JUST A JOY

hey were the only window dressing adorning the walls of Joy Fawcett’s year-old Rancho Santa Margarita home, paper-doll strings of smiling skeletons lining the borders of the family-room windows like sentries from some blissful nether world.

The Halloween decorations delighted her daughters, 4-year-old Katey and 17-month-old Carli, but Fawcett dreams of real drapes and curtains, even some of the family’s more-permanent decor which remains in boxes in the garage.

“We moved in a year ago, but it feels like a brand new house to me . . . and looks like it too,” she says, laughing and waving toward a yet-to-be-landscaped backyard. “We haven’t been home much.”

Fawcett, an 11-year veteran of the U.S. national soccer team considered by many to be the best defender in the world, has just returned from another trip. It wasn’t China or Portugal or Japan this time, just her dentist and the kids’ dentist and a stop for fast food.

Another hectic day in suburbia? For Fawcett, it’s a day in a hammock on a tropical island.

Since Katey’s birth, her only mode of relaxation had been commuting between Westwood, where she was establishing a women’s soccer juggernaut at UCLA, and Orange County. And if you can relax on the 405 at rush hour, a day in the Suburban with two kids is a regular vacation.

After five years at UCLA, which included a trip to the NCAA quarterfinals and a Pacific 10 coach-of-the-year award in 1997, Fawcett, 30, resigned last December to concentrate on her two other full-time jobs: wife-mom and national team soccer player.

Fawcett, who timed the births of her daughters around the soccer season (their birthdays are three days apart), and her husband, Walt, left for Hawaii last week and are enjoying their first real vacation in seven years.

The Fawcett family traveling circus--she takes the kids with her everywhere the U.S. team plays or practices--has drawn some media attention. While Mia Hamm gets shampoo commercials and rave reviews for her athleticism, “Mama Joy” gets her picture taken trudging through an airport with a baby in one arm, a toddler hanging onto the other, a diaper bag on one shoulder and a car seat slung across her back.

National team Coach Tony DiCicco is fully aware of the human-interest value of Fawcett’s story, but wonders if anyone noticed that Fawcett, not Hamm, was chosen most valuable player of the recent U.S. Women’s Cup. Or that she came up from her flank defender position to score two goals during the tournament. Or that she led the team in minutes played this year. Or that she is unquestionably the most consistent performer on the squad.

“People always jump on that story line, but what makes the story to me is that she’s a world-class player, the best at her position, who has won an Olympic gold medal, and does all this with two children,” he said. “It seems like the story of Joy the player gets overlooked.”

Solid Gold

Even the most casual observer of the U.S. women’s soccer team is unlikely to have overlooked Fawcett’s contributions.

During the 2-1 gold-medal victory over China in the ’96 Olympics, Fawcett made a couple of spectacular defensive plays that “saved us at least three times,” according to teammate Julie Foudy. She also intercepted a pass, burst down the right flank past a pair of Chinese defenders and crossed the ball to Tiffeny Milbrett for the gold-medal winning goal.

During the U.S. Cup final Sept. 20, Fawcett scored the first goal--a header off a corner kick--in the U.S. victory over Brazil. She scored on a similar play against Mexico in the first game of the U.S. Cup.

“When Joy won the MVP at the U.S. Cup, the look on her face was as much shock as anything else,” Hamm said. “She’s just so humble that she never expects any praise.

“She doesn’t get much notice because nothing exciting ever happens on her side of the field. Why? Because she’s so good at diffusing opponents’ attacks, the other team rarely generates anything dangerous when she’s in the mix. I know Tony would like to play her at outside midfield, but she’s so good in the back, he’d have a hard time moving her.”

Fully aware that Fawcett is an awesome force on the back line, DiCicco was reminded of her offensive abilities at the U.S. Cup. He’s determined to get her in front of the goal as often as possible during the 1999 Women’s World Cup, to be held at the Rose Bowl and other U.S. sites next summer.

“Joy had as good an attacking presence as I’ve seen her have in awhile,” he said. “When I saw that, I just said, ‘OK, we’re going to get you up there every time we get a chance.’ She’s the type of player who ends up around the soccer ball and if she ends up around the ball in the opponent’s penalty area, that will mean goals for the U.S.”

But DiCicco can’t afford to have Fawcett positioned in anything other than a primarily defensive role, because of her dependability, speed--yes, even after two kids--and ability to read the game.

“Joy is an incredible defender, but she’s not one of these defenders who’s going to rock you with hard, crushing tackles,” he said. “She’s more graceful than that. She just picks your pocket as you go by. There’s a lot of experience behind what she does on the field and she still has a lot of speed.”

Fawcett smiles sheepishly at the mere mention of the word “speed.” Let’s just say she won’t be running any match races against thoroughbreds soon.

