| |
Part
One
On
his version of "Born In The USA", Springsteen was ten
years down the road with nowhere to go, nowhere to run. Jay DeMerit
is two years down his road, but he already got to where he wants
to be. But there's still a long road stretching out in front of
him.
Two countries separated only by a common language. That was the
popular view of England and the United States of America. But that's
not the half of it. Between us doesn't simply lie the Atlantic Ocean.
Attitudes to all sorts of things are completely different, for good
and bad, whichever side of the pond you are.
That's never more true than in the approaches we take to games,
to sport, to competition. To coin a phrase from the old gangster
movies of Edward G. Robinson and Jimmy Cagney, "Foist is foist
and second ain't no place".
Perhaps that's too harsh for English tastes where the gallant loser
ranks high among our sporting icons. But in the States, there's
no such thing as a gallant loser. Just losers. And that attitude
brings out a special kind of professionalism in those that play
sports at the top level. People like Jay DeMerit, Watford's own
American friend.
"Attitude is the biggest thing. I'm new at this game, but my
whole life has been competitive sports so I understand what it takes
to do well. I've seen kids at all sorts of different sports with
so much talent, but they don't have the right attitude and they
fall by the wayside. Coming from where I do, it's very difficult
for me to understand how people do that, how people let it go.
They don't understand how fortunate they are to be in that position.
Why wouldn't they want to do the most, the best, work the hardest
they can to stay in that position?
"I think maybe that's an American thing, I think it's maybe
drilled into us from an early age as the competitive nation that
we are, we're groomed that way. We're taught to do that at a young
age, to take things on board, to take criticism. I grew up with
coaches in different sports that were very hard on you, very critical,
even my parents would do that, but in the right ways, very constructive.
They're only trying to help you. If you can take that on at a young
age, you learn how to deal with those things and it's easier to
handle when you're in the spotlight. Any piece of criticism is short-term,
it's something you're doing now. But if you keep focusing on the
bigger picture, on getting better, that only pushes you on. You
have to have that mentality here. The season is so long, there are
bound to be ups and downs and so you have to keep the right attitude
through it all."
There's a healthy dose of realism in what Demerit says, but there's
a hint of surprise, maybe irritation too when he reflects back on
the people he's met along the way in his English sojourn, a spell
that began when he arrived in this country with little more than
the clothes he stood up in and a burning desire to play football
for a living.
"I guess I roughed it for a year or more here before I got
the chance. Playing non-league, I heard so many people in the changing
rooms and afterwards saying "I was at Bristol Rovers",
"I was at Tottenham", "I was at Coventry". Well,
great. But you're not there now!
There were so many players in non-league who could have done a lot
better because they had the talent and that was so strange to me.
And there'd be talk about his player or that player in the professional
game, saying he's no good. Well, maybe. But he's playing at a professional
club. He's doing it. You're at a non-league club. Why would you
even talk about that?
"It drove me on, to not take it for granted if I ever got to
the point of playing professionally. It was another good experience,
another thing to remind me that getting here was one thing, but
staying here is what matters then. And to not slag people off when
you get here, because they must be doing something right to play
professional sports.
"It's one thing to get a chance, but it's another to take it.
Getting an invitation to come to Watford, that was great, but that
wasn't enough. I wasn't coming here just for an experience, so I
had to give it everything. Even my first season, a one year contract
is a one year trial basically so I took that as a challenge and
I've made it work out for me so far.
"My initial trial, every day I came in and made sure I was
at it, trying to impress. That was the attitude I needed to push
through. It's hard. A lot of times, people come in on trial and
don't get a kick, or play 10 minutes at the end of a reserve game,
they don't get a fair look in.
The fortunate thing for me was they were short on centre-halves
so I got to play a full 90 minutes in the reserves. I got two of
them before I played for the first team and it was those games that
got me through. I had the chance to showcase what I'd got and they
had time to see me. That was the break, getting time to play. Once
you get the break, don't screw it up."
We're getting a little ahead of ourselves here of course. We need
to ask ourselves just how it is that we've got an American playing
for Watford. And not an American that we plucked from the MLS or
another club in this country or abroad, but an American that nobody
had ever heard of before. How come he's not pitching a baseball
or making a touchdown back home in Wisconsin?
