By Tim Nash
Prior to the 1999 Women’s World Cup, I got a pretty cool assignment. I
got to write some stuff for an internet companion to adidas’ television
campaign for the World Cup – “There from the Start” – a nice way to point out
that adidas was there when the soccer stars of the 1999 World Cup were little
kids starting out in the game. Do you recall the commercials? Remember an
infant Kristine’s Lilly’s make-believe mom putting her down in front of a
soccer ball and she immediately races off out of site, dribbling the ball all
the way. Or German goalkeeper Silke Rottenberg in a playpen swatting away toys,
yelling “Nein!”
We are in Lockhart Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. It’s hot. The
process is tedious, and concentrating for this long had given me a headache.
It has also slightly exaggerated what my wife calls “my inability to mask my
impatience.” My capacity here is to stay off camera, keep quiet, don’t interrupt
anything, and listen to the interviews on the B-Roll. Of course, when told of
the assignment, my first question was, “What’s a B-Roll?” Remember, this is
1999. The internet is still in its infancy. Laptops are a luxury. I learned
that B-Roll is what the film producers shoot away while the commercial is being
filmed. It’s kind of a record of the whole thing, a back-up and a source of
additional information. That’s what I needed, the additional information.
Each player – Lilly, Shannon MacMillan, Rottenberg and China’s Sun Wen
and Liu Ailing – came to the top of Lockhart Stadium and sat for an on-camera
interview conducted by one of the producers. After they completed their
questions, it was my turn. Of course, Rottenberg, Liu and Sun Wen conducted
their interviews in their native tongue. I speak three languages – English,
Yankee and Southern. The only German I
knew was Nein, because I frequently wrote that on my golf score card. And
Mandarin? I like the oranges, but that’s about it. So it was a long the process,
especially when you factor in the jet noise from the nearby airport.
Anyway, Lockhart Stadium is where I met Sun Wen. And on that day, my
opinion and impression of the Chinese Women’s National Soccer team changed. I
had been told countless stories of the USA’s early trips to China and how
different everything was there. The accommodations, the food, the people. To me,
the Chinese team seemed regimented, with an overwhelming sense of sameness.
They seemed to lack the personalities on which other counties put extremely
high premiums. They seemed to be the anti-Brazil, which is a collection of
personalities who viewed soccer as a means to express their individuality,
their flair. The Brazilians laughed and danced. The Americans smiled and
enjoyed each other. The Chinese, on the other hand, seemed to be all-business.
Meeting and talking with Sun Wen proved me off-track.
She spoke with a confidence and optimism that mirrored that of U.S.
athletes. She never complained about moving away from home at age 11 to a
special school for promising athletes, choosing to see it as a great
opportunity instead. She spoke of being intimidated when she saw all the other
athletes and wanting to go home. She explained how her father urged her to give
it a try. She was polite and funny.
I had marveled at the way she played the game, being so simple and so
dangerous at the same time. Her vision of the field was extraordinary, and she
was as deadly passing the ball as she was shooting it. I wondered how she was
able to grow into such a special player in a system – a country -- that
encouraged and praised the group and downplayed the individual. I discovered part of the reason. She told me
about a coach she had when she was young, around 14. The guy told her flat out,
“You will never be a good soccer player. You should stop.” She explained how
there were no tears, no hysterics, and never was there the iota of a chance she
would take his word for it. “No, it made me work harder,” she said. I asked if she had seen him recently. “I have
seen him a lot,” she said, a sly little smile appearing as if it can’t be
helped. “What do you say to him?” I wondered.
“I don’t need to say anything. He is no longer a coach, and I am going
to the World Cup.”
Other than being from literally the other side of the world and from a
country as opposite as can be imagined from the U.S., and developed in a manner
vastly different from all other countries in the tournament, Sun Wen is the
same. She wants to shop. She wants to hang out with her teammates and laugh.
She wants to be the best, and she wants to win. Unfortunately for her, she
never did.