“I would say I’m a little slower,” she said. “I don’t know whether it’s age or childbirth, but we didn’t start paying attention to 40 [-yard dash] times until recently, so it’s tough to say how much speed I’ve really lost. I used to be third or fourth on the team but now there are some younger girls and I’m more in the middle.”

If she’s lost a step, she’s made up for it by taking that step sooner.

“Maybe I’m not as fast, but I know where to be,” she said. “It’s the reason I’ve never been a cruncher. When they moved me from outside mid to defender, it always seemed easier to read what they’re doing than tackle them.”

Fawcett played three positions during the U.S. Cup--flank defender, central defender and holding midfielder--showing remarkable consistency at all three. Fawcett is so focused and so critical of every nuance of her performance, Foudy says, that lapses of concentration are virtually nonexistent.

“It’s incredible,” Foudy said, “at this level, game after game after game, she’s unbelievably solid.”

DiCicco said, “She has a consistent presence in every game for as much of 90 minutes as is humanly possible. Joy’s the kind of player every coach would love to have a bunch of so you could put them all over the place . . . but, invariably, you never do.”

Fit Parent

The idea of a few clones sounds pretty good to Fawcett right now.

Carli wants Mommy to read her a book. Katey wants to be told the huge purple K she has drawn with a crayon is perfect and pretty. And a guy with a tape recorder wants to know how she finds the time to train on her own.

Forget the time, where does she find the motivation? Can you imagine what sort of game you’d be watching on Sunday morning if NFL strength and conditioning coaches handed out workout regimens and then sent the players home to do them on their own? Refrigerator Perry would have been as big as the whole appliance store.

Fawcett, of course, was only a high school futbol star at Huntington Beach Edison High and California, so she was used to managing a lot of her own training and fitness. Things hardly improved when she became a member of the national team. They met at the airport, played in front of crowds hardly big enough to divide into sides and start their own game and seldom practiced as a group.

“These are elite athletes with a lot of pride in their physical abilities and their fitness level,” DiCicco said. “They don’t want to let down their teammates. It’s a team-wide feeling, but Joy epitomizes it.”

As a result, Fawcett is a bit of a fitness freak. She continued working out through both pregnancies, was still running and doing speed work into the eighth month when her “stomach got in the way,” was training within two weeks after childbirth--and breast-feeding on the sidelines during breaks in practices--and back playing games within two months after each of her daughters was born.

“Joy gave everyone on the team the courage to have kids,” Foudy said. “The group of players before us, people who have kids now, all said, ‘I have to retire to start a family.’ Joy always said she wanted to have five kids and we’d kid her that she’d better get started.”

Fawcett wanted a large family, wanted to play for as long as she could and didn’t want to be a grandmother-aged mother. She never thought of herself as a pioneer and she never considered retirement.

“I never thought [continuing as a national-team player] would be a problem until after Katey was born,” she said. “When you’re struggling to get back into shape, you start to wonder things like, ‘Do they still need me?’ ”

Fawcett, the player, has answered that question loud and clear. And Fawcett, the mother, has provided the team with two adorable mascots who have served to further unify an already tight group.

“With Carla’s [Overbeck] son, Jackson, also on the road with us, it’s really added a different dimension to the team,” Hamm said.

“Team meals are hilarious. The kids give us a different perspective. If you’ve had a bad practice session or you’re tired and you go back to the hotel and see the kids, it energizes you. And you realize what’s really important.”

Fawcett used to worry when other mothers discussed their children’s routines because Katey’s naps revolved around plane, train, bus and practice schedules.

“But Katey turned out OK, so I don’t worry about it with Carli,” she said. “They get to travel and spend a lot of time with me. And they’ve got a bunch of doting ‘aunts.’ ”

DiCicco wasn’t exactly ecstatic when Fawcett first told him of her intentions to start a family, but he’s happy the way things have worked out.

“It’s great for the team,” he said. “We get the luxury of being a bit more of a family, but she’s got all the work and responsibility. When you walk off the soccer field after an exhausting practice and have to turn right into Mom, it’s not easy.

“How hard it is, what the toll is, I guess we’ll never know. But it hasn’t slowed down Joy one bit. I really believe she still has her best soccer ahead of her.”

If so, Fawcett will continue to redefine the term, “Soccer Mom.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Fawcett File

* Played every minute in all five games during ’96 Olympics.

* Named UCLA’s first women’s soccer coach in 1993.

* Club team, Ajax of Manhattan Beach, won amateur national titles in ’92 and ’93.

* Member of U.S. team that won 1991 World Cup in China.

* Selected U.S. Soccer’s female athlete of the year in 1988.

* Three-time All-American (1987-89) at California.

* Cal’s all-time scoring leader with 55 goals and 23 assists.

* The Times’ player of the year at Huntington Beach Edison High.