ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 14, 1996 TAG: 9607150045
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
VIRGINIA'S BILLY WALSH has made the U.S. men's Olympic soccer team, but unless the Americans make the medal round they'll be playing elsewhere. the schedule allows.
To some athletes, the Olympic experience might mean marching in the opening ceremonies, meeting athletes from other countries and seeing as many events as
On the night the Summer Games officially get under way in Atlanta, Billy Walsh will be sitting in a hotel room in Birmingham, Ala., observing curfew before the men's soccer team opens play against Argentina.
``Isn't that weird?'' said Walsh, a University of Virginia sophomore. ``The only time we'll be in Atlanta is Monday and Tuesday for processing.''
It almost makes him sound like a cold cut.
If the Olympics aren't exactly as he imagined, at least Walsh will be on the team. That wasn't a foregone conclusion when tryouts began in January.
``I guess I wasn't going to come here if Timo [Liekoski] was the coach,'' said Walsh, who had played for Bruce Arena, who became the Olympic coach when Liekoski was fired. ``I was a long shot.''
Arena ``told me there were no guarantees. But, I figured, What the hell! I'm not missing anything in the spring but a boring spring soccer season and some classes.'''
When the final cuts were announced, Walsh was one of six Cavaliers who had made the team. There are at least 10 Olympians from UVa - the school has not received final word on the status of Kenyan runners Paul Ereng and Ben Kurgat - but Walsh is the only one certain to be in school in the fall.
Baseball pitcher Seth Greisinger has another year of eligibility for the Cavaliers, but he is expected to sign a contract with the Detroit Tigers, who selected him in the first round of the June draft.
Walsh, 20, is the youngest of the UVa Olympians and the second-youngest player on the Olympic men's soccer team.
``Some of the guys knew they had the team made,'' said Walsh in a phone interview from the team's last training stop in Northern Virginia, ``but there were about eight of us thinking, `What's up?' I was surprised that [teammates Mike] Fisher and Scott Vermillion got cut.''
Walsh was one of three members of the Cavaliers' 1995 team to be selected, while a fourth, Mike Fisher, was named an alternate. Fisher, who received the Hermann Trophy as college soccer's best player, declined that role.
``I'm really looking forward to playing at UVa in my senior season,'' Fisher said in a news release. ``That's where I have the most fun. Over the past few months, I played every position but goalkeeper. That was tough, moving around all the time, because you don't get comfortable.''
Walsh, a midfielder from Chatham, N.J., has scored 21 goals in his two-year UVa career, but it was his adaptability that earned him a spot on the Olympic team.
``I would think that the next Olympic team is going to be composed of full-fledged professional players,'' Arena said. ``What Billy has been able to do to separate himself from other players is that he can really fill a role as a defensive midfielder, [a position] where we need players.''
Nevertheless, Walsh will play behind former Cavaliers Claudio Reyna and Damian Silvera. Reyna was the national player of the year in 1993.
``I won't start,'' Walsh said. ``I don't even know if I'll get in a game. It helped at the start to know Bruce's system, but after two weeks, that didn't make a difference.
``I think the team's getting really good right now. Most people don't think we'll do anything. Who knows? It's a tough first game, but I think we'll do pretty well - better than people think.''
If the United States survives pool play, with two games in Birmingham and one July 24 in Washington, D.C., it would advance to a quarterfinal in Birmingham or Miami. Olympic men's soccer will wind up with semifinals July 30-31 and the final Aug.3 in Athens, Ga., and Walsh will be off until UVa starts practice Aug.14.
``I'm actually looking forward to school,'' Walsh said. ``It's been really tough, the longest seven months of my life. It's just been soccer every day. I'm glad I did it now. I would think it's made me a better player.''
Walsh, Fisher and Vermillion, whose Olympic bid was cut short by injury, will be the leaders of former assistant George Gelnovatch's first team. Walsh expects Gelnovatch to bring added energy to the program, not that Arena has been mellow during Olympic preparations.
``For a while there, we didn't see him that much,'' said Walsh, alluding to Arena's duties as coach of D.C. United in Major League Soccer, ``but, right now, he's heavily into it. He believes we'll go and, once he believes, everybody else falls in line.''
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DAVID L. BREENE. 1. Virginia's Billy Walsh ``can reallyby CNBfill a role as a defensive midfielder, [a position] where we need
players,'' said Bruce Arena, the U.S. Olympic men's soccer coach.
color. (headshots) 2. Walsh. 3. Greisinger. Graphic: Chart by staff:
UVA Olympians.