They Aren’t Run-of-the-Mill : Sockers’ Playoff Fortunes Rest With Goalkeepers Jim Gorsek and Zoltan Toth

Anybody who makes a living by blocking soccer balls traveling at 100 m.p.h. has to be a little different to begin with.

And Socker goalkeepers Jim Gorsek and Zoltan Toth certainly have backgrounds to prove that they aren’t run-of-the-mill society folks.

Consider:

Gorsek grew up as a runt of his class in Portland, Ore.

“I was 4-11 1/2 my senior year of high school,” he said. “I was the second-shortest kid in my school, and it was a big school. The shortest was 4-11.”

Toth, a Hungarian defector, lived in 12 different residences in one year. A Major Indoor Soccer League publication said he also once housed 15 stray cats, but Toth disputes it.

“I only had one cat,” he said. “And it died because I fed it what I cooked.”

The Sockers, who begin playoff action at home on Wednesday night against Kansas City, will depend greatly on their alternating goalkeepers.

Gorsek, 29, finished the regular season with a 19-8 record and 4.04 goals-against average. Toth, 29, was 18-3 with a 4.21 goals-against average.

As a child, Gorsek was not into athletics. It was simply a case of not measuring up. His only athletic activity was recreational football on Sunday with the guys, and even that was limited.

“I couldn’t play football because the pads were too heavy,” Gorsek said. “They almost weighed as much as me. In basketball, I was quick but everybody could block my shot. I tried wrestling and went 25-1 when I was in eighth grade. I thought it was too boring.”

Gorsek said he wrestled in the 75-pound division. Four years later, as a senior in high school, he had gained a whole 10 pounds.

One day in a PE class, Gorsek happened to pick on the big guys in a soccer game when he was on a 60-man team of non-athletes that played a 60-man team of athletes.

Gorsek said he took possession of the ball at one end of the field and worked to the other end by avoiding the bigger guys with his quickness. Then when Gorsek got close to the goal, he passed the ball to a teammate who scored on a head shot.

It was to be the beginning of Gorsek’s soccer career.

In the summer after Gorsek graduated, he suddenly began to grow. He was 5-feet 9-inches, or 9 1/2 inches taller than in high school, when he enrolled in junior college.

“I just happened to grow,” he said. “That’s all. I was like a beanpole. I went through a lot of clothes that summer. People always said I was wearing high-water pants. I’d buy a pair of pants, then they would be too short real soon.”

Soon after high school, Gorsek was playing for an amateur soccer team in Portland.

In the first game, Gorsek played left wing and touched the ball once. So for the second game, he asked to play fullback (defense) and his wish was granted.

“I covered a guy and he never touched the ball,” Gorsek said. “The other team was ahead after 10 minutes, 5-0. I said, ‘This is stupid, why don’t they let me play goalie?’ They let me play goalie, and the other team scored one goal on me the rest of the game.”

Within the next year, things started to happen. He was invited to practice with the Portland Timbers professional team in 1975.

For the next two years, Gorsek trained with the Timbers and played in practice games. Then in 1977, he was signed to a two-year amateur playing contract.

Gorsek stayed with the Timbers through 1980. Then in 1981, he made the Sockers’ outdoor team as a free agent.

Gorsek received his biggest break with the indoor Sockers in January, 1984, when regular goalkeeper Alan Mayer suffered a hand injury. Gorsek played the remainder of the year, and he was 5-0 with a 2.60 goals-against average in the playoffs as the Sockers won their third consecutive indoor championship.

Not bad for a guy who never played competitively until after high school.

“Most soccer players at this level were the best in their elementary school, junior high, high school and college,” Socker Coach Ron Newman said. “Jimmy is one of those guys who had to work twice as hard to get what he wanted. I don’t think he had the real natural ability for a goalkeeper.”

But that was the story of Gorsek’s life. Just ask his high school classmates.

“They think it’s great that a friend of theirs--well, supposedly a friend of theirs--is playing pro soccer,” Gorsek said. “They come up and talk to me because I’m a pro athlete. But I didn’t change my life just because I was a pro athlete.”

Only his size changed.

Unlike Gorsek, Toth has been involved in soccer since his childhood days in Budapest, Hungary.

He was always among best players in Hungary but had his share of problems off the field. In 1975, he played a game in North Korea and was subsequently told he could not leave the country again for three years for what he termed “political reasons.”

Toth played for the three-time national outdoor champions in Hungary and was a member of the Hungarian World Cup team in 1978. A year later, he decided to defect to the United States.

“Our team was playing in a tournament in Spain,” he said. “I left Spain on Sept. 1, 1979, and came to New York. I had to leave Europe. People there were after me. They wanted to bring me back.”

He has remained in the U.S. since 1979 and has gained acclaim as perhaps indoor soccer’s best goalkeeper.

However, Toth was like a nomad his first year in America when he lived in 12 places ranging from New York to California. He was not allowed to play soccer that year because of a suspension from FIFA (international soccer’s governing federation).

“I was single,” Toth said. “I was able to move around. I had no trouble with furniture. I just rented places. I had no family behind me.”

Even when Toth returned to pro soccer in the fall of 1980, he still changed residences frequently. Some in the MISL even started referring to him as a Gypsy.

“Finish that Gypsy stuff,” Toth said. “A Gypsy has no home. Now, I have a family and a home to go to.”

The Gypsy days are over for Toth. He and his wife, Anna, were married last September. They have resided in Del Mar since.

Toth used to joke around a lot in practice with long-time teammates Steve Zungul and Branko Segota. But the ribbing subsided a couple of weeks ago when Zungul and Segota noticed that they were getting under Toth’s skin too often.

Zungul, normally an outspoken player, chose his words carefully when asked about Toth.

“He’s very sensitive,” he said. “So many things about him are funny, but I’m going to pass on them now. He’s a good friend, and I don’t want to upset him before the playoffs. I just want him to eat filet mignon everyday. He says if he eats filet mignon, he’ll grow bigger and wider and nobody will score on him.”