By Mike Woitalla
Executive Editor, Soccer America Magazine
Thanks to soccer, Ethan Zohn's reality-show celebrity has legs.
Contestants on ''Survivor: Africa'' could each submit a list of five ''luxury'' items. If approved, they could bring one to Kenya.
''I wrote 'soccer ball' four times,'' says Ethan Zohn. ''On the fifth line, I wrote Hacky Sack.''
The Hacky Sack got the OK. And Zohn, as he survived from episode to episode, became known as ''the soccer guy,'' thanks to a bio that included minor league ball and college coaching.
In January 2002, he captured the $1 million grand prize before a TV audience of 30 million.
The usual routine for ''Survivor'' winners is a talk-show tour, gossip magazine publicity and then back to obscurity (or infamy, in the case of Richard Hatch, who's in prison for tax evasion).
But Zohn remains in the limelight.
''Luckily, I had the soccer niche,'' says Zohn, who took to the sport while growing up in Massachusetts.
He was, he says, a fat little kid with glasses and braces who wanted to be better than his older brothers, Lee and Lenard, five and seven years his senior.
''I'd go out there wearing knee pads, over my corduroys, and my Patrick Keegan cleats,'' Ethan says. ''They'd stick me in goal and hammer away. I'd get blasted in the side of the head or my stomach, and I'd just bounce back up.''
And so began the love affair with the sport Zohn would travel far and wide for.
After a college career at Division III Vassar College, where he still holds goalkeeping records, he played for the USL's Hawaii Tsunami and Cape Cod Crusaders and on the U.S. Maccabiah team. He also spent 1999-2000 playing in Zimbabwe with the Highlanders, a team whose pipelineto American players had also brought over actor and former L.A. Galaxy member Andrew Shue.
In Zimbabwe, Zohn saw a teammate die of AIDS and learned that the disease had cut life expectancy in the nation from 63 years in 1990 to 39 in 2000. In Kenya, he encountered a large group of children in the parking lot of a hospital.
''They were touching my white skin and my hair,'' he says, ''because they'd never seen something like that. I busted out the Hacky Sack, and we all started playing. A nurse told me they were all HIV positive. I gave the kids my Hacky Sack. I realized for them this little toy really was a luxury.''
He returned to the USA and decided he would use his fame and fortunate to pursue soccer ventures and support charitable projects.
He co-founded Grassroots Soccer, which teaches pro soccer players in African nations to educate youngsters on HIV prevention. The organization, headed by Dr. Tommy Clark, also produces HIV educational material in the form of soccer magazines.
Zohn, 32, serves as a spokesman for America Scores (inner city educational soccer programs) and pitches in for Kick AIDS, the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric Aids organization, YouthAids, the Colon Cancer Alliance and Soccer for Peace, which unites children from war-torn countries. He's posed for an ad, with fellow ''Survivor'' all-star and girlfriend Jenna Morasca, for PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).
Zohn hosted MTV specials and then established himself as a soccer broadcaster. He started as a sideline reporter for the Los Angeles Galaxy's KCAL broadcasts. He co-hosts MSG's Metro Soccer Report with Shep Messing and hosts FC Fox, a magazine show for teens, on Fox Soccer Channel.
''People may turn on the TV to see the Survivor guy,'' he said, ''but they're going to hear about soccer. I'll do everything I possibly can to get people to watch and play soccer.''