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One cool-ass dude. That’s how Eddie Johnson was first described to me by a friend who met him, and that was how I most often witnessed him myself: in some stylized commercial or rolling goals out on the field. Beyond the hip-hop aesthetic, however, Eddie was said to be really easy to connect with, not formal or forced, just down to earth and honest. To most people, though, including me, Eddie is this image, the Nike commercial, the newspaper columns written by beat writers who obviously don’t know or care about soccer. What they didn’t tell me was precisely what I was looking for.

Over the last months, I’ve been chasing American soccer. It has blown by so fast at times; I have to go back and read the stuff I wrote, trying to figure out what I’ve learned, if anything. I couldn’t pin down exactly what it was I knew. My end of the year report was empty.

Then Eddie Johnson came around and I realized he was what I had been chasing. He is American Soccer. It wasn’t anything he said or did; it was just him. Juxtaposed to what I took from some of the other guys: Landon (the ambassador), Twellman (the royal blood), Atiba (the style, the art), the kids at King (the adversity) - Eddie was, well, you can check E, all of the above.

Everybody knows the stats. They’re a sports writer’s best friend, or at least a close second behind the clichés they heave like an Olsen Twin and thanksgiving dinner. So let’s wipe them up and then maybe we can learn something: youngest player in MLS history to lead or share the league lead in goal scoring; scored 6 goals in his first four games with the US MNT (becoming the first American to find the net in his first four games… he’s already tied for third in all-time qualifying goals); And oh by the way, he’s the first substitute in the history of the national team to drop a hat trick. It was also the first time in 36 years any man had scored three goals in one game.

Besides the superlatives, it is Eddie’s climb from poverty in north Florida, that most writers want to address. That’s mainly because they aren’t selling soccer. Human interest is their trade, and admittedly Eddie’s story is a public relations bonanza.

“I think I was eleven years old,” Eddie said, “My coach at the time, Bob Sawyer, saw that I had a future in playing the game and advised my mom to move away from the projects.” That was the first step toward soccer.

The biggest step came soon after. “I can totally look back now and think I made the right decision by sticking with soccer,” Eddie said. And it had everything to do with the Residency Program, which turned into an overriding theme during our conversation.

US Full-Time Residency Program? I really wasn’t that familiar with it. It sounded like a secret government project, which in a way, I guess it is, but it’s more of a factory. Think soccer camp 24-7, 365 days a year. Boys as young as 15 leave their families and join a new support structure at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. If Harry Potter played soccer (and was American) he’d be at IMG, where they’re pumping out soccer wizards by the dozen.

Sounds fun. Right? Eddie thought it would be too, but he found it much more challenging than he originally guessed. “Everyone’s mentality is different,” Eddie said. “I went down there thinking it was going to be the greatest, perfect, but I realized I was wrong when I got there.” At 15 and 16, Eddie had all the basic adjustment issues. No family, brand new environment, away from everything he knew, except soccer, which had its own set of adjustments. New coaches, new teammates, serious competition, and marathon training sessions. This was not your normal high school.

In hindsight, however, the experience gets filtered through a newer, professional perspective. Eddie saw the program for what it represents beyond the hardships. It sits as a new method for US Soccer, even if it is a borrowed method. Eddie spoke of it in terms of a European mind-set, in that the US is building a network that will continually feed kids into a system designed to supply and improve national team rosters. It is wholly new to American team sports. Outside of the stereotypical Olympic pursuits like track and field or skiing, what has been going on in that quiet Gulf Coast town is revolutionary: young kids hand-picked and given all the resources and coaching needed to get every ounce of skill from their raw talent.

A huge part of the development is the chance to play the best teams from around the world. “It was a wonderful opportunity for us,” Eddie said. “Being so young, and being able to move away from home and get the training, playing different competition abroad or from MLS. I think if I hadn’t gone there, I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in right now. It really changed our whole perspective on who we were when we moved down there.” So it was a good thing. Whenever the best 18 or 20 players in their age group are brought together, what esle would one expect, accept results. Eddie said there’s seven or eight guys who go pro after the residency program.

