Bet Your Boots He Can Play
Taihape, New Zealand, so they say, is a great place to go for a fling.
No, not that sort.
The way Galaxy midfielder Simon Elliott explains it, it’s a farm town you visit not so much to get away from it all but to get it all away from you. If you want to chuck it, Taihape’s the place to be.
It is, in short, the gumboot-throwing capital of the world.
A pause, now, for a word about gumboots.
The rest of the world calls them Wellington boots. Made of rubber and hence waterproof, the knee-high boots were invented in Scotland in 1865 and named in honor of the duke who dealt Napoleon that rather bad hand at Waterloo.
But since New Zealand already has a picturesque city named Wellington--which, incidentally, is where Elliott grew up--Kiwis call the footwear gumboots.
They make frequent use of them. It rains a lot in New Zealand, which is why North and South islands are so green and why sheep outnumber people, several thousand to one.
And when you’re a farmer in, say, Taihape and you have to constantly step out in the rain--going, as it were, where only sheep have gone before--gumboots are a good idea.
In New Zealand, as Elliott can confirm, the unusual is commonplace. Earlier this year, for example, the Kiwis, in a brilliant display of the absurd, persuaded hundreds of people around the world to knit sweaters for penguins to protect them from oil spills.
Useless for penguins, of course, but great for the New Zealand wool industry.
And so it comes as no surprise that the wearing of gumboots soon turned into a sport--the flinging of gumboots.
The flexibility of their upper halves and the satisfying weight of their soles combine to create aerodynamic properties that make hurling them fairly easy.
Which is what Elliott, one of three New Zealanders playing in Major League Soccer, did when he was a youngster.
“It’s like the javelin,” he said. “You’ve got to run up and throw it from behind a line.”
It’s been years since Elliott, 27, threw in Taihape’s annual competition, so he’s a little vague on the rules.
“I don’t know if everyone uses the same boot or if everyone uses their own boot,” he said, emphasizing, however, that the technique required doesn’t come easily.
“It takes years of training, mate,” he said, tongue in cheek. “It’s a very complex process. I don’t know if I’ve got the time to go into it.”
Elliott is in his third season with the Galaxy, but his Kiwi accent still throws some teammates.
“I can’t understand a word the guy says,” defender Alexi Lalas said. “So I’m just assuming that he’s got intelligence.”
There’s little doubt about that. Elliott’s talent as a soccer player carried him from Wellington to Palo Alto, where he earned a history degree at Stanford.
“When I found that out, I was like, ‘Man, they’ll let anybody in over there,’ ” Lalas said. “My God, he must be a really good soccer player.”
He is. Good enough to have been a starter on New Zealand’s national team for six years. That connection brought him to the United States.
Bobby Clark had been New Zealand’s coach and when he gave up that post to become coach at Stanford, he brought several players with him, one of them Elliott.
“When I was [coaching] at UCLA, I thought he was Stanford’s best player,” said Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid.
Elliott helped the Cardinal to the 1998 NCAA championship game and, after graduating the next year, set his sights on turning pro.
“I was hoping to play in the [MLS] but I didn’t get drafted,” he said. “I went to train with San Jose [then the Clash, now the Earthquakes] for a little bit of their preseason, but they sort of told me not to bother coming back.”
So Elliott left California and joined the Boston Bulldogs of the A-League.
“I was going to play that season and then head to Europe,” he said.
But Schmid, who was looking for someone to play a deep midfield role for Los Angeles, got to him first.
“I invited him out to train with us for a week,” Schmid said. “But after two days, Ralph [assistant coach Ralph Perez] and I realized this was a guy who could help us.
“We signed him and I think we’re very fortunate we did.”
Lalas explained why:
“He has all the things you need to be a great midfielder. He has vision, he’s got the fitness, he has the ability to shoot from distance, and he can be an SOB when you need him to be.
“There are a lot of midfielders, especially in this league, who have one or two of those qualities, but when you can get a combination of all of them, you’re in a good position.”
Which is why Elliott, named the Galaxy’s most valuable player last season, is one of the more sought-after players in MLS.
“Whenever anybody talks to us about trades, he is always the first name that gets brought up,” said Schmid, who uses Elliott nominally as a defensive midfielder but allows him the freedom to move into the attack whenever the opportunity arises.
Going into tonight’s U.S. Open Cup game against the Seattle Sounders Select at Cal State Fullerton, Elliott had played 73 games for the Galaxy, scoring seven goals and assisting on 18 others.
“He’s as good a two-footed player as there is in this league,” Schmid said. “A lot of guys can use their right and their left, but Simon’s one who can use the outside of his left and the outside of his right. He can use every aspect of his feet, so that makes him very valuable to us.
“The other thing that he brings is a physical dimension. He’s a strong player. He’s one who can recover the ball for you in midfield. He’s got a good fitness level. He covers a lot of ground for us in games, getting forward and getting back.”
Elliott fit in with the Galaxy right from the start.
“He’s a very intense competitor on the field but a lot more easygoing off the field,” Schmid continued. “He’s got a quick wit. He’s an intelligent kid. He’s the kind of guy who gets along with everybody but he’s also a very driven, intense athlete. He wants to win at everything he does.”
That doesn’t mean Elliott will be heading back to New Zealand any time soon to try to collect that gumboot-throwing title he never won.
“I really don’t miss New Zealand that much, to be honest,” he said. “It’s always nice to go back, but it’s nice because I can come back to America.
“I like living here. I enjoy the lifestyle. I enjoy the people here. I’ve made some good friends here. I can always go back to New Zealand if need be, but at the moment, I’m looking at America as a long-term thing.”
