Iseed Khoury’s eyes tear up when he talks about everything the Denton community has done for him.

He marvels over how everyone from little-known Denton High School cheerleader Jane Naugher to college football legend Hayden Fry went out of their way to help the teenage Israeli immigrant.

DRC/Gary Payne

Denton High School girls soccer coach Iseed Khoury watches players take the ball downfield during a game against the Bronco Soccer Camp staff Friday in Denton.

View larger More photos Photo store

Khoury knew no English and had no family in the United States other than his brother, Nassim, but Denton residents were willing to take him into their homes and treat him like one of their own.

In Khoury’s words, Denton raised him.

“I’m indebted forever,” he said. “If you were to give me all of the money on the Earth, it wouldn’t be enough …”

He can’t finish his sentence as he gets caught up in emotion, but Denton is just as grateful to Khoury, who practically brought the sport of soccer to the city.

He started the first soccer team at Denton High School while still a student there. He organized neighborhood pickup games, which evolved into what is now the Denton Soccer Association.

His passion for the sport helped the now-defunct North Texas men’s soccer team reach unthinkable heights and gave the Denton Lady Broncos back-to-back state championships in 2003 and 2004.

 “I saw what love I got from this community and I was determined to give back some of the things they had given me,” Khoury said. “I didn’t get to be a doctor. I didn’t get to be a lawyer. Soccer was really the only thing I could help them with. I was determined to help the kids in this town as much as I can.”

Israel’s son

Khoury first came to Texas in August of 1969 when he was just 13 to visit his brother. Nassim Khoury was attending Cisco Junior College and was a prominent soccer player who played for the Israeli national team in their hometown of Nazareth.

The visit was intended to be a month-long vacation for Iseed. That vacation has now reached 39 years and counting.

“I was so young,” Nassim said. “At that time, I thought I knew it all like all teenagers. I thought it was a good idea to have my brother with me. That was the hope behind it, just having someone in my family around me.”

But with Nassim being a student himself and often having to work six or seven days a week, young Iseed was forced to fend for himself. He enrolled at Denton High School after his brother graduated from Cisco despite knowing no one and not knowing a lick of English.

It didn’t take long for the school to open up to Khoury. Naugher, whose daughter played on Khoury’s state title teams, was assigned to take Khoury to his classes, which she did, hand-in-hand.

“She made me feel at home and always made me feel welcome,” he said. “That’s where my love began with Denton High School.”

Khoury was already an accomplished soccer player. While Nassim was on the Israeli team, Iseed played with the reserves despite being just 8 years old.

DRC/Gary Payne

Denton High School girls soccer coach Iseed Khoury talks to Clayton Elseyn before the start of Bronco Soccer Camp on Friday in Denton.

View larger More photos Photo store

But with football being king in Texas, Khoury couldn’t find an outlet for his passion for soccer except in pickup games on the campus of North Texas.

That prompted him to go to the principal’s office at Denton High School to try to drum up support for a soccer team at the school, despite not having full command of the English language.

“I got friends that could speak for me,” Khoury said. “We met with the principals, and the guy that really supported us was a guy named Mr. [Clifton] McNeely. He came and said ‘I don’t know why you shouldn’t have soccer if that’s your love.’ He took out $500 from his pocket and said ‘Go buy your uniforms.’ I promised him that after the first game we played, we would pay him back his money.”

The first soccer game at Bronco Field attracted more than 1,000 spectators, and Khoury was able to pay McNeely back after just one game.

But the Broncos were more than just a novelty at Denton. Khoury, a junior, was player/coach for the team and quickly turned Denton into a competitor.

The UIL didn’t sanction soccer at the time, so it was merely a club sport with two divisions — public schools and private schools. The sport was localized almost entirely in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and it didn’t take long for the Broncos to outgrow their competition with the public schools.

Even being crammed in with private schools such as Cistercian, Jesuit and St. Mark’s didn’t slow the Broncos down. In Khoury’s senior year, the Broncos won the Texas Cup, the equivalent of the state championship at the time.

Denton football coaches took notice of Khoury as well. They asked him if he’d like to be the Broncos’ place kicker.

“He was a real pleasant kid,” recalls Bill Carrico, a Denton football coach whom Khoury cites as one of his primary influences in high school. “He didn’t understand exactly what we were talking about. He asked if we wanted him to kick the ‘futbol.’ He asked which foot. We said ‘Right-footed like everyone, I guess.’ He never did tell us he was left-footed.”

Khoury kicked with his right foot for his entire high school football career, not realizing he could go to the other side until the end of his senior year.

“It wasn’t until the end of my senior year when one of the coaches said, ‘I’m sorry we’re so stupid. We’ve had this guy kicking with his right leg for a whole year and he’s left-footed!’” Khoury said.

Khoury took his love for soccer to the streets during the summer. With no recreational or select leagues, he organized neighborhood pickup games until a friend of his gathered enough kids to form two full teams.

Suddenly, youth soccer teams all over Denton wanted Khoury to coach them, giving root to Khoury’s involvement in youth soccer, something he still takes part in.

“That’s where the interest in the soccer program in this community took off,” Khoury said. “The next year we had another team. The next year they had another team. All of the sudden, the Denton Soccer Association was born. We actually had one team with 26 kids. We just started making teams by blocks. This community makes their own teams. That’s kind of how it all got started.”

But while Khoury distracted himself with soccer, a home life was nonexistent. Nassim was studying and working. Iseed was alone to mourn the death of his father, who died in Nazareth before Iseed could say goodbye.

The city of Denton took him in.

“I lived with my brother but, believe it or not, I hardly ever stayed with him because there was always one family that invited me to their home,” he said. “That’s where my love affair with this community became so passionate because I hardly ever stayed home. I would go on vacations with them. They would take their family to the lake or skiing and they would invite me.

