The ex-monk whose heart will need to heal

The head coach of the Thai football team spent the morning of June 23 preparing his young assistant for an important task: Looking out for the boys by himself.

Nopparat Khanthavong, the 37-year-old head coach of the Moo Pa (Wild Boars) football team, had an appointment that morning. Ekkapol Chanthawong, his assistant, was to take the younger boys to a football field nestled by the Doi Nang Non mountain range, a formation with waterfalls and caves that straddles the Thai-Myanmar border.

“Make sure you ride your bicycle behind them when you are travelling around, so you can keep a lookout,” the older man wrote in a Facebook message.

The hours that followed kicked off a chain of events that has riveted the world: a dramatic search and rescue that found the boys alive nine days later, huddled on a muddy shelf surrounded by floodwaters.

Attention has focused on the only adult, 25-year-old former monk Chanthawong, and the role he has played in both their predicament and their survival.

Some have chided Chanthawong for leading the team into the cave. A large warning sign at the cave’s entrance raises the risk of entering so close to the monsoon season, they say, and he should have known better.

But for many in Thailand, Chanthawong, who left his life in the monkhood three years ago and joined the Wild Boars, is an almost divine force, sent to protect the boys in their ordeal.

A widely shared cartoon drawing of Chanthawong shows him sitting cross-legged, as a monk does in meditation, with

12 little wild boars in his arms.

According to rescue officials, he is among the weakest in the group, in part because he gave the boys his share of the limited food and water they had with them in the early days. He taught the boys to meditate and to conserve as much energy as possible until they were found.

“If he didn’t go with them, what would have happened to my child?” said the mother of Pornchai Khamluang, one of the boys in the cave, in an interview with a Thai television network. “When he comes out, we have to heal his heart. My dear Ek, I would never blame you.”

Chanthawong was an orphan who lost his parents at age 10, friends say. He then trained to be a monk but left the monastery to care for his ailing grandmother in Mae Sai, northern Thailand.

There, he split his time between working as a temple hand at a Ekkapol Chanthawong reportedly gave the boys his share of food and water.

monastery and training the then newly established Moo Pa team.

He found kindred spirits in the boys, many of whom had grown up poor.

“He loved them more than himself,” said Joy Khampai, a longtime friend of Chanthawong. “He was the kind of person who looked after himself and who taught the kids to do the same.”

He helped Khanthavong, the head coach, devise a system where the boys’ passion for football would motivate them to excel academically. If they got certain grades in school, they would be rewarded with football gear, such as fresh studs for their cleats or a new pair of shorts. The two spent time looking for sponsors and used the Moo Pa team to prove to the boys that they could become something more than their small town would suggest.

“He gave a lot of himself to them,” Khanthavong said.

On that Saturday two weeks ago, Khanthavong did not know where Chanthawong would be bringing the young football team but thought it would be a learning experience for him to manage them on his own.

He learned the team had gone exploring in the Tham Luang caves.

The coach raced up there, only to find abandoned bicycles and bags at its entrance.

“I screamed — ‘Ek! Ek! Ek!’,” he said. “My body went completely cold.”

“I know him, and I know he will blame himself,” said Joy, his friend at the monastery.

On Saturday morning, the Thai Navy posted photos of letters that the group had written to their family.

Chanthawong’s included a promise and an apology.

“I promise to take the very best care of the kids,” he wrote. “I want to say thanks for all the support, and I want to apologise.”