THE CREATIVE SHEADES OF BREK & WHITE
Whitecaps midfielder has a flair for the unexpected — both on and off the pitch
Brek Shea has always resisted the quick and easy characterization. On this day he isn’t especially keen on pulling back the curtain to reveal the inner workings of his restless imagination.
“I love soccer, but I enjoy things outside of soccer just as much,” says the Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder. “I mean, you never know what’s around the corner. You could be leaving the next day. I just try to make the most out of every day, in soccer and life.”
Fair enough. Except that doesn’t quite do Shea, or this column, justice. For a little more insight, we instruct you to google his artwork at Left Foot Studios and see what it says about the man. The colours, even in the flat, one-dimensional Internet images, fairly leap off the screen.
The style is unstructured and free-flowing. Is it high art? Who knows but it’s unique, it’s his own and it’s for sale on his Left Foot Studio website, with proceeds going to children’s charities.
Last year, Shea was also playing in Orlando when Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard, shot up the Pulse nightclub, leaving 50 dead including Mateen. Shea’s response was to create a canvas with the rainbow flag as a backdrop, a heart in the middle of the piece with the words, ‘One Love,’ below.
The soccer shoes with the same rainbow flag motif? That was his idea, too.
“I guess it’s an outlet but it’s something I look forward to,” Shea says of his painting. “It gives me joy when I create something other people like.”
Especially when it’s something original, just like the artist.
“He’s gone through different hair stages but he’s pretty much the same guy then as he is now,” says Caps fullback Sheanon Williams, who first encountered Shea more than a decade ago when they were teenagers at the IMG soccer academy in Bradenton, Fla.
“Since the day I met him he’s never really cared about what other people thought about him. He does his own thing and it will always be that way.” Make no mistake, it will be his way. Shea, it seems, would make an interesting study if he was a tax accountant. But throw in his skills on the soccer pitch, a fairly eventful professional journey which included a stop at the Premiership with Stoke City, the ever-evolving hair styles, and a 6-3, 195-pound frame which inspired “The Ostrich” as a nickname and you have, well, a rare bird.
As it happens, the 27-year-old Texan arrives in Vancouver at something of the crossroads of his career. Acquired in a trade with Orlando for Giles Barnes just before the start of this season, Shea’s appearances for the Whitecaps have been limited by a knee injury but, in his first appearance in five games last weekend, he came off the bench against Colorado and produced the game-winning goal.
Theoretically, he should be in his peak years and there remains an ambition to play his way back to the American national team where he’s made 34 appearances over the years. But right now he slots in as an attacking option for Caps’ manager Carl Robinson, someone who can change the game as a substitute, rather than a foundational piece for the team.
“When he’s fully fit he’s an exciting player,” Robinson said, before adding, “He’s a colourful character as I was told many time before I signed him. But, getting to know him, he’s a really cool guy, a good guy. The boys in the locker-room respect him.”
Shea, in fact, appears ready for a new phase in his career. He and wife Carling Seguso are the parents of daughter Phoenix, who turns two in September, and have a son on the way. The couple met when Shea was a phenom at the IMG academy for soccer and Seguso was there for tennis.
She’s the daughter of former Canadian tennis star Carling Bassett, the grand-daughter of Canadian sports entrepreneur John F. Bassett and the great-granddaughter of Canadian media mogul John W.H. Bassett.
“My wife says, two (children) under two is going to be fun but it’s going to be busy,” said Shea. “I’m looking forward to it.
“I’m having just as much fun now as I was when I was 21. And I have a family now so it’s even more fun. I just do what I want to do and as long as I stay between the lines it’s OK with me.”
Even when those lines aren’t exactly straight or black and white.