A Young Player Who's Going Places

D.C.'s Jeremiah White Took Up Soccer, Then Took Off, From Serbia to Denmark

The path to the U.S. national soccer team begins at the youth level and takes a player to elite tournaments around the world. It follows a route to MLS, to the glamorous English Premiership, the grinding German Bundesliga or to another stylish league overseas.

But for Jeremiah White, a District native, the road to the pinnacle of American soccer was decidedly less conventional.

His adventure began in Belgrade, Serbia, where, as a black player, he was subjected to hateful taunts inside stadiums and on city streets.

While fellow Americans were settling in soccer citadels such as London, Glasgow and Amsterdam, White moved to a second-division club in northern Greece and then to an unexceptional team in a French steel town. Last winter, after weighing options in Belgium and Norway, he settled with AGF Aarhus in Denmark.

And for the first time since he started kicking a ball around 18 years ago, he caught the eye of the U.S. coaching staff and was invited to training camp. With most of the top European-based players unavailable because of club commitments, White is included on a 26-man roster preparing for Saturday night's friendly against Sweden at Home Depot Center in suburban Los Angeles.

His window of opportunity is narrow -- he must return to Denmark soon for the second half of the Superliga season -- and there are no guarantees he will ever be asked back to the national team.

But at least he got an opportunity.

"I've been away for so long, it's nice to be given a chance," White, a 25-year-old forward-midfielder, said last week. "It has been a pretty interesting loop."

Though his humble travels have kept him in the shadows of American soccer, White believes his backwater experiences have both enriched his life and tested him as a player.

"I chose a different path," he said. "I wanted to experience it all, even the rough times. At the end of the day, if you can learn 10 languages, see some remarkable places and meet some incredible people, you have added to yourself."

White was born in Washington, the fourth of six children, and lived in the Adams Morgan neighborhood before moving to Prince George's County. A prosperous business took his father, also named Jeremiah, to Philadelphia regularly, and when the son was 5, he moved to Pennsylvania.

The younger Jeremiah grew up playing basketball, baseball and soccer and running track, but in his final year at the prestigious Haverford School, he embraced what he calls "the creativity of soccer."