America's Host

"Mondragón!" he said.

"Thankyouverymuch!"

On she went for five weeks, save for the three days she played hooky to appear in a couple of U.S. women friendlies. ESPN invited Foudy back to analyze last year's NCAA championship, and she plans on getting serious about broadcasting as soon as she retires from soccer. "Julie's charisma comes straight through the tube," says Bill Graff, ABC's and ESPN's coordinating producer for World Cup '98. "Her personality is so vibrant, you can't help but listen to what she has to say. And when you hear what she has to say, she has instant credibility with the viewer."

Foudy's foray into television has been only one of her many far-flung adventures. In March 1997, four years after signing an endorsement deal with Reebok, she traveled to Sialkot, a city near the Himalayan Mountains, where 90% of the world's hand-stitched soccer balls are made. Reebok had invited her there to visit its new factory, which doesn't use child laborers, who are routinely exploited to do the stitching. For four days Foudy toured dusty villages, spoke with the workers and came away encouraged by the slight progress Reebok's presence afforded them but astounded by the hardships of their day-to-day lives. "Things are so bad there," she says of the poverty of children as young as five to stitch balls. "To survive you have to have your whole family working, and the government doesn't help. It should be mandatory for every American citizen to travel to a third-world country, because they would never bitch about the U.S. again."

FIFA, soccer's governing body, recognized Foudy's work against child labor by awarding her its 1997 Fair Play Award (the first time the honor had gone to an American or a woman), though she didn't stop there. During her trip she was struck most by the plight of Pakistani women, in particular that of a 22-year-old stitcher named Khalida. "How long have you been stitching?" Foudy asked her through an interpreter. "Too long," she replied. Since Foudy's visit the two have been corresponding, and Foudy says that Khalida has become a leader in the fledgling women's movement of a human rights group. Press Foudy hard enough and she'll show you one of Khalida's translated letters. "Miss Foudy, believe me, I am a very simple girl," she wrote. "Sincerity and simplicity touch my heart. Let me say that your love which trickles out of the lines written by you has simply won me over."

Foudy has been so visible off the field that it's easy to overlook that she's having her best year for the U.S. team. When DiCicco shifted the Americans' formation from a 3-4-3 to a 4-3-3 in mid-'97, he moved Foudy from defensive midfield to her natural attacking midfielder position. That change transformed her into a goal scorer. In 1998 she had a career-high six goals in 24 matches, including her first hat trick in a 5-0 win against Ukraine. This year she has added three more, including one off a nifty run-and-cut maneuver against China last month.

"People used to tease Julie about her [lack of] shooting and goal scoring, but I never did that," says DiCicco. "I always felt she could be part of our goal-scoring core, and now she's taking players on the dribble and converting her chances. Put it this way: When I talk about the most skilled players on our team, I put her in that top category with Akers, Hamm and Lilly."

Getting to that point hasn't been easy for Foudy or any of her U.S. teammates, who must either train in isolation (America has no women's professional league) or spend long stretches of time apart from their loved ones. During the five months spent at the pre-Cup training camp near Orlando, Foudy has seen husband Ian Sawyers, her former coach at Stanford, for about a week each month. "We have to wear name tags," she cracks. No choice was more difficult to make, however, than the one Foudy let pass two years ago: quit soccer or accept admission to Stanford medical school? After an agonizing deliberation, soccer won out. "I love medicine and science," says Foudy, who was a biology major, "but I wasn't sure I could devote myself to being a doctor for the next 40 years. There are too many things I want to do."

There's TV, of course, but Foudy has another idea. She has thought about starting an organization that would help women pro athletes in selecting an agent, hiring a lawyer and dealing with club management. The concept came to mind after Foudy talked with such contemporaries as basketball's Jennifer Azzi, Softball's Lisa Fernandez, golf's Meg Mallon and volleyball's Nancy Reno. "Whenever you meet female athletes there's a bond you share," Foudy says. "A lot of them are pioneers, like the women on this team. They understand where we've come from and where we need to go."

Whatever Foudy does, she'll no doubt be comfortable in the corridors of power. Not long before the 1996 Olympics, she and co-captain Overbeck spent the day at the White House working on an antismoking campaign with Donna Shalala, secretary of Health and Human Services. After lunch Shalala turned and whispered, "I've got half an hour. Want to go on a secret tour?" Then she led the soccer players through the normally off-limits West Wing. As Foudy turned a corner she ran smack dab into President Clinton. "It was amazing," she says. "The President had his glasses on and he was reading a document, so he was kind of startled. Secretary Shalala told him about our campaign. He said he appreciated what we were doing."