By Mike Woitalla
Executive Editor, Soccer America Magazine
We talked to five of MLS's first-round picks to discover how they found the path to the pros.
Mehdi Ballouchy (Real Salt Lake)
A LONG WAY FROM CASABLANCA
After he was picked No. 2 in the draft, Mehdi Ballouchy said he would call Morocco to inform his father, an accountant who once played pro ball in France:
''He'll be glad, but mainly he's happy about my education.''
Mehdi leaves Santa Clara University just two quarters shy of a degree in finance and plans to finish up during offseasons.
Five years ago, he came to the United States fluent in French and Moroccan Arabic, but with no English.
He entered a Denver high school at 17, started understanding after a couple of months and through an ESL (English as a Second Language) program mastered his studies.
In Morocco, he played street and beach soccer — ''Before school, after school, sometimes during the breaks'' — until joining a team at age 13.
He played for Moroccan youth national teams and could have entered a residency program with a pro club in France.
''I knew no one in France, but my older brother lived here,'' says Ballouchy. ''And going to college while playing was perfect.''
Jason Garey (Columbus Crew)
A STAR FROM THE HINTERLAND
Gonzales, a Louisiana town of 8,000, may be known as ''The Jambalaya Capital of the World,'' but it didn't know much about the world's game when Jason Garey was growing up there.
When he was 5, his parents drove him about 35 minutes to Baton Rouge so he could play soccer for a team called Run and Gun.
After a couple of years, his parents formed a league – Ascension Area Soccer Association – in Gonzales because a demand had developed and they wanted to spare the commute.
They also built a soccer field in their big backyard where Jason played constantly with friends and his sister, Melissa, now a star at Texas A&M.
Garey stayed out of the national spotlight, but was recommended to Maryland coach Sasho Cirovski by his club coach, Gary Buete, whose brother Scott played for the Terps. Garey attended a Maryland camp, where he almost didn't get to show Cirovski his skills.
''He had a 103 fever and I wouldn't let him play,'' says Cirovski. ''But on the last evening it cooled off and he played one game. He scored three goals. Based on that and his character, I knew we wanted him.''
Garey was the nation's Division I leading scorer last year while helping Maryland lift the national title and won the MAC Hermann Trophy.
Calen Carr (Chicago Fire)
ABSORBING DIFFERENT STYLES
When he performed an acrobatic dance in a junior high school play, a talent scout emerged from the audience and said she had a place for him Off-Broadway, could he come next week?
Calen Carr said, ''Sorry, I have soccer practice.''
So he continued to entertain on the field, playing with a graceful unpredictability that reflected an extraordinary youth soccer experience.
Carr was born and raised near the University of California's Berkeley campus, where he played his college ball, but he grew up traveling the world, absorbing the different styles of the game and ''trying to incorporate them into my game.''
His mother, Professor Claudia Carr, teaches International Development at Cal and took Calen along to places such as Kenya, where, at 18, he played beach soccer in Lamu.
''The whole town showed up for games,'' Calen says. ''They'd come with their animals, mostly donkeys. It was fun to hear the oohs and aahs from the crowd and taste what the soccer passion is like in a foreign country.''
Calen found games in Fiji, Jamaica, Belgium, England and attended the Zico Futebol Academy in Brazil.
''We have no pictures of him without his soccer ball,'' says Claudia. ''In the bus station in London or on the way to the Maasai country in Kenya, the man always had a soccer ball.''
Marvell Wynne (MetroStars)
TO RUN AND BE CHASED
At age 4, Marvell Wynne and his mother, April, went to watch a friend's son play indoor soccer and the team was short a player.
''My mom volunteered me to play,'' says Marvell, now 19 and the No. 1 pick in MLS's 2006 SuperDraft. ''I was apprehensive at first, but she made me, and I fell in love with it.''
His father, also named Marvell, was a Major League Baseball player, but that sport proved too slow for the boy.
''He liked to run and he liked to be chased,'' says April.
He liked the ball, too.
''I wouldn't let the ball leave my feet,'' he says. ''I'd walk around the house, dribbling or juggling it.''
He stormed down the flanks for the USA at the 2005 World Youth Championship and after his second year at UCLA decided to go pro.
''He would be the first from my family to graduate from a four-year college and that was important to me,'' says April. ''I stressed that, but at the same time this was a dream and I would never take that from him, ever. I trust him so much with all his decisions and he's always made the right decision.''
Yura Movsisyan (Kansas City)
FROM THE FIRST DAY …
An Armenian boy living in Azerbaijan, Yura Movsisyan played soccer and revered Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane and the Yugoslav Pedrag Mijatovic.
''From the first day I touched the ball, that was the day I wanted to play professional,'' he says. ''That's all I thought of. I didn't want to think about anything else.''
When he was 12, his family fled Azerbaijan for the USA.
''I knew about America being a dream world but I really didn't know if America had soccer,'' he says. ''I was hoping, and I'm very happy that they do.''
Once in Pasadena, Calif., his father found a team for Yura. For the first time, he donned cleats, shinguards and a uniform. ''It was a great feeling,'' he says.
Movsisyan played a semester of ball at Pasadena City College, then dazzled at the MLS Combine, the pre-draft showcase.
The 18-year-old was picked fourth in the draft. Never before has a player with such a modest resume been picked so high.
''I definitely learned that playing organized soccer and playing not organized – there's a big difference,'' he says. ''Playing not organized you actually, I don't know, just learn the game better.''
(This article originally appeared in the March 2006 issue of Soccer America Magazine.)