Achingly Good

The war horse is being readied for battle once again.

The attendants have done what they can to patch her up and prepare her physically and mentally. They have buckled on the armor and wished her luck. There is little more they can do.

Another tournament is underway and she is going out, as she has every year since 1985, to take on the world and show why she still is the finest, the most respected and certainly the most courageous women’s soccer player of her generation.

She is ready. The gleam of battle is evident in her 33-year-old eyes.

So, is it wrong to refer to Michelle Anne Akers as a war horse? Not if you are Michelle Anne Akers.

Here’s how she compares the United States’ triumph in the first FIFA Women’s World Championship in China in 1991 to its victorious march through the first Olympic women’s soccer tournament in 1996.

“China ’91 was sort of like a fairy tale,” she said. “We had never experienced a world championship before, we were setting the pace for our country. We go there, we win all these games. For me, it was the best tournament of my life. All of a sudden, we exploded onto the soccer scene.

“In the Olympics, I felt like an old war horse who had fought the war on its knees and arrived at the podium victorious but wounded.

“So the feeling was a lot different. It was more deeply satisfying. A lot of things were revealed to me in that moment on the podium that have kept me going since then.”

That she needed help to keep going would not have been obvious to the 76,489 flag-waving fans who shook Sanford Stadium to its foundations Aug. 1, 1996. All they saw was a radiant Michelle Akers, resplendent in her U.S. track suit, proudly showing off her gold medal.

What they did not see was the scene a short while later in the U.S. training room, a scene that had been repeated after each of the team’s five games: Akers, flat on her back, drained and hooked up to an intravenous unit that, for the next hour or more, dripped energy back into her exhausted body.

While her teammates were at a party celebrating their Olympic gold, she was fighting simply to recover.

Akers’ courage in the face of a six-year battle with Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome has astonished everyone who knows her. Her willingness and ability to play at the highest level have left them shaking their heads in wonder.

Because what she went through in 1996 she is going through again in 1999.

It was no different after Saturday afternoon’s 3-0 victory over Denmark at Giants Stadium. It will be no different after tonight’s game against Nigeria at Soldier Field.

“I’m amazed that she has held up, not only physically but emotionally,” said Mark Adams, the U.S. team doctor who has been helping Akers cope with her illness since 1995. “A lot of players would say it’s just not worth it. I think her spirituality really keys into this. If she didn’t think she had a greater purpose, I don’t think she’d keep doing this.”

International Star

Akers was 19 when she made her national team debut, against Denmark in August 1985 at a tournament in the seaside resort of Jesolo, Italy.

That was where the scoring began. In that game--only the second ever played by the U.S.--she became the first American woman to score a goal in international competition. It was her initial step on the road to becoming the world’s most dangerous striker.

But it was not until 1991 that she burst onto the international scene in a big way, scoring an astonishing 39 goals in 26 games that year. They included a tournament-high 10 at the world championships in China as Akers won the Golden Boot as the event’s top scorer and the Silver Ball as its second-best player behind U.S. teammate Carin Jennings.

Akers, Jennings and team captain April Heinrichs were dubbed “the triple-edged sword” by the Chinese media for their offensive prowess in leading the U.S. to the title.

Endorsement deals soon followed. The former four-time All-American from the University of Central Florida became the first internationally recognized star of the women’s game, playing professionally in the women’s league in Sweden.

But two years later, Akers, who had been feeling progressively worse without knowing the cause, learned she was suffering from CFIDS. She described the effects vividly in her book, “Standing Fast”:

“At my worst, I was barely able to function or complete day-to-day activities and tasks. It was an extreme effort to do laundry, prepare a meal, or attempt the exercise bike for five minutes. Many times, just doing these small chores knocked me out for days or weeks.”

Playing made everything that much worse, causing her days of migraines and weeks of overwhelming fatigue.

She suffered from pain in her muscles and joints, fuzzy-headedness, imbalance, forgetfulness, night sweats, poor sleep, nausea, emotional upheaval, sugar cravings, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and almost constant exhaustion.

“I can honestly say,” she wrote, “these few years were pure hell for me.”

But she was not about to give up the fight to have women’s soccer become an Olympic event in 1996, to take part in the first Olympic tournament and to win the gold medal.

That she accomplished all three goals despite her debilitating illness was a tribute to her own willpower and faith and also to the efforts of Adams, U.S. team trainer Patty Marchak and others who have helped her.

“The way I told her she needs to approach this is [that] she’s not sick,” Adams said. “She’s an athlete who has a chronic illness, just the same as somebody who has diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis or something like that.

“It’s just that there aren’t many world-class athletes who have those things and continue to compete.”

Why did Akers put herself through such torture in ‘96? Wasn’t she tempted to simply allow her body the rest it craved?

“I had to ask that question many times before, but not during the Olympics,” she said. “I’d already made up my mind.

“There was a time when I was in a training camp in San Diego where it just had become too much and I was about to give up. And I got hold of this CFIDS specialist who just gave me enough [help] to where I improved a little bit and that was all I needed to keep going. He gave me a diet that reduced some of the symptoms.

“A lot of my battle was internal and just questions to God. What’s going on with this? Why is this still happening? What do you want from me? Should I keep going? Is this what God wants me to do? Should I quit, because I was ready to, or should I persevere and keep going?

