Illness cannot stop soccer star Akers

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Illness cannot stop soccer star Akers

A strict diet and rest keep her in the game.

By Mike Jensen

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

CHICAGO -- Akers really knows how to celebrate. She certainly had

cause to let loose on Thursday night. The greatest goal-scorer in the

history of the Women's World Cup got another one the other night at Soldier

Field. And where was she after the game? Same place she always is, goal or

no goal.

" She's just rehydrating, getting some IV back in the doctor's room, " U.S.

team doctor Mark reported about 50 minutes after the American women

finished their 7-1 demolition of Nigeria. " She's just trying to get her body

back under control. "

At age 33, Akers is still a world-class athlete, despite dealing with the

debilitating effects of chronic fatigue syndrome, which require her to be

hooked up to an intravenous drip after every game.

When she was first diagnosed with the illness, some doctors told her she had

to retire. But she has kept her remarkable career alive through sheer grit,

and with her size and strength continues to dominate in midfield, often

working furiously for the full 90 minutes of a match, as she did in the Cup

opener against Denmark.

Understand this about Akers and her role in the sport: She was Mia Hamm

before Mia Hamm was. Young soccer players used to call her name first. She

scored the first goal in the history of the national team back in 1985. She

scored the dramatic goal that won the first Women's World Cup for the United

States in China in 1991, and she has 103 international goals in her career,

just eight fewer than Hamm, the sport's all-time leader.

Nobody -- least of all Hamm -- doubts that it would be Akers who would hold

the record, except that for most of this decade, Akers has experienced many

of the worst symptoms chronic fatigue syndrome has to offer: the killer

migraines, the dizziness. She once collapsed on the field. There are times

she has been unable to get out of bed. She occasionally has needed help to

get to the bathroom to vomit.

And, as Akers said in testimony before Congress in 1996, " The irony of the

illness [ is ] , the harder you work, the more it drags you down, the more

it disables you. "

Yes, exercise is usually bad for chronic fatigue syndrome sufferers. That's

why, with the United States leading by 6-1, Akers came off the field at

halftime Thursday night. The United States didn't need her anymore, so coach

Tony DiCicco took her out. In today's final first-round game against North

Korea in Foxboro, Mass., Akers may play only a half, or not at all, since

the United States would have to lose by at least four goals to be in any

danger of not advancing.

Akers knows that the World Cup grind -- six games in three weeks if the

Americans make the finals, and plane trips around the country -- is asking a

lot of her body. She also knows she's done everything she can to make this

work.

" It's been an entire revamping of lifestyle, sleep, rest, perspective,

faith, " Akers said a couple of days before the World Cup began. " You name

it, I've had to change most of it. "

Since 1996, her diet has been dairy-free, sugar-free, alcohol-free,

gluten-free. (No wonder they call it the elimination diet.) She's usually

caffeine-free, but is experimenting for this tournament.

" We've added a few small things, like having a strong cup of coffee before

the game and at halftime, to hopefully increase my blood pressure, which

might help me play better and last longer, " Akers said.

Asked the other night how the caffeine jolt was working, , the doctor,

said, " Watching her play, something has to be working. "

Akers has completely streamlined her life. She usually eats her meals by

herself in her room. (Her teammates aren't dying to eat two pounds of

carrots from her juicer, anyway.)

" When the team is going out shopping or something, she knows she has to

sleep, " U.S. forward Parlow said.

Akers has given up a lot of money. The first female soccer player to ever

get a paid endorsement, she gave up her deal with Reebok for this World

Cup -- it could have been worth almost double the roughly $50,000 she's

making now in salary from the United States Soccer Federation, said one

source familiar with her financial dealings. She knew she could not use up

her energy making appearances for the shoe company.

One of the ways this World Cup is actually easier than the national team's

usual schedule, Akers says, is that there aren't ambassadorial appearances

by players packed around practices.

Akers has signed tens of thousands of autographs throughout the years. She

now picks her spots. Talking to a couple of reporters at the U.S. training

center as she walked to the team bus, she said, " Let's stop here. " She saw a

pack of young autograph hunters just ahead and knew the interview would

dissolve in its midst. After a couple of minutes of questions, she signed

the back of a few T-shirts before she got on the bus.

Asked if she could see herself 10 years from now going through all the

things Akers has gone through, Parlow said, " No way. No way. I mean, she's

an inspiration for every single player on the team. I know after practice

sometimes, I am so dead that I just want to crash on the couch. She goes

home and sometimes has to get IVs to rehydrate herself. I can't fathom what

she has to go through. "

About Akers' between-games routine, teammate e Lilly said, " It takes

her a day or so -- the next day she'll be kind of burned out. "

But overall, " We think she's getting stronger, " said DiCicco, when asked

Thursday night how Akers was faring compared with a month or two ago.

In addition to the chronic fatigue syndrome, which began to affect her

shortly after she returned from the 1991 World Cup, Akers also has had a

dozen knee surgeries. She's had teeth knocked out. Although she's had

numerous concussions, she still gets her head on more balls than anyone on

the team. That's a big part of her job in the central midfield.

She used to be a forward, but she says she isn't nearly the player she once

was. She's thought many times she was going to have to retire.

" I still do at times, constantly. It's just day-to-day, " she said. " There

are times when it seems pretty dark and I'm walking a real thin line. But my

faith continues to give the hope and perspective when I need it, and that's

what carries me through to the next day, when maybe things are a little

better. "

The guess is that she'll try to play through next year's Olympics in

Australia, where the United States will try to defend the gold medal it won

at Atlanta in 1996.

Her steadfastness is an inherited trait. Her mother was the first female

firefighter in the history of Kings County, Wash. Once, years ago, the U.S.

Soccer Federation actually tried to keep Akers off the field because of an

injury. She hired a lawyer and threatened to sue. The federation backed off.

Even after the United States won the first World Cup, national team players

were paid $10 a day when they got together. Akers was the star back then,

but she knew she had to set a standard. When Time-Warner offered her $250 to

sign autographs for three hours in 1993, she said, " Forget it. " That's much

less than even a marginal baseball player would get.

And her aggressive play set the standard for the women's game. After the

U.S. team played a game in Bucks County in 1993, Anson Dorrance, then the

U.S. coach, said of Akers: " If you've got a lot of skill in this game,

you're not really required to carry the water bucket as well. . . . But she

always threw her body into the fray, took all kinds of physical risks to win

the battle for the ball. "

That was still true at Soldier Field against the Nigerians, a game in which

Akers bruised her head in a collision. For her, it was nothing out of the

ordinary.

" No loss of consciousness, no dizziness, " said , the team doctor.

Now, Akers plays a secondary role to Hamm and some of the other scorers. But

Akers scored 10 goals in the 1991 World Cup, before the chronic fatigue

syndrome set in. She hasn't scored 10 goals in a year since 1995. She had to

take more than a year off after the '96 Olympics because of the illness and

another knee surgery.

Yet when Akers headed in her goal against Nigeria, teammate Chastain

thought she saw something.

" The look on her face, " Chastain said. " It was like, 'This is familiar.' "