Seoul Searching : CSUN All-American Joey Kirk Remains Sold on Olympics Amid Growing Concern of Political Unrest in South Korea

When Joey Kirk returned from South Korea last week, there was one thing at the top of his wish list--some old-fashioned solid food, preferably a pepperoni pizza. After he read about the furor brewing over the unrest in Seoul and its possible impact on the 1988 Olympic Games, however, he lost his appetite.

In his morning newspaper was the following recipe for disaster, a menu of items guaranteed to upset digestion: In light of increasing political unrest and civil rights problems in South Korea, Rev. Jesse Jackson has called for a U.S. boycott of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games. . . . The president of the U.S. Olympic Committee has said that the U.S. will not send a team to the Games if the safety of athletes is threatened. . . . Mayor Tom Bradley has offered Los Angeles as an alternate site if the Games are withdrawn from South Korea. . . . North Korea has offered to host the Games if South Korea is unable to straighten out its internal problems.

Pundits from coast to coast have already formed opinions on whether the U.S. should send a team. Fifteen months before the opening ceremonies, the Olympic-scale political posturing, the pre-Games fun and games, has already begun.

And that strikes Kirk, a Cal State Northridge senior who made the trip to South Korea as a member of the U.S. soccer team, as curious.

After all, while bureaucrats were shuffling papers and blowing smoke stateside, Kirk was in a locker room in South Korea sucking tear gas. While Jackson was holding court about civil-rights violations from the safety of a Washington podium, Kirk was watching police chuck cannisters into a crowd of soccer fans. As Bradley brainstormed about how L.A. can handle the Games, Kirk watched from his balcony as thousands of chanting students marched toward city hall in Seoul.

Kirk saw with his own eyes what others have seen only through the eye of the camera, and from Kirk’s vantage point, all this Seoul-searching about boycotts and relocation is a matter of magnitude.

“I think it’s been blown way out of proportion here,” Kirk said. “I mean, they weren’t there, we were there.”

Kirk, 21, admittedly saw an eyeful. To be sure, the team’s participation in the annual President’s Cup tournament was eventful, but Kirk said he never feared for his safety. Despite brushes with the military, angry students and police, Kirk never cried “beam me up.”

“It was exciting, but I can’t say that I was worried,” said Kirk, who returned last Wednesday. “Everybody I met really seemed to want us there.”

College students, angry at what they perceive to be a totalitarian administration, have hit the streets over the past two weeks to express their anger. Partly because the Olympics are scheduled to begin Sept. 15, 1988, the student protests have become even more of a front-page issue.

Kirk said he finds the characterization of events in Seoul as “violent” to be misleading. He may have a point. To date, one person has been killed over several weeks of protests and civil activity. For ratings purposes, television clips of the unrest contain only the isolated and most graphic of the incidents, he pointed out.

Make the distinction between “dangerous” and “exciting,” however, and Kirk will emphatically agree that there were some eye-opening occurrences on the team’s 1-3-1 road trip. Especially for a guy from Granada Hills who didn’t even own a passport until the day before he boarded the plane.

“The problems we saw started during the match between South Korea and Egypt in Seoul,” Kirk said. “We were back at the hotel watching it on TV, and all of a sudden, the cameras were showing shots of the crowd and everyone is running around covering their noses and faces. It looked like the players were dying, rolling around on the ground. But we couldn’t really tell what was going on because you can’t see the gas. We saw people running, but we couldn’t tell what was happening.

“We were told it was a bomb threat, but we finally got our interpreter--who wasn’t allowed to talk about the political stuff--to tell us what was going on. He said it was students mad about the government spending so much money on the Olympics when so many people are so poor, and that the students caused the trouble.

“Then we heard the real story--it was the government tear-gassing the students, who were protesting outside the stadium. The police threw tear gas to keep them back and it drifted into the stadium.”

The match was cancelled in the first half. It wouldn’t be the last time Kirk & Crew would see tear gas. Two days later, in the U.S. team’s match against South Korea in Puson, a similar outbreak took place.

“I hadn’t really noticed it at the time, but at the half, some of the guys pointed out that the whole upper area of the stadium was filled with the military. So we’re in our locker room and all of a sudden--we didn’t hear a noise, we didn’t hear anything--people started jumping out of the stands and onto the fields.