"People tend to think that Americans aren't too interested
in "soccer", but in fact, it's the most popular sport
that kids play, because it's so easy. You only need a ball, no equipment
like you do in baseball or American Football. Up until the age where
sport starts to become more organised, when you get to High School,
everybody plays it. I was no different, just playing in my home
town in Green Bay and really enjoyed it. We played mostly in the
summer, then in the fall and winter, it'd be basketball, track,
so I was an all round athlete really.
"Summer camp is a big thing in the States and a lot of times,
kids go there and there are a lot of good sports coaches there.
When I was growing up, there was a bunch of Dutch guys who came
over in the summer and they'd have a camp called Winning Mood and
everybody was so excited because they were from the Netherlands!
They could charge extra because of that. But we loved having people
coming in from abroad because that's where the tradition is, the
talent, they've played at the highest level and we just wanted to
learn. I did a couple of good university camps in the mid-west,
but that was pretty much all I played growing up.
"Soccer happened to be the sport I was best at, had maybe the
best future in, and I got a couple of offers for college scholarships.
I took one at the University of Illinois in Chicago because they
had the degree I wanted - you don't really dream of being a professional
sportsman, you're still years away from that, so you want to get
your education right at least!"
Having done that, Jay was ready to get involved in football full
time, but back home, nobody was giving him the chance. In the past,
Americans hitched up the covered wagons and went west in search
of a new frontier. But DeMerit is anything but predictable. He came
east.
"I reached a point where I didn't have anything set in stone
in the States and I was getting frustrated because I thought I deserved
a shot at it. I had an English friend in Chicago, he was going back
to England, and suggested I should come with him, so I thought,
"Why not? I don't owe anyone here any favours, give it a shot."
My thinking was to aim high and if it didn't work out, I could always
come home. Once I got here and took in what football is really about
over here, experienced the atmosphere, the passion people have for
it, I was ready to do anything I had to, to try to achieve it.
"I got a lot of knock backs here, I played non-league football
for over a year. When you play at that standard for that long, you
do say, "This isn't what I came for!"
I just always knew in the games I played, it was only a matter of
time before I got a chance. Sure, you need some luck but you also
need to put in the time. I was willing to do that because I had
the confidence in myself, that if the break came, I'd take it. Of
course you have thoughts about throwing it in especially when I
would go back home and see people doing other things, but it also
helps when your family and friends support you, tell you to keep
doing it. That was the base of it all.
"But once I was here, it was really something I wanted to be
a part of. The football and the place it has in things here was
the biggest culture shock for me, not the lifestyle. There's not
really a big difference between life here and America. As far as
day to day activities go, it's very similar. But the football was
totally new. I'd never been to a game where I heard people chanting
for 90 straight minutes, having people so passionate that they have
to sit on opposite sides of the stadium because they won't let them
mix. I'd never see anything like that. To have that was amazing
to me, channelled at the sport that I play. I'd been to American
football games, basketball, you see passionate fans, but to see
it for my sport, that was really exciting. That was another drive
for me to be a part of it.
"Even though I'd been to other sports, the atmosphere isn't
that intense. I guess American football is closest but even that's
not on the same level. A part of it is that you just don't get away
fans, certainly not in numbers, because the distances are so huge.
The competition aspect is big, but opposing fans will sit with each
other, there's friendly banter where here, football seems so much
more than that. I don't think there's any country in the world like
it for football and it was something I wanted to be a part of."
Two years and 80 first team games on, Jay is right at the very heart
of it, in the Premier League. It's been a rapid rise and, understandably,
it's one where he finds himself challenged on a daily basis.
"Premiership players think faster than players lower down.
That's the big difference. It's less physical than the Championship,
almost way less, it's the mental aside that counts. Always being
switched on. They can pick that pass out in a split second where
maybe in the Championship they take an extra touch. Those things
take time to develop, but not too much time hopefully!
"It's interesting to be in this league because the way it's
treated compared with the Championship is really different. The
media are pretty extreme here, you're either brilliant or you're
awful. In the states, you wouldn't be allowed to print half the
things they print here, there are so many rules, sanctions, laws.
Some of it is a little crazy.
All the things that were being written about Wayne Rooney, a few
weeks ago, it's like they can't wait to kick him down. But you have
to realise it is ridiculous, there's nothing you can do to change
that, and you kind of ignore it really, good and bad.
