Rick Chapman did not want to stay in Siberia.
It was cold and dreary, even decaying and frozen in certain areas, and the country was still recovering from the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union two years earlier.
As he recalls, “The brand new buildings looked like they were starting to fall down as soon as they were put up.”
But his wife, Lynn, told him he might as well remain there if he did not return home to Silver Spring, Md., with their new daughter.
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The couple was looking to adopt for the second time and became intrigued one night in February 1993 while watching the news. There was a story about two sisters who had traveled to Russia so each could adopt a child.
Rick and Lynn decided to look into adopting from Russia. Through the organization, Families Adopting Children Everywhere, they got the name of a local woman named Diana Voith, a native of Russia who became an American citizen and helped facilitate more than 20 adoptions from Russian orphanages.
The Chapmans contacted Voith, and she went through the necessary steps to find a child that met the Russian requirements for adoption. She found a match named Svetlana Ivanovna Makarova. Rick and Lynn went to Voith’s house to learn more.
“She had a couple of small pictures of just the cutest little kid you’d ever seen,” Rick said.
They decided then to go through with it.
When the Chapmans first learned about Svetlana, they found she went by “Sveta” in the orphanage. Lynn did not want to change her name to something that sounded totally different, so she settled on Sarah as a new first name.
Today, Sarah Svetlana Chapman is far from Siberia. She is a senior midfielder for the Florida soccer team.
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Rick, an oceanographer at Johns Hopkins University, was already traveling to Moscow in March of 1993 for business.
He got to Moscow a week early to finalize paperwork with the American embassy and then flew to the city of Angarsk in southern Siberia, where Sarah’s orphanage was located.
While the country was not in great shape, Rick was impressed with Sarah’s quarters.
“The Russian orphanage was clean, well lit, well heated, and the children were well fed and well cared for,” Rick said. “It really was a nurturing environment for kids.”
But during his third visit with Sarah, when she introduced him to some of her classmates, he could tell the children knew there was a better life to be had elsewhere. Sarah introduced her soon-to-be father to the class as, “my papa.”
Said Rick: “They all wanted me to take them home.”
The two then flew back to Moscow where Rick in what was Sarah’s first time on a plane. When she looked out the window she began to cry, but Rick could not calm her down. Another passenger who spoke Russian did.
“I’m sure at the time in her little 3-and-a-half-year-old brain she probably thought I was kind of dumb because I couldn’t speak her language,” Rick said. “I spoke gibberish to her.”
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There was never a “big talk” in the Chapman household.
Although Sarah has no recollection of her journey to America, Rick and Lynn never had to sit her down and break the news that she was not their biological daughter.
“I just have always naturally known,” Sarah said. “I couldn’t ever tell you the day my parents told me, ‘Hey, you’re adopted.’”
Sarah quickly felt comfortable in the U.S. She only knew Rick at first and was shy around everyone else, but that did not last for long.
“Within a few days it was sort of an amazing transformation,” Rick said. “Her personality just exploded. She just became this super happy, outgoing, happy child.”
Sarah picked up English within a few months, but her parents still wanted her to retain her Russian skills. Rick invited a Russian scientist over for dinner one night. To Rick and Lynn’s surprise, Sarah cried when she heard Russian. That language meant a life with no family.
“My orphanage was good, clean, healthy, and they treated me like a great kid,” Sarah said. “But I think the understanding that I didn’t have a family really upset me, and then finally I got that family so it washed away.”
Sarah was proud to be different. She told strangers, “I’m adopted,” or, “I’m Russian.”
“I was a funny little kid,” Sarah said.
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Like most people, Sarah retains a few typical childhood memories from after the first three years of her life.
She remembers learning how to ride a bike and the day she demanded that her mom take the training wheels off. There were the visits to her grandparents’ home, and even though he passed away while Sarah was still young, she recalls getting to sit on her fraternal grandfather’s lap.
“I feel like I was that little kid wanting to have a family so badly, and I finally got a family and they gave me the world.”
A big part of that world was sports.
One of the first times Lynn remembers seeing Sarah smiling and having fun was when she got to go outside and play with any kind of ball.
Due to the constant cold temperatures, the kids at Sarah’s orphanage were rarely permitted to go outside.
When she was old enough to participate in organized sports, Sarah played soccer, basketball and baseball. She wanted to play football, but there was no league for girls.
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In addition to soccer, Sarah excelled in diving and basketball throughout middle and high school. But to her coaches, her athletic ability was not what stood out.
“The first thing that caught my eye about her was her smile,” said David Greene, Sarah’s coach for the Bethesda (Md.) Soccer Club during her four years in high school.
It was Sarah’s vibrant personality within the game that made her stand out. However, Greene recognized certain things she did that could not be taught. She was able to see the game well because she dribbled with her head up, and she possessed an explosive first step.
Greene said that once she combined these natural gifts with a desire to be great, her potential was within reach.
“She had the athletic ability, but I just had to teach her how to be a good soccer player,” Greene said. “When she made the decision to be a good soccer player, you could see that she was going to be able to pretty much play anywhere.”
Her work paid off when she was noticed at an Olympic Development regional event in Miami by one of the coaches who she would play for at the next level, Florida assistant coach Alan Kirkup.
He noticed Sarah had the ability to create and get her teammates involved and saw she possessed great technical skill.
But there was one thing about Sarah that stood out to Kirkup beyond anything else.
Her smile.
Florida midfielder Sarah Chapman (center) is presented a framed jersey during Florida’s Senior Day on Oct. 23 as parents Rick (right) and Lynn (left) look on.
