Forging a Force : Orange Alumnus Is Cut Above the Rest as MISL’s Rookie of Year

John Garcia, soccer coach at Orange High School, will be glad to hear that Ali Kazemaini got his hair cut earlier this week with his locks styled above the ears and out of his eyes.

It was Kazemaini’s hair--or abundance thereof--that was a subject of controversy in the fall of 1978 when Garcia was conducting tryouts for the Panthers’ first soccer team.

Kazemaini, a native of Iran who had moved to California in January, 1978, was good enough to make the team, but he seemed to be developing a discipline problem.

He was late for a few practices and a no-show show for others. And that hair! It went down to his shoulders, got into his eyes, and was generally out of control. Garcia would tolerate none of this.

He told Kazemaini that, unless he got a haircut, he would not make the team. It was a simple ultimatum: Either get a cut or be cut.

Kazemaini refused and was trimmed from the roster, but he apparently didn’t understand the severity of Garcia’s move.

He appeared for the Panthers’ first game against Orange Lutheran expecting to play, but Garcia told him he wasn’t on the team. Then, the reality of the situation finally sunk in.

Kazemaini had grown up playing soccer on the streets and playgrounds of Tehran, often ditching school to get up a game with a few pals. He recalled the frustration of coming to Orange High that previous winter and discovering that the Panthers didn’t even field a team in the sport he so loved.

He realized that this was his big chance, his only chance, and he didn’t want to blow it. He had to make some sacrifices.

So, Ali bobbed his hair.

During the first half of the game, Kazemaini went into the equipment room at Orange and had equipment manager Gary Garrison cut his hair. He returned to the field, his hair trimmed to meet Garcia’s specifications, and scored two goals to help the Panthers to a 7-1 win.

It was this hair-razing experience that propelled Kazemaini into a soccer career that would eventually include All-CIF Southern Section honors at Orange High, All-American honors at Cleveland State University and Major Indoor Soccer League Rookie of the Year honors this past season for the Cleveland Force.

“I didn’t know John very well and I didn’t know how serious he was at the time, but I found out he was pretty serious,” Kazemaini said by telephone from his apartment in North Royalton, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.

“I learned then that I had to be disciplined. My hair wasn’t looking very good, but I went and got another trim that night.”

Said Garcia: “His hair looked terrible, but it passed. Ever since then, ours has been a beautiful relationship.”

Ever since then, most aspects of life have been beautiful for the 22-year-old Kazemaini, from the way his soccer career has panned out to the women he dates.

Kazemaini, who looks a little like singer/actor/teen-idol Rick Springfield, has developed quite the playboy reputation around the Cleveland area. But it all started at Orange High School.

“He had some of the best-looking girls here crazy after him,” Garcia said. “It was incredible. His personality was what did it. He was a very popular and unselfish kid.”

Added current Force teammate and roommate Mike Sweeney: “He doesn’t do too badly in that (women) department.”

Said Kazemaini: “I guess the accent helps a bit.”

Kazemaini, nicknamed “Kaz,” has his own fan club in Cleveland called “Ali’s Angels,” which is composed of about 15 teen-age girls who sell T-shirts bearing the soccer player’s name.

Having spent four years at Cleveland State, he is the local favorite around the Richfield Coliseum, where the Force plays its home games, often in front of sell-out crowds. He has no complaints about the local girls or the city of Cleveland, which gets less respect than even Rodney Dangerfield.

“The women in Cleveland are great. They’re so friendly and they’ve been so friendly to me,” Kazemaini said. “And Cleveland is not all that bad. You just have to know the places to go.”

Kazemaini came to the U.S. with the intention of getting an education and returning to Iran. But those plans have since changed.

The situation in Iran appears bleak. Iran has been at war with Iraq for more than four years, and its economy is sagging. Opportunities are limited.

Life in America seems a lot more promising. Force Coach Timo Liekoski says that Kazemaini, a 6-foot, 180-pound forward, has a bright professional career ahead of him. Kazemaini loves the U.S. and has mastered the English language.

“There’s nothing over there (in Iran) I could do, really,” Kazemaini said. “I’ll go back to visit my parents, but right now, I’m going to try to stay in this country.”

Kazemaini spoke no English when he came to America on a student visa in 1978 to live in Orange with his brother, Mohammed, and Mohammed’s wife. He took English-as-a-second-language courses at Orange High for two years and learned more at home, where his brother only allowed him to speak English and not his native Farsi, the Persian language proper.

“When I first got here, I was really lost, but after about six months, I could take care of myself,” Kazemaini said. “It took about three or four years before I knew everything.”

But when it came to athletics, especially soccer, Kazemaini was hardly lost in America. He had mastered several sports long before he came to the U.S.

Kazemaini quickly established himself as the Panthers’ best soccer player and led Orange to a 28-7-6 record during his two seasons. He scored 29 goals during his junior year and 39 as a senior and twice was an All-Southern Section, first-team selection.

Kazemaini was named Most Valuable Player of the 1980 Orange County North-South All-Star game after he scored two second-half goals to lead the North team to a 2-0 win. A flat tire incurred on the way to the game caused Kazemaini to miss the first half of that game.

Two years ago, Orange High retired his jersey (No. 9) during an alumni game, and the Panthers will soon place a banner commemorating his career in the school’s gym.

“To me, he was like a dream player, one of those guys you get once in a lifetime,” Garcia said. “He was a total player who could start at any position. He was so unselfish. After we’d get a two- or three-goal lead on teams, he would try to pass the ball to the other guys so that they could score.”

Kazemaini also was the No. 1 singles player for the Panthers’ tennis team for two years and a placekickicker on the football team in his senior year.

He played for the state under-18 select soccer team (also known as the California Sunshine Junior Team) and when his coach, Nassar Sarfraz, took the job at Cleveland State in 1980, Kazemaini followed.

There, he had 104 career points (one each for a goal and assist) and was named to the Division I All-American second team during his sophomore and senior years. He also had time to play two seasons for the Cleveland State tennis team.

Kazemaini was picked to play for the 1984 U.S. Olympic soccer team but could not compete because he wasn’t an American citizen. He’ll be applying for U.S. citizenship later this year.

Although he was a first-round draft pick of the Force in 1984, there were some doubts as to whether Kazemaini would succeed indoors.

He hadn’t even heard of the Major Indoor Soccer League until his senior year in college and his experience indoors was very limited.

He failed to make the traveling roster at the start of the season and missed the first three games, but he dressed for the home opener and scored a goal to help the Force defeat New York, 6-1, before 19,360 fans.

The goal was deceiving, though. It semed that Kazemaini was off to a good start, but he was actually struggling to gain a feel for the indoor game. Midway through the season, Liekoski, the Force coach, pulled Kazemaini out of six games so that he could observe the action from the bleachers.

“Sometimes the bench is the worst seat in the house,” Liekoski said. “From higher up, he could see how the game developed, the movement of the players and how the balls came off the boards. It gave him an overall view of the field, and that helped him. He made a tremendous improvement after that.”

Kazemaini played in 33 of the Force’s 48 games, averaging about 15 minutes per match, and finished with five goals and eight assists. Two of the goals came against the Baltimore Blast during the second game of the semifinal playoffs. Cleveland won that game but eventually lost the series, 3-2.

Kazemaini recovered from his mid-season slump to finish as the MISL’s most consistent first-year player and was named the league’s Rookie of the Year.

All that, and manageable hair, too.