Hub product turned soccer sensation Ryan Johnson returns home to play this Saturday
Author: John ToddRyan Johnson, a forward for the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer, heads toward the goal. The striker, a product of the Boston Area Youth Soccer League, is the California squad’s leading scorer.
Ryan Johnson got his soccer start kicking a ball on the playgrounds of Boston. He hasn’t stopped kicking since.
The one-time forward for the Dorchester Lions now competes at the highest levels of professional soccer in the U.S. as the leading scorer for the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer (MLS). The 24-year-old scoring sensation will look to increase his goal tally against the New England Revolution on Saturday at Gillette Stadium.
“It’s always nice coming back to Boston,” said Johnson in a phone interview from his home on the West Coast. “My parents make it out to the games and I have a chance to spend time with family and friends.”
The 6-foot-1-inch striker, lean and strong at 170 pounds, shows extraordinary quickness down the flanks and pounces on balls with unrelenting intensity. Watching him compete in the MLS, coaches and teammates from Boston easily recognize the scrawny 12-year-old kid from Mattapan in the powerfully muscled forward who bursts from the goalmouth after denting the net, arms spread wide, soaring and smiling.
After a stellar career in youth, club and high school soccer, Johnson set scoring records at Oregon State University and was drafted into the MLS by Real Salt Lake in 2006, playing for both Real and the Chicago Fire during his rookie season. That same year, he debuted on the Jamaican national men’s team, collecting an international cap in a 1-1 tie against the U.S. in a warm-up for the 2006 World Cup.
Before joining San Jose in 2008, the Kingston-born forward spent a year with Osters IF in Sweden to get some seasoning in the tough European leagues.
“This is what I always wanted to do,” said Johnson. “Play soccer professionally.”
Johnson’s first experience with the game was standing on the sidelines at Franklin Field while his father, an immigrant bricklayer who played on elite teams in Jamaica before moving to Boston, kicked around with some of the local Reggae Boyz.
“My father, he’s all about soccer,” said Johnson. “That was the number one sport in my household. I developed such a love for the game growing up.”
Along with thousands of other kids, Johnson’s first exposure to organized “football” came through Dorchester Youth Soccer. One of the league’s founders, Steve Weymouth, teamed up with one of its most seasoned coaches, Radcliffe Angus, to form a traveling team, the Dorchester Lions, which was the first inner-city squad from Boston to compete in the mostly suburban Boston Area Youth Soccer League.
That inaugural team featured players from half a dozen countries, including the U.S., Jamaica, Trinidad, Ireland and the Dominican Republic. They practiced in the twilight on the scuffed pitch at Franklin Field and traveled to the leafy ’burbs to pound the competition.
The kids were hungry, athletic and well-coached, employing back passes against teams not accustomed to the soccer concept of advancing by retreating.
“Those were some of the best times in my life,” said Johnson. “Playing just for the love of it.”
Not everyone was pleased, however, by the Lions’ style of play. Coach Angus, a Jamaican native whose sons Brandon and Andrew played with the Lions, remembers several league officials coming to a game in Milton to check on complaints by opposing teams.
“The kids were competitive and they went after the ball and they weren’t afraid to tackle. Not everyone was used to that,” said Angus. “But that’s soccer. As a player, what I liked about Ryan was his intensity. He was a hard tackler, a hard player. He always went after the ball.”
Between Johnson’s scoring exploits and a defense anchored by teammate Kareem Smith, who went on to play for Trinidad and Tobago’s national side, the Dorchester Lions roared through the schedule.
“The Dorchester program was very instrumental in developing players’ talents,” said Angus. “We had kids who loved to play and coaches who loved to teach.”
Besides Johnson and Smith, the Lions produced two other national team players — Sheanon Williams, 19, who anchors the defense for the under-20 U.S. national team and will play in the upcoming U-20 World Cup in Egypt next month; and Aaron Maund, 18, who plays for Trinidad and Tobago’s U-20 squad. Williams started every game as a freshman for the University of North Carolina in 2008 and led the Tar Heels to the finals of the NCAA tournament, where they lost 1-0 to Maryland, before leaving school to pursue a professional career.
The high-quality soccer being played by the boys from Dorchester attracted attention. Scouts from elite youth clubs flocked to the sidelines. Johnson, Smith and the Angus brothers were in the first wave to move from inner-city soccer to the well-financed club programs. At age 12, they joined the Blazers of the South Shore United Soccer Club, run by Boston University coach Neil Roberts, and helped lead the team to a Region I title and a top national ranking in the U-15 division.
By age 14, Johnson was also starring for Melrose High, rising at 5 a.m. to get on a METCO bus, attend school and practice in the suburbs, and then report to Braintree to train with the Blazers.
“This is what I had to do if I wanted to become a professional,” said Johnson. “There were so many distractions, but I had to put them off to concentrate on soccer.”
A number of teammates from those championship seasons of the Dorchester Lions weren’t so lucky — or so disciplined.
“One of the main reasons I made the decision to go to Oregon for college was the change of environment — I needed to go somewhere without all the difficulties of living in the city,” said Johnson. “That was the number one reason. My focus would be entirely on my studies and my game — on everything I needed to do to become a professional player.
“When I talk to kids and give them advice, I can use myself rather than someone else as an example, because I went through it. I know what kids face.”
At this stage of his career, Johnson also knows what professional athletes face. Like four teams in four years on two continents. Or sitting on the bench, waiting for a break. Contract negotiations. Endless travel. And, at San Jose, playing for a team out of the playoffs, with sniping critics and restless fans.
“This is just what you have to do,” said Johnson, who is married and the father of a 3-year-old daughter, Kiana. “It’s all a part of the game.”
Coming into Foxborough for Saturday’s match, San Jose will face a hungry New England squad trying to nail down one of two remaining wild-card spots in the MLS playoffs. The Earthquakes are coming off a dramatic 1-0 win over Kansas City, scoring in the third minute of stoppage time last Saturday at home.
Johnson makes no secret of an interest in playing closer to New England one day.
“I would love to spend more team closer to friends and family,” he said. “I would love to give back — to coach and work with kids.”
