November 13, 2026 | Men's Soccer
For Washington Men’s Soccer, the road to Husky Stadium started in Haiti for two teammates. Clarens Dollin was born in Port-au-Prince and moved to the United States as a teenager. Shaun Brun grew up in Seattle with a Haitian father and has represented Haiti at the U-20 level. Their routes differ, but both carry the same pride in their heritage and the same dream of playing for Haiti at the highest level.
Dollin’s earliest soccer memories are of pickup games on the beaches of Léogâne. Teams were a mix of locals of every age and skill level, and he was usually among the youngest, which improved his skills quickly. “We would play wherever we could, whenever we could,” Dollin said. He was also apart of the club “Assosiation Sportive de Truitier” where he trained as a young boy.
He arrived in the U.S. in December of 2020, spending his first two months in New York. The change in weather was the hardest adjustment for Dollin, though the language barrier was no small hurdle either; he spoke no English and learned it throughout high school. Dollin’s soccer path was just as unconventional. After his family moved from New York to Spokane, Washington for his parents’ work, he played only high school soccer until the end of his junior year, when a Crossfire coach watched him play and brought him into the club for his senior season. Dollin says “at the end of the day, anything is possible.” With that mindset and work ethic, his coach then connected him with the University of Washington, where he plays today.
Haiti is never far away for Dollin. He stays in touch with family and friends back home, and his immediate family in Pullman lives near other Haitians, where weekend barbecues keep the food and culture close. Being Haitian, Dollin said, “means being driven in whatever you do, loving your family, and most importantly staying loyal to faith and God.”
Means being driven in whatever you do, loving your family, and most importantly staying loyal to faith and God.Clarens Dollin
Brun’s connection runs through his father, who was born in Port-au-Prince. “I’m 50% Haitian,” he said. Staying connected from Seattle took effort. “It was always a little bit of a struggle, just because of the distance,” Brun said. He felt closest on holiday trips to Philadelphia and New York to see his dad’s side of the family, and at Seattle’s Flag Day celebration every May 18th. His father shared Haitian sayings and a little Creole, and Brun is still actively learning the language, a way of staying connected to his culture and carrying it with him.
A Haiti coach spotted Brun at a tournament with the Sounders Academy when he was 16 and asked if he had a Haitian passport. He didn’t, and getting one took long enough that Brun missed the first call-up. By the next camp, he had it. “I was the youngest guy there,” Brun said. “The expectation wasn’t really for me to make the squad.” But he kept impressing the staff, made the roster for the Concacaf U-20 tournament, and started all three group-stage games. The opener was against Mexico, in front of a stadium full of opposing fans. “It was the craziest experience of my life,” Brun said. “I just kept telling myself, it’s still a game of soccer.”
His next call-up was harder. At a training camp in Haiti, his first trip to the country, Brun was told on the last day that he hadn’t made the team. He packed his bags. Then a spot opened up at the last minute, and the director asked him to hold off on his flight. The next day, Brun was on the roster. “It really felt like it was written to happen,” he said. The opportunity came with a tough choice, since it meant giving up UW’s summer trip to Peru, something he had also thought hard about. Head coach Jamie Clark talked it through with him, agreed that Peru would have been an amazing opportunity, and supported him either way. Brun said, “I had come to terms with the fact that I had to give it a chance, or else I would always regret it.”
It really felt like it was written to happen.Shaun Brun
The win over Cuba stands out most for Brun. His father was in the crowd, and when Haiti scored late, Brun realized it would be his first win with the national team. “I just looked up at my dad,” he said. “That’s why I’m playing for the team, really, because of him.” Against the United States, both parents were there, and hearing the U.S. anthem while wearing Haiti’s colors felt strange. “I take a lot of pride in being a dual international,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I was playing for Haiti, and that was the country I chose to represent. So I sang our national anthem as loud as I could.”
I take a lot of pride in being a dual international.Shaun Brun
Off the field, Brun has volunteered for Goals Haiti*, an organization that began by supporting girls’ education and sports in a rural community and has expanded to boys. He trained kids locally and asked families to donate in exchange for his time, logging roughly 30 hours in a year. “It never really felt like work, because it was special to me, and I was still doing something that I loved,” he said.
On the Huskies, the two share a bond. “We’re really good friends,” Brun said. “He’s met my dad, and I keep bugging him to teach me Creole.” Dollin says Brun’s time with the U-20 team gives him a window into the national team path. “He shares all his experiences with me and what that looks like, because I want to play nationally too,” Dollin said. “It’s a great bond and connection.”
Both want to play professionally and represent Haiti. For Dollin, it has been his biggest goal since he was a kid. He wants to do it “for all the people that didn’t have the opportunity back home.” Brun hopes to be drafted, move to Europe, and “play for a big club and really dominate for years.” Dollin said being at a school like Washington “would give the youth hope. It would show them that no goal is unreachable, as long as you stay driven and have fun doing what you’re doing.” Brun’s advice to young Haitian Americans is to stay curious about the country’s history, music, and food, and to work hard.
There’s no secret sauce. Put your head down, be disciplined, work hard, and the soccer side will come.Shaun Brun
For Dollin and Brun, the goal at Washington is bigger than themselves. The University of Washington has given them the platform, the coaching, and the competition to turn their time as Huskies into a path to playing professionally and on a national team, all for the next generation of Haitian players. They hope young kids at home and in Haitian communities around the world see that no goal is out of reach.
