When Called on the Carpet, Sockers’ Quinn Isn’t Joking

You can never really tell if Brian Quinn is putting you on or being serious.

Actually, that isn’t entirely true. You know he’s serious when he plays soccer. Other than that, your guess is as good as the next guy’s.

Don’t feel bad. Even his wife, Sharon, who has been married to him for 10 years and known him for 12, can’t figure him out half the time. So you can just imagine where that leaves the rest of the world.

Take last week’s Sockers media day, for instance. Quinn, captain of the team that will play its home opener tonight at 7:35 against the Kansas City Comets in the San Diego Sports Arena, lined up with his teammates and faced a bunch of people who, for the most part, didn’t know diddly about indoor soccer. Socker Coach Ron Newman was all set to explain a bit of strategy when Quinn looked up in the stands, saw a few latecomers and said: “Next time, if you’re going to be here, come on time.”

Now this is the kind of thing his teammates hear quite often, so they will just chuckle and get on with their business. But those who don’t know Quinn are sitting there scratching their heads and thinking, “Is this guy serious?”

And the answer is “No.” But if this is the first time you’ve met him, how can you tell?

Well, there is one way, but you have to be a good poker player. Take a hard look into the blue eyes. He usually gives it away.

“He’s got fire in his eyes,” said Holli Traeumer, the Sockers’ director of public relations. “It’s almost as if they have lightning bolts coming out of them.”

Blue eyes are a Quinn family trait. He grew up in up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, one of 10 children. All 10 have blue eyes. Not ordinary blue eyes--blue blue eyes.

Kelly Quinn, Brian’s younger sister, says people come up to her on the street in Belfast and say: “You’re one of the Quinns, aren’t you?”

She’ll say: “How did you know?”

They’ll say: “I’d just know those eyes anywhere.”

From behind them, at least in Brian’s case, come the plots for a wide variety of jokes and sarcastic remarks. They’re never malicious. Just fun.

Quinn might say to a reporter, “That was a good story.” And just as the reporter is about to thank him, he’ll say “Who wrote it for you?”

Or he’ll call up his friend, Brian Holliday, in Los Angeles from Ireland at 4 a.m. California time and pretend he didn’t do his math correctly.

“He’ll let on he doesn’t know what time it is,” Holliday says, “but he knows.”

Or he’ll use this analogy on the subject of why the Major Indoor Soccer League doesn’t draw a lot of fans on a consistent basis. “People want to go to the circus because it’s interesting, but how many circuses do you want to go to?”

“He’s always been a joker,” says Brian’s mom, Kathleen.

Except, of course, on the soccer field.

Maybe it was at the age of 10 that Brian Quinn’s childhood unofficially ended, and he took a giant step toward adulthood.

It was then that his father, Seamus, died of stomach cancer, and it was also then that Belfast became a place where people look over their shoulders for signs of trouble. Day in and day out, people were being shot. It has gone on for so long now that Quinn says Belfast residents have become numb. Shooting is expected, taken in stride. It used to be front page news. Now it is on page four.

“It’s brushed over,” Quinn says, “unless something really tragic happens.”

As far as Quinn’s soccer background goes, Seamus is probably the reason he plays as well as he does. Everybody in the Quinn family--Brian has four brothers and five sisters--will tell you that Brian was Seamus’ favorite. Long after the older brothers had been sent to bed, Seamus would allow him to stay up with him and watch soccer on television.

“I was his blue-eyed boy,” Brian says.

Seamus’ death was unexpected. Brian never even knew he was sick, and he doesn’t remember him missing work or letting on that he didn’t feel well.

“You don’t complain back home,” Sharon says.

Quinn doesn’t dwell on his father’s death. But there are those reflective moments when he thinks about how nice it would be to go back to Belfast for a visit and be able to have a beer with “Dad.” Brian knows Seamus would be proud of his soccer achievements, and he would have liked nothing more than to have shared them with him.

“I think more than anything I would have liked him to see me play,” Quinn says. “I never won anything before he died.”

At age 18, Brian Quinn was already fancying himself somewhat of a celebrity. He had a big head, Sharon says.

Kelly would press his clothes on weekend nights. Brian would dress up and say to her: “Well, Kell . . . What do you think? Will I get a girl tonight?”

He and his friends would show up at the dance hall in their white blazers, looking ever so cool. Everybody went there on weekend nights. It opened at 7, but there was already a line of 200 by 5:30.

“I used to meet him inside so he didn’t have to pay for me to go in,” Sharon says.

Sort of an economy date, if you will. But this wasn’t love at first sight.

Listen to their conversation . . .

Sharon: “I didn’t used to like him. I used to think he used to love himself.”

Brian: “She’d never been around a star before.”

Sharon: “You weren’t a star.”