“Along the way, those questions were answered and it became clear to me that I needed to keep going.”

And it wasn’t only her illness she had to battle. As a player who throws herself into games, unafraid to challenge for every ball, Akers has had more than her share of injuries.

Her medical chart shows a dozen knee surgeries and assorted other repairs. She knows all about concussions too. As recently as February she broke the orbital bone around her left eye when she clashed heads with Norway’s Linda Medalen.

Marchak, now a research analyst in sports medicine at Duke University, recalls the locker room scene before the U.S. matches in the Olympics.

“She got like five body parts taped before every game,” she said. “It became sort of a joke. I forget exactly what all we were taping, but I think it was like her wrist and her thumb and her knee and her ankle. It was a lot. We’d assign how much time we needed for taping and half of it was for Michelle.”

Akers said simply keeping track of everything that needed to be taken care of was an ordeal.

“Physically,” she said, “it took a lot of planning, because I was on a special diet and then we had specific medical treatments to prevent any crashes and to prolong my energy source and keep me on the field as long as we could.

“My knee was in need of reconstruction. In fact, the doctor who initially evaluated me said I would miss the Olympics because he didn’t think I could play on that knee. But of course my PT [physical therapist] and I proved him wrong on that one. I played.

“It took a lot of hours of therapy. I went from practice to physical therapy and back to practice for five months to get that knee ready. And on top of that Doc Adams and the trainers were dealing with how to keep me playing in the Olympics. So it was a long process of making sure I had the foods I needed, making sure the environment I was in before and during the games was suitable for me to recover and be ready for the games.”

Receiving the postgame intravenous fluids was a key.

“Having IVs after matches was crucial,” Akers said. “They put a couple of bags in me. I felt better, but I still could have taken another couple. Doc Adams said he was surprised that I was able to function at that level. It was a high cost.”

Adams, from Columbia, Mo., said his treatment options were and are limited.

“She doesn’t take a magic pill or anything,” he said, pointing out that Akers cannot be given drugs that non-athletes can receive because they are performance-enhancing and therefore banned in competition.

Not being able to eat anything she wanted was difficult too, Marchak said.

“The dietary restrictions were very severe,” she said. “She was trying to refuel her body on a very limited diet. Again, it can be a difficult thing because you’re playing in the heat and humidity [of Florida and Georgia].

“It wasn’t that other players didn’t suffer or have a lot to do in order to stay at the top of their game, it was take that and multiply it by 10 for Michelle. Almost every aspect, whether it was nutrition, hydration, fatigue, all of that was sort of raised to a new level.”

Despite all this, Akers delivered on the field. Her critical contribution to the gold medal came in the semifinal against world champion Norway when she scored the game-tying penalty kick.

Tony DiCicco, the U.S. coach who moved her from the forward line to the midfield after the 1995 world championship to prolong her playing career, is amazed at Akers’ fortitude.

“Who can dominate head balls like she can?” he said. “Who can distribute the ball like she can? Who can still score goals? Who wants the responsibility in the semifinals of the Olympics, when you’re down a goal, to take the penalty? Michelle is a champion, she’s a winner, she has unbelievable dedication to that.”

And after it was all over, after the Olympic gold had been attained, what was Akers’ reaction up there on that podium?

“Thank God I can rest,” she said. “I can stop. It was an overwhelming sense of relief and elation.

“When the final whistle was blown was when I could finally just relax and not have the tension of trying to guard every spare ounce of energy and preserve that for the field, and the tension of possibly having to deal with sitting out [a game] and not being able to participate.

“All those things and more were finally put to rest because we had done it.”

Now, she is trying to do it again.

Many believe the United States will advance in this World Cup only as far as Michelle Akers is able to carry it.

Her teammates know that all too well.

“Michelle is one of those people who, when she’s out on the field, you just feel more confident because she’s on your team,” Mia Hamm said. “She’ll break herself in half for this team.”

She already has. Many times.

****

WEDNESDAY

* Norway 7, Canada 1

* Sweden 3, Australia 1

* Russia 5, Japan 0

* China 7, Ghana 0

****

TODAY

All Times Pacific

Brazil vs. Italy: 3 p.m.

United States vs. Nigeria: 5:30 p.m.

North Korea vs. Denmark: 6 p.m.

Germany vs. Mexico: 8:30 p.m.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Akers by the Numbers

Michelle Akers, a member of the original U.S. national team in 1985, scored the team’s first goal and has scored 102 in 142 games for her country. A year-by-year look at her national team career:

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Year Ga Min Gls Ast W-L-T 1985 2 180 2 0 0-1-1 1986 5 380 0 0 3-2-0 1987 9 450 3 2 5-4-0 1988 2 150 0 2 1-0-1 1989 0 0 0 0 0-0-0 1990 6 420 9 0 6-0-0 1991 26 1,926 39 7 22-3-1 1992 0 0 0 0 0-0-0 1993 12 882 6 7 9-3-0 1994 12 521 11 7 11-1-0 1995 18 1,202 15 5 14-2-2 1996 17 1,244 7 3 15-0-2 1997 2 180 1 0 2-0-0 1998 15 932 5 3 14-1-0 1999 16 1,021 4 0 *13-2-1 Total 142 9,488 102 36 *115-19-8

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* Through June 22