Solo's Cup quest was for her father

30.09.2007 15:00 Sport and Travel - Source: USA Today

The storyline is already familiar: Unbeaten Solo is benched by coach Greg Ryan for veteran goalkeeper Briana Scurry in Thursday's crucial semifinal game with Brazil.

The team suffers its worst World Cup loss in history as Brazil dances its way to a stunning and embarrassing 4-0 win.

After the game, 25-year-old Solo criticized her coach and derided 36-year-old Scurry's performance, saying, "The fact of the matter is, it's not 2004 anymore," a reference to the team's last significant victory: a gold medal win at the 2004 Athens Olympics in which Scurry was in goal for every minute of every game.

USA 4, NORWAY 1: Team wins third place match without SoloSHOCKER: Starting goalkeeper dismissed from team before final game

Solo clearly violated one of sport's biggest unwritten rules: Thou shalt not criticize your coach or teammates in public.

On the tradition-laden U.S. Women's National Team, Solo's outburst was unacceptable and her peers, led by the older players she indirectly denigrated, decided she should not play in Sunday's third-place game against Norway and could not watch from the stands.

"The circumstance that happened and her going public has affected the whole group," said Kristine Lilly, the 36-year-old forward who is playing in a record fifth World Cup. "And having her with us would still be a distraction."

While Solo's actions were clearly unacceptable in a team context, there's a backstory that makes her emotional reaction at least understandable:

Her father, Jeffrey, died of heart failure June 15 at 69.

She sprinkled her father's ashes in the goal box before every World Cup game on a mission to take him with her to a world championship.

"The only one who really knew me was my father," she said.

The U.S. Women's National Team declined to make Solo and other players available for interviews after she was sanctioned, but USA TODAY spoke with her and several teammates about her father before the World Cup.

"I always had a very unique, close relationship with my father," Solo said. "He was the happiest man I've ever known. He enjoyed the simple life. He never judged another person. His heart was pure."

Her parents divorced when she was 6 and her father, a U.S. military veteran, lived occasionally on the streets of Seattle or in a tent in the woods outside the city.

He was her first soccer coach when she began playing at age five. Her earliest games were two-on-twos, with Hope and her father against her three-year-older brother Marcus and half-brother Dave.

During her childhood he stayed in touch through letters.

"In those years, he'd write me long, long letters every single week," she said. "I have a deep, deep love for my dad, even when he wasn't around."

When she moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington, she would visit him on a regular basis.

"He'd call me from a pay phone, and we'd pick a place to meet. And I'd make him macaroni and cheese, and we'd sit in the woods in a tent and talk for hours," she said. "He understood life and sports, and that's why he knew me so well."

She rejects the label "homeless" and says her father was "a tough Italian guy who was raised in a boys home in the Bronx.

"He always had that street sense in him. In terms of being 'homeless,' I'm always very careful not to define it that way. He chose to live in the woods. He enjoyed it. I'd offer him money, and he'd never take a dime. If I looked for him, I wouldn't look for him at a homeless shelter."

Jeffrey Solo eventually moved into a veterans retirement home and Hope Solo went on to a starring role as goalkeeper for the U.S. Women's National Team.

He attended all of his daughter's games at Washington, arriving four hours early to watch her warm up, but he had never seen her play for the national team.

He was looking forward to being at the Brazil game June 23 in East Rutherford, N.J., and giving Solo a tour of the Bronx. He died eight days before he could follow through with those plans.

"He was so excited to go back to his hometown, to see me in my USA jersey, to show me where he grew up," she said. "Instead, my mom, my brother and I took the trip to honor him. And we took some of my father (his ashes) with us. We took him to Yankee Stadium. My dad was the world's only Yankee and Red Sox fan."

Solo says soccer has been a refuge for her since her father died.

"Having the sport to get lost in has been the best thing for me. It feels so good to get back out there on the field; even in training, it feels so good — thinking about nothing else for two hours.

"As far as being around the team, it's hard, as much as they want to be there for me, I do know that it's all up to me to deal with it. As much as I want to turn to people, they'll never understand."

On July 14, two months after her father's death, she shut out Norway 1-0.

"I was extra focused and playing for my father," she recalled. "Nothing bothered me. I didn't care if I was making (coach) Greg (Ryan) happy, or anybody happy, but making my own decisions and making my father proud."

Teammate and sometimes roommate Cat Whitehill said it was clear what Solo was thinking.

"I could just see it in her eyes," Whitehill said. "The defenders and the goalkeeper come together and we talk right on the field, and we do a little cheer right before the game begins. And I just looked in her eyes, and I could see that this game was completely for her dad, and completely to honor him, and I just think that's how she's going to look at soccer for a really long time."

Said goalkeepers coach Phil Wheddon: "No one would wish the loss of a family member to give them incentive to play harder and try harder, but Hope has taken this and said, 'I'm going to play in honor of my father, and I'm going to play well for him.' It's given her even more incentive to be the best in the world.'"

Solo admitted she has a difficult time dealing with hard times.

"I do handle things by myself," she said. "I'm not saying it's a good trait, but my teammates tell me all the time, 'Hope, you need to lean on people. We're here for you. Don't put it all on your shoulders.' That's difficult for me."

Former Washington player and national teammate Tina Ellertson said her friend struggled to cope.

"To see her go through that was really, really, really hard. I know that she's hurting," Ellertson said. "She's missing her dad like crazy. She's mourning. She's feeling everything. She's just trying her best to deal with it, to cope with it. It's just a sad thing to see. Very sad."

With her father gone, Solo couldn't turn to him when the World Cup went bad.

"He was a sports fanatic," she said. "We'd talk for hours and hours about sports. He understood life and sports, and that's why he knew me so well. After bad games, he always knew what to say to me."

The team's World Cup media guide includes every player's choice of inspirational Chinese characters.

Solo selected xian gei fu qin.

It means, "For my dad."

***

Jill Lieber Steeg reported from San Diego

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