This feature on former UAB soccer player Flavio Monteiro appeared in The Birmingham News in November 1999.

UAB’s Monteiro took the road less traveled

By Ed Odeven

Flavio Monteiro treasures every moment of play on the UAB men’s soccer team. He appreciates it because of what he went through to get here.

He departed his native Angola in 1993 at age 15, endured six months in a Namibian refugee camp, lived on the streets of South Africa, sneaked onto a vessel headed for the United States, was deported to Mexico, then returned to the U.S.

“The way I got here is something very special for me,” he said. “It will probably stay with me forever. It was kind of something I just tried — some kind of adventure. You know, it’s hard to get it right — so much luck to end up in the right place and be able…