Company's ad boosts Pope as role model

6-9-98

By ROB DANIELS, Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- The adidas-appointed "Defender of American Soccer" is a man of few words and a calm, measured game. No funky hair, no rock bands on the side, few goals scored.

It is not the typical profile for a pitchman -- regardless of the product -- and High Point's Eddie Pope may never become a celebrity in the traditional sense of the word. But those who put on the TV advertising campaign knew all that. They also knew the title fit well enough that they could promote substance over style.

Pope, born Christmas Eve 1973, will be the youngest American on the field when the team begins World Cup play on Monday. Named the top defender in Major League Soccer last season, he's one of only two players on the 22-man World Cup roster to have spent his entire pro career on these shores. Who better to play the part of one American against the world, as the adidas commercial depicts Pope in its spot promoting the World Cup?

"I'm about as American as it gets," the former Southwest Guilford Cowboy, North Carolina Tar Heel and current D.C. United star said the other day. He wasn't bragging.

"What's important is that he's a role model for what we hope will be millions of kids," said Hank Steinbrecher, the secretary general of the U.S. Soccer Federation and the coach at Appalachian State from 1977-80. "He's not quite there yet, but I think he has the potential to be our best player ever out of this country."

That might sell a few shoes.

This week, Pope begins to fulfill one of several athletic dreams he had as a kid when the U.S. takes on Germany, Yugoslavia and Iran as France stages the World Cup. At least from time to time, he'll find himself marking the premier attacking player of a nation that cares far more about soccer than his own does.

And he will do it after taking over for Alexi Lalas, who has been and will forever be the most marketable American player. He's the fellow with the long locks and the goatee who originally asked to be assigned to the New England Revolution of MLS so he could be near Boston's music scene.

For Pope, simply cracking the roster was cause for an understated celebration.

"You never know with these teams," he said. "I never wanted to say I was on it, then have something bad happen. Once it was named, then I took a deep breath."

There's a reason for that. It wouldn't be entirely fair to the people of High Point or the University of North Carolina to say Eddie Pope came out of nowhere. But it wouldn't be accurate to say he went about this national team thing the standard way.

For so many, it is so so easy, so pro forma. They zone in on soccer at the age of 4, make youth national teams one by one and make names for themselves. Promotion becomes inevitable.

Never so for Pope, who didn't play a minute for a national team until he cracked the Under-23s in 1994.

George Pope was an offensive guard at Allen University in Columbia, S.C., and he clung to the notion his son would play football. Eddie did -- well enough, in fact, to kick a 48-yard field goal for Southwest Guilford and become the first East-West All-Star in both football and soccer. The youngster also dabbled in baseball and basketball, which divided his time.

And George Pope said there may have been something else at work to explain his son's exclusion.

"Soccer is a very political arena," he said. "It has changed now, but before, black children looked at soccer as a white, country club sport in part. And they weren't necessarily made welcome in part. That is changing a great deal now."

The Popes have now created a foundation that seeks to introduce inner-city children to the sport in both the Triad and Washington. On Saturdays, kids congregate at Springfield Recreation Center in High Point, and the local organization hopes to expand to Winston-Salem in the future.

Eddie Pope showed up at UNC with intentions of playing football and soccer, but he soon realized the opportunities in soccer were greater. Through a distinguished four-year career, he started showing U.S. Soccer what it hadn't seen -- for whatever reasons -- before.

"It's probably not the normal path, but I just kept playing and kept playing and I got in the right channels," he said. "Once I got to Chapel Hill, that made it perfect."

He finished his eligibility in '95, entered the MLS draft and went for it, deciding to ignore offers from European teams. Even though MLS was about to enter its inaugural season, nothing would come easily.

"Definitely a huge jump," Pope said. "I got thrown in the fire, which is the best way, I think. Just get in there, make your mistakes, learn from them and hammer it out."

An eventful 1996 will almost certainly become known as the year that made a career, as Pope got his first taste of pro ball and made his first major international team, the Olympic squad coached by D.C. United's Bruce Arena, formerly of the University of Virginia.

