Next Stop: Respect : Former Westlake Star Finally Earns Notice With Barcelona Trip

Some of the nation’s best college soccer teams once overlooked Cobi Jones.

But Jones can put that slight behind him over the next two weeks when he plays for the U.S. Olympic team in Barcelona.

Jones helped the United States win the regional qualifying tournament with a 5-0 record against teams from North and Central America and the Caribbean. The United States, which advanced to the Olympics along with runner-up Mexico, will open Olympic pool play against Italy on Friday.

Although Jones had a brilliant career at Westlake High and walked on to UCLA to help the Bruins to a national championship in 1990, he has found it difficult to command respect.

“I’m just going to keep doing my thing until maybe someone will (give me) recognition,” Jones says.

At Westlake, where he played from 1984-1987, Jones was overshadowed by standout teammate Eric Wynalda, the first American-born player to compete in the Bundesliga, a top German league.

But after his performance at UCLA, Jones believed he had finally shaken Wynalda’s ever-present shadow. He found, however, that it has taken a long time to earn recognition.

The 1991 UCLA media guide had this to say about Jones: “Prep teammate of Eric Wynalda. . . . “

“I can’t believe they put that in there. It’s supposed to be about me,” Jones says with a smile as if to acknowledge that the link to Wynalda has become more humorous than bothersome.

The Olympic team, announced July 6, was selected from a pool of players who have been competing with the national under-23 team. FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, ruled in 1988 that only players under 23 are eligible for the Olympics. Players of any age can play for the national team, which competes in the World Cup. The ruling was made in an effort to preserve the prestige of the World Cup.

Wynalda is ineligible for the Olympic team because he is 23.

That most of the recognition at Westlake High went to Wynalda is understandable. He is the national team’s second all-time leading scorer with 11 goals in 40 international appearances.

With Wynalda, then a senior, at center forward and Jones, a junior, in the midfield, Westlake won the 1986 Marmonte League title and was top seeded in the Southern Section 4-A Division playoffs. Westlake lost in the semifinals, 2-0, to West Torrance, and finished 22-2.

“Eric and Cobi, together, were phenomenal and I knew Cobi was going to be something,” says Mike Williams, their coach at Westlake.

But when Jones was a senior, college coaches were less enthusiastic. Although Wynalda had been one of the nation’s top recruits the year before, accepting a full scholarship to play for perennial soccer power San Diego State, Jones wasn’t as highly recruited.

UCLA Coach Sigi Schmid had learned about Jones through Wynalda’s father, Dave, who was a Westlake assistant under Williams.

Looking back, Schmid says: “As with a lot of things in life, we were in the right place at the right time and so was (Jones).”

Schmid liked Jones’ “discipline on the field,” and was particularly impressed with his speed. Jones has the kind of quickness that is useful in the front line, where a striker can beat a slower defender.

“Obviously, when you’re blessed with that kind of speed, there is no need to be complicated,” Schmid says.

Still, it was not enough for a scholarship. Schmid says that he questioned Jones’ commitment to soccer. Jones could go to UCLA, but he would have to try out as a walk-on.

Soccer was no more important than academics to Jones, who carried a 3.8 grade-point average at Westlake and had been accepted to California and UC Santa Barbara as well as UCLA. Because he liked UCLA’s balance of academics and soccer, Jones accepted Schmid’s offer.

But Jones soon realized life at UCLA was not all he imagined. He found he was the only freshman soccer player who did not have another freshman soccer player for a roommate. Jones felt like an outsider.

“When you are separated from the team, you miss out on a lot,” he says. “That was good and bad, in ways. I have a lot of other friends besides soccer players.”

But many non-athletes also viewed the quiet Jones as an outsider, he says, because they assumed he was part of the soccer clique. “In the dorms, everyone thought I was cocky,” he says.

On the field, Jones had little reason to be arrogant. He made the 1988 UCLA team as a non-scholarship player but was left home for the team’s first road trip.

Jones soon was inserted into the lineup, however, and he finished the season as the top freshman scorer with four goals and seven assists. He was awarded a scholarship.

The Bruins won the 1990 national championship with a front line that consisted of former national team member Billy Thompson flanked by Jones and current Olympic team member Chris Henderson.

Jones found it just as difficult to gain respect on national age-group teams as it was at UCLA.

While Jones was selected to many national age-group teams, the times he was passed over stick in his mind. He is quick to point out that twice he was left behind while his age-group team traveled to France for tournaments.

Still, Jones played in the 1991 World University Games and in the 1989 and 1990 U.S. Olympic Festivals.

The Olympic team consists primarily of the same players, including Jones, who won the gold medal in the Pan-Am Games in Cuba last August. It was the only gold medal the United States won in a team sport in the Pan-Am Games.

The under-23 team convened last month for a week of training in Norfolk, Va., and played three matches in Florida against professional teams.

Jones entered as a substitute at halftime of a 3-2 victory over the Miami Freedom on June 23 and entered at the half again in a 3-1 loss to the Fort Lauderdale Strikers on June 25.

Finally, Jones started and played 67 minutes in a 2-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rowdies on June 27.

Of the 20 Olympians, five are from UCLA and four played at Virginia, which won NCAA championships in 1989 and ’91.

It is uncertain how many of the Olympians that national team Coach Bora Milutinovic will consider for his 1994 U.S. World Cup team. There are only three players on the 1992 Olympic team who have played with the current national team. Jones is not one of them, but that does not concern him.

“(Playing for the national team) hasn’t been a big priority,” he says. “That’s another thing that, if it happens, I’ll go with it.”

For now, Jones is concentrating on the Olympics, where the Americans’ prospects are considered bleak.

“I think we have a good chance. I know we are underdogs, but I think we might surprise some people,” he says.

For Jones, that will be nothing new.