“It was at least a 9-foot drop. We could see them out the window, people were jumping onto other people, people running and holding their faces. We couldn’t really tell what was going on. People were waving to us--telling us to stay inside--and holding their eyes and noses as tears were streaming down their faces. It was unreal.

“We couldn’t believe it. Everyone was pouring out of the stands. We sat there for a while in the locker room, figuring the game would be cancelled since the first South Korea match was called. So we went out to get a better view to see what was going on, and all of a sudden I started sneezing like crazy--the gas was leaking in through the window.

“At the time, I wasn’t really thinking about how things like this could affect the Olympics or anything like that, I just found it really interesting. I’d never been exposed to anything like that.

“Ten minutes later--it’s been about a 45-minute delay now--the officials come in to tell us we’re playing the rest of the game. We went out there and the gas had pretty much cleared away, but some of us were still wheezing a little. There were still some pockets of gas.”

There were other incidents as well, including a massive student rally in Seoul that Kirk watched from his seventh-story hotel balcony. “There had to be 50,000 students marching down the streets. They were so orderly, all chanting together. It went on for hours. It was an unbelievable sight.”

Two teammates, out shopping in a commercial area, were harassed by some angry locals. Then there was the televised message from President Reagan advising all American civilians and members of the military to avoid downtown Seoul because of the rioting.

It was the general demeanor of the crowds that convinced Kirk that while the country has problems, most of the people want the Games to take place. Despite the tear gas, some of the fans--25,000 strong at the start of the match against South Korea--came back for the remainder.

“The fans were very polite, very well-mannered. You hardly ever heard them yelling. They would always clap for a good play. Even against South Korea, when we’d get close to the goal, you could hear them yell ‘shoot, shoot’ to our players. You could tell they liked the U.S. because they always gave us lots of applause. In our match against Thailand, they were chanting ‘U-S-A, U-S-A.’

“We got better support there than we’ve received here sometimes.”

The logistics of the trip were well-organized, Kirk said. Transportation, lodging and security were never a problem, although he said most of the team did shy away from some of the more exotic food fare.

Even though Kirk said the team felt safe in the country, local authorities took no chances with team security. Motorcycle escorts accompanied the team bus on the way to the various stadiums and armed guards typically went with players when they left the hotel on foot.

Back at home, however, news accounts of the student protests had U.S. officials concerned.

“We had trouble getting a hold of them a few times,” said Tom Meredith of the U.S. Soccer Federation. “We were definitely concerned. At times, the reports coming out of there sounded like Berkeley revisited, or maybe it was closer to the Watts riots. When you hear about 20,000 fans on the field, you can’t help but have some concerns about the safety of our athletes.

“This tournament was a preview of sorts for them,” Meredith said. “Soccer crowds are some of the largest in the Olympics, and many of the venues they used in the matches will be used in the Olympics. You really have to hope they make some progress by next summer.”

Put most people in Kirk’s place, and they’d be scared stiff. But put a team with an average age of 21 into a potentially dangerous situation, and they find a way to have fun. There were some lighter moments on the trip.

“When the tear-gassing was going on in Puson, a photographer came in our locker room and asked us to hold our hands over our faces so he could take some pictures. So some of our guys put their hands on their noses and start acting like they’re dying from the gas.

“I was sitting there--and I don’t really know why I did it--but I laid down on the floor and started rolling around on the floor with my tongue hanging out, rubbing my eyes and nose, and this guy is snapping pictures like crazy.

“Everyone’s laughing and going ‘you’re on the front page tomorrow.’ Then everyone else started getting into it, but the coach got pretty mad and told us to knock it off.”

Kirk said he feels the front-page coverage will end soon enough and that things will eventually work out.

“I got the feeling the people there will welcome the Games,” he said. “Most of them were very friendly, very nice to us.

“Even when they were getting tear-gassed, some of them came up to the window and pressed their hands up to the glass,” Kirk explained. “And some of us put ours up on the other side. Sure, they have some things they need to iron out, but they still have 15 months to do it. If I get the chance, I’d love to go back over.

“I get home and my parents have been worried to death, and I hear the talk about the violence, moving the Games or boycotting, and I can’t believe they’re serious.”

After all, Kirk was there.