"Two months into the Olympic training camp, you could see he was making progress," Arena said. "And then he had his ups and downs in the first half of the MLS season, but once he returned from the Olympics, he continued to show steady improvement."

It would lead to a moment unlike any other in his career to date. United had forced overtime in MLS' first-ever championship game, and five minutes into the sudden-death period, Pope dashed downfield and established himself on the receiving end of a corner kick. When he slammed one through during a storm that would pelt Boston with six inches of rain in 24 hours, he had earned a measure of fame.

"That was the moment," Pope said. "You know you're having fun when you've won the first championship. As a team that's something nobody can take from us because we made history. Once that happened, things started to go really well for me."

Dad, unaware the overtime was of the sudden-death variety, had gone to the men's room. He had to have Eddie explain it to him later.

"His reply to me was, 'I was in the right spot and they put it on my head and I had to convert it,'" George Pope said. "That's Edward. He never wants to take credit for anything."

Indeed, Eddie Pope was so impressed with himself that he got on a plane the next morning and flew back to Chapel Hill, continuing a two-month commute between his team and his university, where he was still working toward his degree. He has about a year to go in political science.

"Two days after the game, I was in class," he said. "Happy in class, but I was in class."

Still, nothing was set in stone. Pope had to put forth another brilliant season in 1997 -- and he did -- to become a fixture on the World Cup team.

"Once I was able to get on the national team and get around good players -- right after the end of that 1996 season -- I was able to gain a little more confidence in my game," he said.

And by the end of '97, it was becoming apparent that he wasn't going to get nudged off by anybody. As a defender, Pope works hard but never seems in a hurry. He's not going to go for the flashy tackle when solid, patient position defending will do. He generally repels the thorniest of situations with a kick out of danger that goes to a teammate, not the 10th row.

"Eddie has picked it up by being a great competitor," Arena said. "He has improved in his reading of the game. He doesn't just depend on his quickness and speed. He has become an educated defender."

So the great defender part of it was coming together. The American part soon followed.

The foreign teams have not stopped calling, offering to get Pope out of his MLS contract and bring him overseas. The day before the final World Cup tune-up, three English reporters questioned Pope about his interest in the Premier League. Minutes after that game, in which the U.S. defense ran its streak of scoreless minutes to 375, a team in Germany's powerful top division made a pitch.

Pope's not jumping from MLS. Not yet.

"I think you have to start somewhere," he said. "MLS is good for us. We have a lot of great foreigners who keep the level of the league high and a lot of great Americans who have played abroad and keep the level of the league high. For us younger players, the fact that we get to train in that setting every day and have games as often as possible is good as well."

"Right now, he feels good about the relationship he has with MLS," George Pope said. "We have to see how it develops. We won't say (a move) won't happen. We hope he is able to maintain and be happy here. We hope for that."

And for that, the power-brokers at U.S. Soccer, which oversees the national team and which gave birth to MLS, are grateful enough to have made Pope a marquee player. Claudio Reyna is known as the best young born-and-bred American currently playing the game, but there's one catch. He plays in Germany and, armed with a sweetheart contract, he's not coming home any time soon.

"The decision he made to stay here in this country and play when I know there were a lot of teams looking for him speaks volumes about Eddie and speaks volumes about his parents, who have brought him up the right way," Steinbrecher said.

The commercial is perfect for its star. Pope stands alone with dozens of foreign players -- all wearing their national team jerseys -- running at him. Pope speaks calmly about how nobody respects American soccer or its players. It is not whiny. It just questions whether the skepticism is accurate.

"Very simple and to the point and it represents him," his dad said. "It fits Edward."

"I thought it was great," Eddie Pope said. "I felt lucky to be in that spot because it's a great commercial for the team and a great statement for American soccer. It's a statement for me, too but definitely more for the team and American soccer as a whole. You listen to the words and that says it all."

At the end, Pope says, "They think they can intimidate me. We'll see about that."

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