If wasn’t for the youth World Cups, the argument goes, players wouldn’t know what to expect when throw to the wolves of international soccer. No clue how to act or play on the big stage. That has been an on-going theme for American soccer in the past. With the residency program producing kids like Eddie, that is beginning to change. It also helps that more guys are playing in Europe and MLS at very young ages. The maturing process is put into fast-forward… yes, even for Mr. Adu. And as with everything, it translates on to the field. Experience and youth are a dangerous combination in sports. They breed confidence and ego, the necessary ingredients for winning. Even the marketing has caught on. Don’t Tread On Me. Would that work with out ego? Hell no. It’s all in the self-confidence. And it’s overflowing in guys like Landon, Beasley, Gooch, and Eddie. They want to be the best and aren’t fazed by the detractors whether at home in the papers or abroad in the stadiums.

Beyond the ego, though, still remains the need for skill, and again Eddie credits the residency program, allowing for growth with an unmatched environment in which to study the game. Thus, evenly matched, the devil on Eddie’s left shoulder shares time with the angel on his right. And it’s a dancing angel. His astute eye for the game came to life when he talked about things like Latin soccer in terms of music (salsa and meringue). He envisions his favorite players dancing to music with a ball at their feet. “It’s art,” he said. “It’s what you can draw when you’re on the field. As I matured and got older and paid attention to the players I liked, I think they’re out there drawing with the ball, creating beautiful pictures.”

And so it was, beautiful pictures with goals left in the wake of the rising arc of Eddie Johnson. It’s a trajectory every soccer kid wants to follow. As Eddie’s teens years waned, his game exploded. After coming from the U-20 World Cup and winning the Golden Boot, he started playing consistently last year with FC Dallas. Then came the US MNT success and the absurd stats every story is obligated to print. And that brings us back up to speed with what most papers think is fit to print (and sell).

Eddie’s confidence was as sky high. It was one of those only Eddie can stop Eddie kind of things. Welcome 2005. Eddie stopped Eddie - a slight plateau in the arc. Injuries devoured his MLS season and later stages US MNT qualifying. If Eddie’s name ever showed up in print, it was inevitably regarding a re-injury. We got glimpses after the first injury, the ghost of Eddie Johnson showed up just in time to vanish again.

But it’s just a road bump, Eddie promises. It is nothing chronic; it will go away. And the arc will continue, hopefully rising up to next summer. But now we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Eddie needs to rest, recuperate and rehab. But he’s got to be sick of talking about his foot - even for a soccer player. So I leave the injury subject with a guess at his next few months: rest, sit, sleep, and rejuvenate. Anything to add Eddie?

“I’ll be stronger. It will get me that much more focused come January when the national team camp opens. And next summer, it’s anyone’s trophy.”

And there he went. Getting ahead of himself. But who can blame him? All Eddie has right now are the memories and the future. The anticipation is already there, and we still have a whole month left in 2005.

I let the topic die, thinking I should change the subject. I asked Eddie to look back over his career and talk about the progress of not only his game, but our game.

We decided that unlike the other sports where players simply have to play, soccer stars seem to have to be salesmen as well. In that regard, I’ve tagged Landon to join the UN and Taylor to donate his genes. I have Eddie teaming with Spike Lee (a huge soccer fan and Liga season-ticket holder), bringing soccer to the kids. Like the late, great Ole Dirty Bastard once said uninvited on the Grammy’s stage. It’s all for the children.

Right now - let’s face it - the kids aren’t playing soccer. Ok, maybe kids are, but men aren’t. It is a fact that most American kids are playing about a half dozen other sports besides soccer. That’s not what happens in Europe, but that’s not going to change in our country. That’s precisely why Eddie is so big on the residency program. He thinks that all the different sports help the overall athleticism of American soccer, something just about everyone gives up as our biggest advantage, but he knows that focus needs to be turned on at some point.