“It got to where some families were arguing over who’s going to get me. I thought ‘Wow.’ I never had to grieve. They made me feel so at home. I never had a chance to feel like I was lonely or away from home. It was just terrific.”

The college years

Khoury accepted a scholarship to play soccer at North Texas. The then-Eagles rose to prominence and defeated nationally ranked teams while he was there, but Khoury was best known as the football team’s kicker.

He didn’t go there to play football, but while practicing accuracy with his long shot, Khoury attracted the attention of UNT coach Hayden Fry.

“When I was kicking the ball, there were five or six people just watching,” he said. “One of them walked up to me and said, ‘Can you move back a little bit farther and kick the ball?’ I said, ‘Yeah, but why do I need to do that?’ He said, ‘I just wanted to see how far you can kick. If you can kick it farther than the goal, that would even be better.’ I kicked three or four balls. He came and introduced himself as Hayden Fry. He said he wanted to meet with me. I said that would be fine.”

Khoury and Fry met the next day. Fry offered to give Khoury a football scholarship and gave three full scholarships to the soccer team to entice him to join the team. The soccer team moved its games to Sunday so Khoury could play football on Saturday and soccer on Sunday.

Khoury still holds numerous records at UNT, including longest field goal made — a 62-yarder against Richmond in 1977.

Ray Braswell, now Denton ISD’s superintendent and then a trainer for UNT, witnessed some of Khoury’s most memorable moments at the school.

After Khoury dislocated his shoulder in a soccer game, Braswell popped the shoulder back in place and told him to stay out of the game. Braswell turned around only to watch Khoury run back onto the field against his wishes.

“He [Braswell] spent the whole half running from one end to the other screaming at me,” Khoury said. “Sure enough, a few minutes after that I scored. I said, ‘I told you I can still play.’ He was still screaming at me.”

Khoury’s speed and toughness prompted Fry to use his kicker in a rare situation — recovering an onside kick. Fry alerted Khoury days before the game that he wanted him to recover his own onside kick.

“He showed it to me on film,” Khoury said. “He said you just have to kick the ball 10 yards and go and get it. I thought I could do it. I kicked that ball and got hit. I didn’t feel like anything happened until I tried to get up. When I tried to get up, I couldn’t move. All of the sudden, these people are grabbing me and screaming at me that I’m going the wrong way, that I’m going to the wrong sideline.

“After about 30 minutes, it just went away. I went back. Coach Fry came up to me and said ‘I promise we won’t do that again.’”

And like everyone in Denton, Fry came to Khoury’s aid when he needed it. Over one Thanksgiving holiday, Khoury was alone as Nassim had left the area and moved to Houston.

“The dorms were going to be shut down, so I didn’t know where I was going to be,” Khoury said. “He [Fry] handed me the key to his house. I had been to his house with his kids. He said ‘Here, you’ll always have a place to sleep and eat. If you need it, use it.’ That will always be with me.”

Back to Denton

Khoury left UNT and spent a preseason with the Oakland Raiders before leaving the team to play in the American Soccer League. The league folded in 1982 and Khoury came back to his second home — Denton.

He rejoined UNT as an assistant soccer coach. Under Khoury’s guidance, the team reached national prominence, knocking off nationally ranked teams.

But Title IX prompted the demise of the team in 1994, as UNT had to boost the number of women’s sports at the school. Out went the men’s soccer team and in came the women’s team.

“It was a week before the kids were supposed to come in,” Khoury said. “We had one of the best recruiting years ever by any college. We had some terrific players coming.”

Khoury didn’t remain on the market long, though. Bill Carrico, Khoury’s old high school football coach who went on to be Denton ISD’s athletic director, popped up to help Khoury out again, this time by offering Khoury the girls soccer head coaching job at Denton High School under one condition — he win a state title.

“I said, ‘Coach, that’s the only reason I’m taking the job — to win you state championships,’” said Khoury, who took the job in 1996.

Khoury delivered on that promise with back-to-back state titles with the Lady Broncos in 2003 and 2004, victories that cemented Khoury as one of the best high school soccer coaches in the state.

But his life’s work was truly spent coaching youth soccer. He hosted cost-free soccer camps for underprivileged children. He organized the Mean Green Soccer Club, a local select league that produced strong teams and standout players. From his time coaching while he was still a high school student to the present day, Khoury has coached a generation of Denton youth.

“His tentacles are all over Denton soccer, for sure,” said Ryan girls soccer coach Raiford Malone, a Denton native. “The kids that have grown up and played in the association now, a lot of those have probably played for him and have siblings who played for him. He’s definitely put his thumbprint on soccer in this town.”

Now, times are tough with the Denton Lady Broncos, as the opening of Guyer has rocked Bronco athletics. Khoury’s team doesn’t have the talent it used to, and the Lady Broncos missed the playoffs in 2008 and are struggling to find athletes.

But don’t expect Khoury to abandon his alma mater.

“He is such a loyal person,” Nassim Khoury said. “Coaches call him and schools call him and they want him to coach at their schools — not so much anymore because he made the point to everybody around here that he is not going to go anywhere.

“He doesn’t want to leave Denton High School. Even when the program is not doing so well, he is determined to make the best out of it and develop those kids and be there for them. He is Denton High School all the way. He really is.”

To Khoury, helping out the youth of Denton comes naturally, as Denton helped him out when he was a youth.

“This town didn’t help raise me, it did raise me,” he said. “I owe everything to them because everything I grew up to be was part of what they told me. It was just many, many people that told me many, many things.

“How can you not love a town and its people when they took you in — they didn’t even know who you were and made you a part of their family?”