"I do think that people in this country find it harder to take
criticism, even when it's constructive. You can see that in the
way some people deal with the things that happen, from having things
said about you in the media, to being dropped, to being yelled at
by another player, there are all sorts of levels of it and handled
the right way, it's healthy. Take it on and learn from, don't get
uptight about it."
Where does Jay see that attitude taking him? What's the next plan
for this American abroad?
"I don't like to make predictions, long-term goals, because
you can get trapped by that. I tend to look less far ahead, short-term
objectives, then once I achieve those, I take another look.
I want to get better at my job. I've only been professional for
two years now, I'm the first to admit I still have a huge mount
to learn. Sometimes I don't understand why I'm here because I haven't
had time to soak it in, sometimes it seems impossible that I'm here.
But that's a good thing because I know I don't have time to sit
back and relax, I know careers are short and mine's even shorter
because I started later.
"I think the big thing is having the capacity to learn, the
right attitude to learning, and then you can only get better. I
just want to keep improving, improving, improving. Hopefully that
means I'm a success here, the team is a success and you get the
things that go with that like joining the national team. That's
a natural progression. In a simple way, that's my goal, to get better
every day. To come in, learn something else, work hard, go home
being a better player after every session we have. That's enough
to think about for the moment."
Part
Two
The
State of the Union
In
part one of this interview, Jay DeMerit told us a little about his
migration from Wisconsin to Watford. Now, from a distance, Jay looks
at just how football in the cradle of the game stacks up against
the way it's played Stateside.
One of the difficulties that the young Jay DeMerit faced back in
the States was that, with football along way down on the totem pole
as far as sporting activities go, finding a way into the game wasn't
easy.
Though he had a university scholarship that involved him playing
a lot of soccer, there was no easy route from there to club football.
Where in England, a promising youngster is snapped up by a club
pretty much at the moment of conception these days, than guided
through the Academy system, back in America, things are rather more
haphazard, a reflection of football's standing perhaps.
"There's no structure to football the way there is here at
Watford with the Academy. There are good club teams at youth level,
but they're mainly in the big cities. I had to travel to Milwaukee
which is two and a half hours away just to get to train if I wanted
to play at a good standard. The States is just too big to have a
large concentration of good teams. There are some good coaching
programs, a lot of very good coaches, but people have to travel
and sometimes you just can't do that, particularly as a kid."
We've already discussed the fact that circumstances eventually led
to Jay coming to England to try to make his way in the game, a game
that is very different not just to football back home, but to the
big sports in the States, basketball, American Football and so on.
The number of pro clubs fighting it out in the NFL, the NBA or whichever
league it is are comparatively small and there's certainly nothing
like the 92 club pro structure we have in this country.
What there is more of though is level playing field competition.
We've all wrung our hands over the huge discrepancy between the
resources available to Liverpool and those that clubs lower down
the scale can call upon, the more so since Roman Abramovich rolled
up and didn't simply move the goalposts but moved them to another
country. The idea of competition within the Premiership is fast
receding into historical quaintness. That doesn't happen in the
US. Not to the same extent anyway.
In the NFL, that's largely down to the salary cap and to the draft,
a mechanism that ensures that the very best players aren't all concentrated
in one or two teams, giving the worst team from the previous season
the first pick of the best players going into the new one, players
being registered with the governing body, not the clubs. Sounds
like a decent idea, if only to cut Chelsea off at the knees.
"The draft system is very different to what you have in England
and I think it makes the whole competition side of it all a bit
more even. If you have Chelsea or Manchester United who can just
bring in whoever they want, it's not exactly fair on the little
guys. It's obvious, but that's tradition, it's the way things are.
And I guess it just makes teams like us or Sheffield United fight
all the harder to beat the big guys. But the draft definitely makes
things a lot more competitive and even as a whole. Back home, Green
Bay Packers is a small team compared with others in the States,
but they won the Superbowl. I guess it's more achievable for them
to do that than it would be for Watford to win the Premier League
because you get a fair pick of the players.
"It brings in other parts of the game too, it's not just about
the most talented players. Like here, if Chelsea have the best players
in the world, it reduces the other aspects because they usually
have too much for the opposition. In the NFL, every team has a share
of the most talented players so then a lot more relies on team work,
attitude, tactics, coaching, there's more emphasis on that and it
makes it interesting. And you have to bring in the best young players
through your club to help get that edge because you add them to
the eight great players you got through the draft and you can have
something special.
