Soccer More Than a Game for 2 Bruins

Ancel Thompson, a 44-year-old product manager and technical director for a machine tool company, is able, in his soft English accent, to speak with love and pride of his son, Scot, a freshman on the UCLA soccer team.

Arnie Futagaki, once a rugged linebacker at Golden West College and then a football coach for 22 years at Schurr High in Montebello, is 51 years old and he can’t speak about his son.

Arnie’s wife, Shirley, says that Ryan, a sophomore on the UCLA team, is “the light of Arnie’s life.”

Arnie Futagaki has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease, the killer disease that has robbed Arnie of his speech and much of his ability to move, but not of his ability to have his eyes light up whenever Ryan puts on that UCLA uniform and dribbles a soccer ball.

So, yes, this is a story of fathers and sons. It is about sports and life. It is about kids who have learned and fathers who have taught.

UCLA (17-2), ranked No. 3 in the country but, inexplicably to its players anyway, unseeded in the NCAA tournament, travels to eighth-ranked St. Louis (17-3-2), the third-seeded team, for a second-round game Sunday.

This apparent diss of UCLA, Futagaki says, only provides extra motivation. “It only makes us want to win more,” Thompson says.

But the long trip means that Arnie Futagaki can only wait at home. “We go to as many games as we can,” Shirley says, “because it helps keep Arnie going. When it’s time for his therapy and Arnie’s not doing something right, I tell him, ‘C’mon Arnie, you can’t go see Ryan if you don’t do this.’ And then he does it. But we just can’t take the plane trip. It’s too hard for Arnie.”

Ancel Thompson can’t make the trip to St. Louis either. Business is busy and last-minute tickets on a holiday weekend are expensive. And, Ancel says, “Scot has three more years and we expect there will be more tournament games.” That is not pressure. It is just the natural optimism that is a part of Ancel Thompson and of his son as well.

Futagaki and Thompson were high school stars in Orange County. Futagaki, a 5-foot-6, 140-pound midfielder, like his brothers Brandon and Brent before him, played at Fountain Valley and was a member of the U.S. Under-20 National Team and the U.S. Pan-American Games team last summer.

Thompson, 6-feet tall, 174 pounds, was an honor roll student and a star defender at Trabuco Hills. Thompson’s love of soccer came to him naturally.

Ancel Thompson was always kicking a ball when he grew up in London. “It’s what we did,” Thompson says. Ancel played on club teams and when he wasn’t playing, Ancel was watching on television. “Before we’d go out on Friday or Saturday nights, we’d watch the game of the week. It would come on at 10 p.m.”

He moved to the United States, Ancel says, “because I could make more as a clerk at Macy’s than I could as a manager in my field in England.” He and his wife, Belinda, were living in New Jersey when Scot and his 14-year-old sister Ashley were born.

Though the game was never forced on him, Scot says he always loved talking about soccer with his dad. They would watch old soccer games together on TV. “That’s how Pele got to be my favorite player,” Scot says.

The family moved to Rancho Santa Margarita before Scot’s sophomore year in high school. That’s not an easy time to move. Scot had established himself as an athlete and student in New Jersey. He had to do it all again at Trabuco Hills.

As usual, Scot didn’t find many other black players, either on club teams or his high school team. “I’d love to become a role model and attract other kids like me to the sport,” Scot says, “because it’s a great sport.”

Having scored three goals on only six shots this season and filling in admirably as a starter when defender Carlos Bocanegra got hurt has given Scot exposure and experience. He is gentle and friendly when a pair of black children ask for his autograph after a UCLA game. The two little boys, maybe 8 years old, beam and stand shyly by while Scot talks of the admiration he has for his father.

“I feel the same way about my son,” Ancel says. “I am so proud of him.”

“Ryan is the light of Arnie’s eyes, he truly is,” Shirley Futagaki says.

As a 5-10, 210-pound college linebacker, Arnie Futagaki was an anomaly. “There aren’t many Japanese guys that size,” Ryan says.

Arnie went right into football coaching after his playing career at Golden West. He would bring his three boys along to football practice. He tried to train Ryan as a kicker.

“But none of us took to it,” Ryan says. “Hey, I always told my dad that I didn’t like to wear pads. He’d have us at practice and the other football coaches would call us pansies. Then a couple of football players would try to play soccer and they couldn’t make it.”

Six years ago, Arnie began feeling weakness in his muscles and a thickening in his throat. The family went to doctors, “hundreds of them, it seemed like,” Ryan says.

“It was so frustrating because we couldn’t get a diagnosis,” Shirley says. “And Arnie just kept getting worse.”

When the diagnosis did come it was devastating. There is no cure and no stop to the progressive way the disease robs a man of his ability to walk, to talk, to kick a soccer ball with his son, to slap him on the back after a good game or hug him after a bad one. “We were told Arnie would only live about three years,” Shirley says. “It’s been six.”

During this time, Ryan has become a nationally acclaimed player. He has played in front of 28,000 people in Nigeria, where, Ryan is proud to say, he was something of a crowd favorite.

For Ryan has developed a signature move, an intricate karate kick he performs whenever he scores a goal. “I scored a goal against Japan and did my kick. The crowd went wild,” he says.

When Ryan was growing up, Arnie made the choice to concentrate less on his own football coaching duties so he could always attend his sons’ games. Arnie went from offensive coordinator for the varsity to being a freshman and junior varsity coach. He taught himself about soccer so he could coach Ryan’s teams.

“My dad, he means everything to me,” says Ryan, who has scored three goals this season, including the first in last weekend’s 4-1 NCAA victory over San Diego. “And what he’s going through now, it only makes me stronger. It makes my whole family stronger and closer.”

Shirley is a 24-hour caretaker, spelled twice a week by a home aid--from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., so she can get a night’s sleep. Brent, a talented snowboarder, has forgone a pro career for now to stay home and help his mom.

“The greatest joy we have is going to watch Ryan,” Shirley says. Ryan had been heavily recruited by SMU and St. John’s, both respected college powers. “But when UCLA showed interest, that was it. I knew my dad could see me.”

The family communicates with Arnie with flash cards. But there is also another way.

“After games he comes to,” Ryan says, “I can see it in his eyes. I can see how much he loves being there.”

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com