LOVE AND BLOOD: AT THE WORLD CUP WITH THE FOOTBALLERS, FANS, AND FREAKS
the U.S., and his columns on the Fox Sports Web site, where he’s a senior writer, routinely inspire angry rebuttals on soccer blogs and bulletin boards: “Jamie Trecker can kiss my hairy white butt,” for instance, or “Jamie Trecker: Exposed for the Pompous Ass He is to the Entire World.” “I’ve been criticized over the years for being opinionated, forthright and, you know, argumentative,” he admits.
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Trecker watches ten hours of soccer a day. His office, in a Bridgeport red brick two-flat he shares with his wife, Li, has TVs hooked up to five satellite dishes. DVDs of league action in far-off places like Yemen, Nigeria, and Bulgaria come regularly in the mail. He knows enough Spanish, German, Italian, and French to follow coverage outside the U.S., and has taught himself a bit of Arabic and Korean toward the same end. “A lot of the great football writing is in French,” he notes. He’s traveled to every continent except Australia and Antarctica to watch soccer.
Trecker, who grew up in Connecticut but spent a lot of time in his grandparents’ hometown of Saint Andrews, Scotland, comes from a family of writers and soccer fans. His mother, Janice Law, has written more than a dozen books, including mysteries and a work of nonfiction about the suffragettes. His father, Jerry Trecker, was an editor and sportswriter at the Hartford Courant for almost 40 years; he was among the first writers at an American daily to cover soccer regularly. In the 70s, while the family was living in Scotland, Jerry called football matches for BBC Radio. In 1982 he published a book on his love for the game, The Magic of Soccer: An American’s Appreciation.
That plus a lot of pills seems to be doing the trick. He says that when he writes now he sometimes wonders if it’s worth all the trouble. “How much does it really matter?” he says. “Being seriously ill, with doctors saying, ‘You’ve got maybe six months to live,’ I’ve got enough to worry about.”