Two years later, two years after she suffered a defeat in the worst
way possible in the 1999 World Cup final, two years after watching helplessly
as one of her teammate’s penalty kicks was saved by Briana Scurry in the
tension-rich tiebreaker in a sweltering hot Rose Bowl, a tie-breaker her mother
could not bear to watch, but 20 million others in her country could, I met Sun
Wen again. In Florida again. This time it was Boca Raton. In a move that
provided unquestionable global credibility to a new soccer league, Sun Wen had
agreed to join the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA). If you are
wondering how something like that happens, how China’s best player and four of
her best teammates are suddenly able to leave China and come live in the United
States, you need to ask Lauren Gregg, the USA’s assistant coach since before
1991. Lauren, and the respect other countries had for her, was largely
responsible for every international player that played in the WUSA.
Sun Wen was in Florida for the WUSA Combine, where invitation-only
players flocked to try out for the new league. Fortunately for me, the WUSA
invited someone to help the Chinese players become acclimated. And even better
for me, it was May Fair. A wonderful woman with tireless energy and a
tremendously patient demeanor, May is the mother or Lorrie and Ronnie Fair, the
twins who went to college at UNC and Stanford, respectively. Lorrie was the
youngest member of the 1999 World Cup champs. Both of the Fair bookends would
play in the WUSA. I had gotten to know May over the years. In fact, in 2000, in
Australia, I walked into the U.S. team hotel lobby, where I hung out at the bar
quite a bit, and saw May sitting with a dapper gentleman, decked out in a
three-piece suit, fedora on the table, sharp tie and matching handkerchief in
his breast pocket. Kind of hard to miss, actually. May called me over and
introduced me to Gay Talese, a world famous author, who famously wrote about
the mafia. He was thinking about writing a book about the Chinese player who
had her PK saved in 1999. We talked for a long time, mostly about what he saw
as the incredible injustice in the penalty kick tiebreaker.
In Boca Raton, I invited May and Sun Wen to dinner. “You translate, I
pay,” was my offer. Guess where we went? Your most obvious guess will be
correct. Yep, Chinese. It was a nice place, though. Not one of the places in a
strip mall where the man and wife in the back scream at each other. No, I’m a
classy guy. Sun Wen seemed happy to get out for a while. She sat in the back
seat of my oversized rental car, which could have been mistaken for a police
cruiser. She looked out the window at the neighborhoods and strip malls and
stores, and I imagined her thinking, “Every place looks the same in this
country.”
At dinner, we talked about what she wanted to accomplish in the U.S.,
the WUSA as an opportunity for women, and growing up as a soccer player in
China. It’s obvious to me, again, that parental support played a huge role in
her development. She was encouraged to play, never discouraged, and she had the
support of proud parents every step of the way. She spoke in humble tones about
paving the way of other girls in China to be professional soccer players, and
maybe she could have a lasting impact.
She remembered me from Lockhart Stadium, and she was comfortable and
relaxed with me. She carries herself with an air of confidence anyway, but she
seemed calm and stress-free during dinner. I’m going to take eight percent of
the credit for that. The other 92 percent goes to May, who has that kind of
effect on people. So, we are chatting. She is telling us that the Chinese food
in the U.S. is bland, not enough spices. She wants to practice answering
questions in English, which will give May a break for a little bit. Sun Wen
does very well, but slips up when I ask her about her favorite players. “I like
noodle food,” she said. Well, so do I. We moved on. Later, I asked, through May, what she
was most looking forward to in the U.S. She had a simple, one-word answer. She
answered in English and she didn’t hesitate. “Freedom,” she said.
I immediately looked at May, who at first didn’t grasp what I saw as a
potentially serious miss-step. “May,” I said. “Let’s be clear about what she
means by Freedom.” Maybe I watch too many spy movies, but I wanted to be sure
Sun understood the various ways her answer could be interpreted in China. My
suspicion was that she was not making a political statement, she wasn’t saying
the U.S. was a better place to live than China, or American citizens are
treated better than the people in China. I watched Sun’s face as May explained.
“Oooh,” she said the moment she understood, then laughed a little at herself.
She then explained, safely through May, that the type of Freedom she meant was
the kind where you are free to play soccer, train, and live a life like other women
her age.
Her freedom gave her a chance to pursue her non-soccer interests. She
calls herself a romantic. She sings a lot, devours literature and poetry, and
she writes. She’s particularly proud of a poem that was published in a Chinese
newspaper. However, most of her writings remain private, with the exception of
a poem she published before the Sydney Olympics, the last line of which reads,
“Come on girls, do not wait to follow your dreams.”