Then three years out of school, those guys go to the draft and it
starts again. Your scouting has to be good, you have to bring in
the right players, you only get so many draft picks so you have
to make sure you get the right ones. Draft day is a crazy thing,
people making calls, making deals, trading so they can get better
picks, it's unbelievable. It's a whole different bag of chips to
what goes on in England.
"Saying that, as a player, the say you have in where you're
going to end up is basically zero, so American sports could take
a lot from us just as we could from them. Here, things are run more
like a business instead of a league. Each club is its own individual
thing where in the States, they're part of a bigger whole, the NFL
is the big thing and the teams are just a part of it."
As has been pointed out many times, Andy Boothroyd is the kind of
manager who looks all over for inspiration, including sporting disciplines
overseas. Jay can see an American influence in the goings on at
Watford.
"There are a lot of specialist coaches at this club which I
guess is unusual for teams here, but for me, that's what I'm used
to. I've grown up with that in the States and I think it works,
I think that different players in different positions need different
kinds of coaching. It's even more divided in the States, there's
offensive co-ordinators who don't even think about what happens
in defence because that's not their job. There are kicking coaches,
every kind of coach you can think of and we have some of that here.
Each position is different so that makes perfect sense to me."
For all his background, DeMerit has certainly taken to life in this
country, living in the capital, another opportunity that he clearly
relishes.
"I love living in London, in Camden. It's a great place, it's
a good mix for me to have the life in the city and then to work
outside it. It's good for my family and friends to be in the centre
of it, I can leave them on their own to do whatever they want.
It just seemed a better situation, a better solution for me. Coming
from Chicago, another big city, I liked that lifestyle. At my age,
that's not something I want to lose. I don't mind the extra little
bit of travelling, it's not that big of a distance and it gives
a good mix for me."
So England has a claim on Jay for some little while to come. But
wouldn't a move back to the MLS boost his chances of playing for
the national team?
"I don't think going back to play would help me at all to be
honest. I think playing in the Premier League is huge for me. I'm
a newcomer to this league, but it's one if the best in the world
and if we can stay at this level for a period of time, I think it's
going to be the most beneficial for me.
I think it's where I can learn most, improve quickest and where
the national coach will take the most notice of me. And anyhow,
people back home have started to take notice of me since we got
promoted. I've done a few stories, done a piece with "Sports
Illustrated" and that's nice, it's good for my chances with
the national team, but it comes with the territory now.
"At the moment, MLS isn't a league that can compete with the
Premier League, but it is making a lot of ground. It's been a long-term
thing in the States. When the NASL started back in the 1970s, the
first try at having a soccer league, it was just completely new
and it was hard for it to make a real impact because it was starting
from scratch.
Thirty years on, there's a bigger market. There's been a World Cup
in the States, the national team has done pretty well in some competitions,
so there are things to build on. I heard a comparison once about
why it doesn't catch on compared with other sports, and it's because
we are used to watching the very best in the world.
All the other sports, golf, tennis, track, boxing, basketball, whatever
it is, the best players in the world come to America to compete
week after week. With football, it's not that way and that's why
it doesn't get the following, because we know there are better people
playing somewhere else. That's definitely an issue, but it can only
be addressed over time, you have to build up to it over time to
reach that point.
"The interest is there and with the increasing foreign population
in the States, that has to have an impact because the rest of the
world is soccer mad. You're getting second generation kids of parents
who watched the game religiously back in Europe or in South America
and they're creating a swell of interest.
I think it's starting to be time for it to take off. The first four
seasons of the MLS, it looked like it might never make it. Now they're
in he tenth season, they're getting the best crowds ever, you're
getting purpose built stadiums instead of playing in American Football
stadiums built for 65,000 people and it dwarfs the crowd. So it's
moving forward.
"There's potentially a huge market there, a lot of people enjoy
it, tons of kids are playing, it's a big family sport, you go during
the day, they're not often night games, it's a day out, it has all
the ingredients to be potentially very, very good.
But the MLS has to attract bigger name players, names that mean
something, that will raise the standards, so the fans can go and
see players who just did a great job in the World Cup.
There's a lot of talk in the press about David Beckham going and
doing that and that could be a big step forward. If anyone can do
it, he can because already he has a presence in the States, people
know about him."
|
