Playing for More Than Kicks

Duke men's soccer forward John Kerr won a trip to next weekend's national championship with his two-goal, one-assist performance against Harvard Sunday.

Somewhere along the way, he lost something far more important.

"It's a tremendous feeling, but not only for ourselves," Kerr said at the post-game press conference. "This was also for the Duke community and for American soccer. We played against all these foreigners, imported to play soccer, and we proved a point."

Some points should never be proven, never even conceived.

Ten of Harvard's 18 players have foreign addresses. "Those figures are indicative of the entire Harvard student body, as 74 countries are represented in Harvard's undergraduate enrollment," reads a note in the Crimson press packet.

Duke's roster is 28 men deep. Not one player hails from outside the continental United States.

"Green card, green card," chanted the overflow crowd at Duke Soccer Field. "If you can't go to Duke, go to Harvard. If you can't play in Europe, play for Harvard."

Everyone laughed.

"It was obvious from the start, when everybody was chanting 'USA, USA'," Kerr said. "I've played internationally, and when you go to a country like Costa Rica, you get your share of abuse. But those American flags in the stands today helped us. I didn't see too many Harvard flags waving."

The American flags waved alongside the Duke banners: red, white and Go Blue.

"What we have are genuine Harvard players," Crimson Coach Jape Shattuck responded to questioners after the game. "All of them have SAT scores over 1300, all are real genuine students, and that's the kind of people we're looking for. To me, it doesn't make any difference where they're from."

Everyone knows what it is to be a fan. To be ridiculously partisan.

Sunday, Crimson goalie Chad Reilly bore the brunt of the Duke fans' offensive salvoes. "We're glad, you're Chad," they sing-songed. "Chad eats quiche."

Ridiculous, but not out of the ordinary.

Somehow, whether at Bright Center or Fenway Park or Duke Soccer Field, I never used to give those taunts a second thought. If they were clever, I chuckled, if they were stupid, I groaned, if they were biting, I worried a bit about the athlete's ego.

I never realized that there might be something real behind the laughter.

But for the 28 Duke players and 6000 spectators gathered at the Duke Soccer Field Sunday, there was an unusual undertone to the usual partisanship. Something bitter.

Something that could drive the likes of John Kerr, one of the most talented collegiate soccer players in the country, to spoil the simple dignity of the sport.