He brought up the MLS Cup Final when we started talking about the focus on the American game. He was surprised the fans were so quiet. In that moment, Eddie reminded me of Bruce Arena, in that he was calling for the fans to step up. He didn’t want people to buy a bunch of swag like Bruce; he just wants a rowdy crowd.

“The fans were quiet for 90 minutes,” Eddie remembered from being at the Cup final. “We want to see the crowd getting into the game, even when things aren’t going well. I think that’s how the players get motivated.” Better fans breed better soccer. The customer, they say, is always right. Maybe we need to expect more to get more. This of course means putting in the effort required to deserve more, which we haven’t been doing.

Player, role model, teacher, fan, artist, etc, etc. I’ve used or hinted at just a few adjectives here in regards to Eddie. Thing is, I just couldn’t pick just one. To Atiba Jefferson (check out the interview with the Skateboarding photog legend in the archives), he was the embodiment of hip-hop, but any word, phrase, genre, or label you want to stick on the man, it just doesn’t tell the whole story. Maybe that is why all of newspaper articles focused on the rise for poverty, and why I ended up talking almost exclusively about the residency program. Eddie draws you in with one thing or another, it’s up to you to box that into something you can share, which can never explain it all. That’s why he is American Soccer, and that also explains as best I can what I’ve learned so far. This game I’m following is an existential pursuit. It is what you think it is. It is what I think it is. It’s everything all at the same time. The individual defines everything. And Eddie is an individual.

The Eddie Johnson Supplement

Eddie had so much to say about so many different subjects during our conversation – and I was so interested in the residency program (mainly because I wish I could have attended) – that I just couldn’t fit everything into the story. I tried, but it came in around 9000 words. So I cut it, saving what I thought was the best part – the residency program. But that left some good leftovers. Here they are:

Aside from immigrants, soccer is a predominantly white, suburban sport in America? What would you say is the most important thing people can do around the sport to get more players from urban areas?

EJ: It’s going to take guys that are coming up with the same background as I did. Also, the more success myself, Beasley, and Goochie, have, whether it’s me with scoring records, Gooch being the best defender ever in America, it’s going to take something exciting from us. Maybe it’s doing appearances in inner-city environments. Whatever it takes, it’s us having a lot of success. If we’re not having success, how are these guys going to have African-American role models to look up to that are from the inner cities. I think it’s good to show the rest of America the talent there is in inner cities. To be in that category, I’m honored, but never on the field do I think about that. I’m very focused for 90 minutes.

Is it just fun at this point, playing for the US MNT, or is it still daunting to be out there sometimes?

EJ: We enjoy it. Even walking onto the field for International games, you know, we’re talking and joking around, but at the same time, we’re still nervous because we have that much respect for the game. You know, when you slip on a US jersey, it’s the best of the best and it doesn’t get any better than that. Even though you know what you’ve done in the past games, all that matters is what you do now. We’re pretty focused before any game. It’s not what you were doing before; it’s what you’re doing now.

What kind of advice can you give guys going into residency or national camp?

EJ: I can tell you, that for the guys coming in, really be real mature about what they’re doing down there for. If I had taken it that much more serious, how much better would have been or would I have started playing earlier in my professional career? Be very mature when there are times you want to goof off and go places with your friends.

Is bringing style into a soccer game important?

EJ: Oh totally! Even though I’m not in Europe right now, I wake up everyday like I’m in Europe. I wear the clothes, I try to when I’m on the field and score goals and do things players abroad would be doing…try to get them to focus on American players more.

I’ve seen it in a few of the videos knocking around on the internet, but is Clint actually good at freestyling?

EJ: Clint is sick, man. He’s talented, man. The style, the way he plays, represents how he is; represents the kind of player he is. He’s different, he’s skillful, a crafty midfielder when he gets on the field, he gets the crowd’s attention cause that’s what kind of player he is. That’s the same way he is off the field. On our way to practice, he gets my word and starts freestyling to the word… there’s been times he’s been in the van on the way to practice. He starts flowing the minute we get in the van, and we get to the soccer field. I was like, man, “how do you think of all that stuff? What comes to your head?