded through a grant Kitboys received via Adidas’ Honoring Black Excellence initiative that recognizes community leaders efforts to empower young Black athletes and creatives.
“Experiential is the only way we can kind of show up and teach people like, yo, this soccer s--- is fire over here,” said Thornell, explaining why creating live events was the best option to use the grant. “It’s the world’s game. No matter what background or demographic you’re from … it’s a universal language that the world understands.”
A Juneteenth weekend event at Cam Kirk Studios where Kitboys will team with Black Star Soccer and Design FC to educate inner-city youth on creative careers through soccer kit design is next on the calendar.
“The purpose of that design lab is to get younger kids to understand there’s a business side of soccer,” said Thornell, who started the company after graduating from Clayton State University. “Here’s a cool way to go through it, the same way I went through, which was design.”
The event is the second of four that will be happening over the next three months. The campaign kicked off on Memorial Day weekend with a 5-on-5 tournament hosted at West End Marta Station where the winning team received a $2,000 cash prize and proceeds were donated to Station Soccer.
In July there will be an e-gaming tournament at Sole Play ATL’s downtown Decatur location, followed by a “Kit Room” jersey customization party at Underground Atlanta in August.
Thornell and a group of friends founded Kitboys after he suffered a serious ankle injury during his junior year playing for Clayton State University’s men’s soccer team. Forced to pivot away from pursuing a career as a professional athlete, he still wanted to have a way to stay connected to the game, and introduce others to it.
“I needed to find a different persona in the game, beyond the on field side,” said Thornell, who since his youth was a sneaker collector and streetwear fashion fan. “The homies around me had creative passions and we’re all on the back end of our [college] careers anyway. So it was showing there’s life after sport. There’s a lot of other ways you can still share that love and that, you know, that identity with the game.”
Kitboys debuted in 2017, the same year Atlanta United played their first season, taking full advantage of the city’s rapid and rabid support of the team. In the years that followed the company built a unique audience through creating and releasing one-of-a-kind branded soccer kits and other inspired merch. Among them being the pieces from their Reconstruction series that featured a kit stitched from Atlanta United’s 2017-18 season home and away jerseys and a fusion of ATL UTD and Atlanta Falcons jerseys.
They’ve gone on to collaborate with other pro soccer teams and apparel companies to create items that appeal to people who just want to rock the gear as well as fans who been connected to the game all their lives.
Thornell was introduced to soccer at age 4 when his parents moved to Atlanta from Boston and enrolled him in Stone Mountain Youth Soccer Association (SMYSA) at Wade-Walker Park. With his dad being a diehard basketball fan, the idea was mostly his mother’s as she was of Cape Verdean descent and was raised watching the sport.
The community he found in the club inspired him to stay connected to the game through childhood and high school despite many other kids his age in his neighborhood gravitating toward basketball and football.
“I never felt like I had a pressure to feel ashamed of it, it always felt like the cool thing,” said Sekou, reminded of times when his peers outside of soccer would ask why he played.
Thornell played all four years for South Gwinnett High School’s soccer team, being named the school’s Offensive Player of the Year three times and earning All-Region First-Team honors as a senior. In 2014, Thornell received a full scholarship to play for Clayton State University’s team where he majored in business and continued to rack up accomplishments including being named to the Sun Belt Conference All-Academic team twice.
Despite the success, he admits that like many others who were into the sport, it was difficult finding friends off the pitch.
“We didn’t really have spaces to share that love for it in a different way, beyond the sport,” he said. “Like finding their favorite players or their favorite kits. They didn’t have a medium to do so.”
After suffering a serious ankle injury during his junior year at Clayton State that sidelined him physically and mentally, Thornell and friends decided to create Kitboys to be that medium.
Similar to how the Five Stripes has drawn interest from Black Atlantans by frequently inviting the likes of Big Boi and Trinidad James to take part in the pre-match golden spike tradition before each game, Thornell’s company has built an audience through social media campaigns that prominently feature Black models and players, giving voice to a demographic that is solidifying itself in the space.
“[In America] soccer still doesn’t have a culture that is super developed like basketball and NBA,” Thornell said.
He points out that the sport has yet to find an Allen Iverson-type player that can influence how people play, and dress.
“I want to show the more cool factors of [soccer] that way, when I intersect it, people can point out and be like, ‘Oh, that’s cool. I know that from over here.’ Like this celebration [a player] is doing is the same dance we do out here in Atlanta.”
A 2025 report, from marketing firm For Soccer stated that their research found that the number of Black people who identify themselves as soccer fans has increased 27% over the last five years.
On the flip side, researchers at the Aspen Institute’s sports initiative Project Play found that while soccer is often the first sport that kids play, those numbers decline as they get older because of the costs associated with club registration, gear and team travel.
Even with those differing stats, Thornell is optimistic that the racial and cultural gap between the game and Black people is shrinking.
“Look at the [United States] men’s national team, even from that regard, it’s more Black than it’s ever been,” said Thornell, also pointing out that Atlanta rappers Gunna, Lil Baby and Young Thug have frequently been spotted wearing soccer jerseys.
“You’re going to start seeing a lot of these examples pop up, because a big moment, which is the World Cup, is coming. I think that the biggest thing for us as Black folks is the more we can see ourselves in the game, the more we can, you know, stand tall and be proud of it.”
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