|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Simms gets opportunity on international stage
By Nathan Summers, The Daily Reflector
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Last Wednesday, 22-year-old Clyde Simms kicked it in Panama for a night. When he came home this past weekend, he went back to kicking it in Washington, D.C. And for a guy who once kicked it at East Carolina University on a regular basis, and kicked it well, this lifestyle isbecoming a regular thing.
Simms first kicked it – a ball, that is – as a 5-year-old child in Jamestown, despite the fact his dad hoped he'd pick it up and start bouncing it instead. He's been kicking it ever since and has volleyed himself into the international soccer community, a seeming far cry from the Greenville he once called home.
Because soccer and America have not always gone hand-in-hand, precious few people lined Bunting Field to watch the Simms-led Pirates from 2000-03. But the team captain was out there and part of the world was watching, even if from a distance.
Because of it, Simms is now seeing the world, earning a spot on the U.S. national soccer team that stands on the brink of a berth into the 2006 World Cup, thanks largely to a 3-0 shutout win in Panama Wednesday. But this dream-come-true is only a fringe benefit of Simms' full-time domestic gig with D.C. United, a team that has helped Major League Soccer celebrate a 10th anniversary this year.
While many persist in thinking soccer and America will never mesh, anew, much hipper brand of soccer player has established a foothold in America – boosted largely by America's success in the 2002 World Cup –that looks and plays a little more like its running the floor, the bases or even a passing route.
And Simms is one of them, the ones who chose soccer but is no stranger to America's more traditional athletic disciplines. Eddie Johnson,Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley are the current embodiment of American soccer, but players like Simms are waiting in the wings with even more experience.
The remarkable speed at which Simms – who spent a season with the A-League's Richmond Kickers in 2004 before being plucked away by theU.S. team and MLS almost simultaneously – has made it as one of the prominent talents in the country is a surprise upon which even he can't put a handle.
"Even when I was playing with Richmond last year, I was thinking to myself that I was playing well, having a good year with them. And even then, I thought it was a little far-fetched to be playing MLS period,let alone a year later," Simms said. "This is definitely a fun time in my life. The experience I've had with the national team the last couple of weeks has really been unbelievable."
What might have started as a pipe dream has evolved in a mere matter of months into something very real. Reality Wednesday night for Simms wasthe steady thunder of 17,000 raucous fans crammed into Panama City's Estadio Rommel Fernandez. After earning his first international cap May 28 in the final seconds of a home loss to England, Simms' number was not called against Panama.
But for now, the experience alone is important for one of the youngest players on the American team.
"It was wild," Simms said of Wednesday's match. "The atmosphere in the stadium, you couldn't believe. We were warming up, playing a possession game, and we couldn't even hear each other on the field it was so loud.You've got fans throwing stuff at you. It was a great experience."
The biggest adjustment for Simms is simple to define – this is the first time in his soccer playing life he's not the best player on his team. A three-year captain on the ECU team, Simms was everything to the Pirates. Michael Benn became the club's head coach during Simms' senior season, but was with him and ECU for what was the beginning of are markable four-year growth spurt for Simms.
"Clyde certainly came in as a very, very good player, and he certainly grew in leaps and bounds in his time here," said Benn. "When he stepped foot on campus as a freshman, he was our best player on the team. And we asked a lot of him. He played in the central midfield role for us,and from day one, we put responsibility on his shoulders. He gladly accepted that. He was an amazing leader for us."
At 5-9, 165-pounds, Simms is the prototype for the central midfieldspot, moving with blinding speed to help his team recover on defense,and serving as a turbine on offense, driving the team up the field. His stats are about par for the course – zero goals and zero assists inseven matches for D.C. United so far this season. That's because middle midfielder in modern soccer systems is akin to middle reliever in baseball. But Simms is by no means invisible, filling a role that could make him a mainstay both in MLS and in international play for years tocome.
While he said he has yet to even have a face-to-face conversation with U.S. coach Bruce Arena, Simms said he knows where his game stands, and knows where it needs to go for him to stick around and possibly liveout most young players' dreams of ultimately playing for a European club team, where he said the game is at its best and the money's even better.
"I would love to become a mainstay for the national team and one day beable to play in Europe, hopefully sooner than later," said Simms, who added his dream would be complete if he someday played for England's Manchester United. D.C. United certainly isn't a bad start.
"I just can't get complacent," said Simms, whose D.C. club plays at New Jersey's MetroStars today in MLS action. "Things are going well right now, but I've got to remember how I got here. At this level, everyone is fit and everyone is faster and quicker. I'm paying more attention to the little things now. At this level, I guess it is more mental because everyone has the physical aspects."
Simms represents the culture shift of American soccer into suburbs and cities. The one-time Southern Guilford star's face popped up in a Sports Illustrated graphic depicting the rapid growth of the game among black American males. On a mocked-up version of a field, Simms is manning his usual spot in the middle along with the other top African American players currently starring here and abroad – fellow North Carolinian Eddie Pope among them. The graphic indicates that for the first time, America could field an all-black U.S. team featuring exclusively seasoned players and rising stars like Simms.
But that is no longer the exception to the rule in a country where soccer stars come from every background. Simms' own soccer journey was probably looked at by his father, Clyde Simms III, as a monster he'd created.
"My dad actually signed me up when I was five for a rec league, and he was actually my first coach," said Simms, who also recalled playing two levels ahead of other kids his age before he was 10. "He knew nothing about soccer, other than what he had read. He never played.
"My dad really wanted me to play basketball because that's what he played growing up. I think the only reason I played basketball as long as I did was because my dad really wanted me to, kind of forced me to."
Simms returns to the U.S. team later this month.
Nathan Summers can be reached at (252)329-9595. or at nsummers@coxnews.com. |
|
|
|
|