Brian: “In my own mind I was.”

Sharon ended up deciding this guy was OK, and they were married in Ireland when they were both 19. That was just great with Sharon’s dad, who liked Brian a lot. It may have taken her mom a while to come around. She sort of had it in for Brian ever since he came over to see Sharon one night after one too many beers and threw up on her rose bushes.

It’s mid-afternoon on any old San Diego weekday. Brian, 29, is picking up daughters Nicola (9) and Danielle (5) and son Damien (7) at school. (Just last spring, the Quinns had their fourth child, daughter Caitlin).

All three pile into the back seat of the car. They are wearing red ribbons as part of an anti-drug awareness program.

Being a parent in California is different than being a parent in Belfast. The kids have more opportunities, but there is more to worry about.

Such as drugs.

“That’s kind of foreign to us,” Quinn says. “There were no drugs when we were growing up. It scares me.

“This week they’re wearing the red ribbons. And I’m saying ‘Is it necessary?’ Obviously it is, or they wouldn’t do it.”

“We’ve never been around this type of environment,” Sharon says. “You don’t know if you’re doing your kid a favor or not.”

Of course, the basic premise of running a family is similar, whether in Ireland or here. There are the simple, everyday problems that are more fun than complicated.

For instance, Nicola has this science project. She needs a jar and suggests that maybe she could use the peanut butter jar. But Sharon tells her it is still full.

“We can eat it,” Nicola says.

Simple.

Not to say this is always the Brady Bunch. The Quinns have their fair share of arguments. It seems Brian can be just as stubborn with Sharon at home as he is with an opponent on the soccer field. If he makes plans that don’t coincide with hers, he goes ahead with them anyway.

“We shout a lot,” Sharon says.

“They shout at us a lot,” chimes in Nicola.

Sharon is the one who does the house work, just as if it were back home in Ireland.

“He’d do it,” she says, “if I was in the hospital or something.”

Sure, it’s not as if Brian is helpless in the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Nicola says. “You can make breakfast real well, Dad. You can make cereal or toast.”

Recognize that sense of humor? It runs in the family, even through the children. Nicola has apparently inherited Brian’s dry wit. Only a couple of weeks ago, she came home from school with her hand wrapped in a big bandage. She told Brian she had broken it. Brian bought it. Sharon didn’t.

“Mom’s too smart,” Nicola says.

Guess what?

Nicola has blue eyes.

Brian Quinn would sooner have someone pour Budweiser in his Guinness Stout than back down from a challenge on the soccer field. Doesn’t matter who it is, or how big the guy is, Quinn will get in his two cents.

Brian Holliday, Quinn’s first professional coach, remembers when Quinn was 17, a mere pup playing in a men’s semi-professional league in Ireland. One game, Quinn went toe to toe, eye to eye with a veteran player who had quite a few pounds on him. People were amazed, but Quinn didn’t flinch.

The player came up to Holliday after the game and said: “For God’s sake, Brian, calm him down, or he’s going to get killed.”

“I think he’s the best competitor to come out of Ireland in a long time,” Holliday says.

Said Newman: “He’s a very feisty lad.”

Check the Sockers’ records, and you’ll find that Quinn, a midfielder, is second in the team’s history in penalty minutes with 139. Among other things. He is also the team’s seventh all-time leading scorer and ranks fourth in blocked shots (170). Maybe most important is that he plays best when it counts most. Tucked in Quinn’s file of playoff achievements is that he is tied for first in game-winning goals (seven), tied for first in hat tricks (five), is third in blocks (62) and fourth in total points (90). And he has been on five Sockers championship teams.

But to the Sockers, Quinn is more than a bunch of good statistics. During a career that has taken him from Ireland, through Liverpool, England, Los Angeles, Montreal and landed him in San Diego for the past six years, Quinn has found a way to do things that go far beyond fancy passes and flashy goals.

“With him in the lineup, we’re at a different level,” defender Kevin Crow says. “Brian lifts everybody. He probably even lifts the other team a little. He’s one of the few players that has an all-around game.”

If their is a knock on Quinn, it is only that he wants to compete so badly that he doesn’t always look after his own best interests. There are stories, exaggerated as they may be, about Quinn playing when he is barely able to walk. He missed 18 games because of injury last season, and it darn near drove him crazy.

“He hates to be injured,” Newman says. “It’s all we can do to keep him off the field when he’s supposed to be resting. It gets a bit nasty sometimes.”

“He has to be a participant,” Holliday says.

And that’s what Quinn will tell you he is. A participant. A part of a team. Not a star. Not a celebrity. Just, well, just Brian Quinn.

“Over the years I’ve learned there’s a place for everyone,” he says. “I just do what I think is required. I think I can best describe myself as a helper. Nothing more, nothing less.”