By Jim Sack

The 20-some member squad of America’s very best soccer players, football to the rest of the world, has been chosen and a Fort Wayne boy is on the team. Cool.

DaMarcus Beasley grew up here, went to South Side and then on to play around the world. A smart article about him was in last night’s News Sentinel predicting he would be chosen and, sure nuf, confirmation this morning on the wires. The article, more about the personality, trials and recent tribulations of Beasley, chronicled a remarkable comeback to win a slot among the nation’s elite for his third straight World Cup.

Twelve years at the top of American soccer. Very cool, indeed. He becomes one of Fort Wayne’s premier all-time athletes in the process, even if he was recently cut by his pro team.

Football has two evolutionary branches, the variety played here and that played in most of the rest of the world. Our version, typified by the NFL, is a bit of a misnomer. Seldom does foot touch the ball, more often, it is a game, as commentator George Will once noted, of violence punctuated by committee meetings. A reporter just prior to last year’s Super Bowl wrote that actually playing time, that is, action, was a mere fraction of the 60-minute spectacular, whereas huddles and preparing formation and unpiling took up the lion’s share of the event. Football, soccer, fotbal, fotbol, on the other hand, err other foot, is one continual foot to ball event over its 90-minute duration and referees usually add minutes to both the first half and second half to make up for “injury time” and other moments of inactivity. The foot is key, touching ball with hand will earn a severe reprimand, could even lead to a victory for the aggrieved team. It is a game of speed, agility, endurance and finesse.

Here is something else I love about Fussball: any team can move from the minors to the majors on the strength of their play. In Germany a few years back a small town team, Hoffenheim, started the year in the third division, essentially AA ball in baseball. They won their division that year and were elevated to the second division, which they also won that subsequent season and were again elevated, this time to the first division. Their first year in the bigs they nearly won that, too, to the surprise and anger of fans at more established clubs.

So, every year in the various soccer leagues around the world there are two races going on: one to win the championship and advance, the other to stave off relegation to a lower league. There is great drama at both ends of the table. In Germany the top two teams from the second division automatically advance, the bottom two automatically fall the net lower division. Additionally, the third place team in the lower division plays the third worse team in the upper division to see who gets to play that following year in the higher division. Drama. Consequently, there is great excitement at the bottom of the table, as well as at the top for the pennant race. Here, instead, the chant among bottom-dwelling teams is “wait until next year.” Teams here, as we have read, don’t mind being the worst in the league, as long as they make money for their owners. Soccer teams in other countries have relegation on the line.

So, DaMarcus Beasley will take the field with America’s elite in a two weeks when the World Cup, the premier sporting event in the whole damn world, literally kicks off. A Fort Wayner, a kid from our school system, who grew up among us, will be on the world stage and should make us very, very proud. He has had his problems. Over the past few years his play has been lack luster, his pro-team, the Glasgow Rangers of the Scottish Premier League, recently decided not to rehire him. Adrift. He has “suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” and the slings, in the form of launched bananas, of even more outrageous fans that can be found in the corners of some soccer stadia. Did I mentioned someone in Glasgow set his car on fire? But despite being a bit long in the tooth, despite the outrages, despite his subsiding career he played his heart out at US Soccer tryout camp and regained the confidence of the coach and a place among America’s elite, among players who are greatly valued around the world. Comeback kid.

The games will be televised in the States on EPSN. I will watch at a number of local watering holes, including the venerable Fort Wayne Sport Club, the home of soccer, err football, in Fort Wayne, and I will watch at J K O’Donnell’s downtown, and with my brother on his HD screen.

Years ago, when I came home from two Army years in Germany I told Bob Armstrong, then athletic director at Snider, that soccer would be big here and that he should take the lead at Snider and build a program. He shooed me out of his office with a line about how soccer would never be anything here in America. Bob never quite got it right. Now, thousands of kids in Fort Wayne play soccer at places like the Sport Club, the Plex and for high school teams. Fort Wayne teams often win state championships, local teams travel the continent and, occasionally, the world to compete, and one of our own is going to stand proudly, will represent us, on the world stage at the biggest tournament of them all. Not bad. Let’s lift one for DaMarcus, let’s lift one for Fort Wayne and another for our soccer programs here.

While US chances of winning it all are not good DaMarcus Beasley should be an inspiration for us all and for the next kid from Fort Wayne who shows the world how it can be done.

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