Bronzed face honoring Brandi Chastain will get makeover.
Head of entity agrees rendering of the San Jose soccer star ‘not a great job’
SAN FRANCISCO >> Brandi Chastain’s image has caused a national sensation again — two decades after taking off a jersey to celebrate winning the Women’s World Cup.
This time the San Jose soccer star experienced a social media frenzy over the supposed likeness on her Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame plaque.
“I wasn’t anticipating waking up to this storm of comments,” Chastain said Tuesday.
The bronzed face honoring Chastain upon her enshrinement into the Hall on Monday evening already is being jettisoned.
“We’re going to redo it,” said Kevin O’Brien, the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame president and chief executive. “We weren’t happy with the rendering. It was not a great job.”
The likeness was wildly off as some people suggested it not only didn’t look much like Chastain but also appeared to have masculine traits. On Twitter, posters offered all kind of suggestions on who it might resemble, including Gary Busey, Bill Belichick or Mickey Rooney.
Chastain said Tuesday that she didn’t notice the artwork while posing for photos next to the bust at the Westin St. Francis Hotel.
“I was taking in the room and then I turned to look at it, ‘Well, that doesn’t really look exactly like me,’ ” she said.
Chastain asked a Hall of Fame official standing nearby, “Does my nose look like that? It is missing a piece. The middle bridge of my nose is not there.”
Ann Killion, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist who covered Chastain throughout the player’s career, tweeted: “Brandi Chastain is one of the most beautiful athletes I’ve ever covered. How this became her plaque is a freaking embarrassment for BASHOF.”
Chastain, 49, didn’t take offense to the plaque. When an official told her the renditions aren’t meant to be perfect, she forgot about it. But a couple of people mentioned it at the induction ceremony.
Chastain laughed along with those who poked fun at the plaque’s off-the-mark rendition. But she dismissed the talk as a side note for an event that raises funds for atrisk youth.
“All of us would agree without sport in our lives our lives would be so different,” said Chastain, whose two sons introduced her at the ceremony. “We have a big depth of gratitude for the Hall of Fame because they allow us to celebrate what’s great about sports.”
Chastain, who coaches youth girls and Bellarmine College Prep teams, played a major role in turning soccer into a popular sport for U.S. women. She helped the United States win two World Cup and two Olympic titles while competing for the national team from 1988-2004.
The former Santa Clara University star, however, is best known for scoring the 1999
World Cup-winning goal on a penalty kick, then celebrating by shedding her jersey to expose rippling muscles in a sports bra.
O’Brien said the unidentified artist who made Chastain’s plaque has done many for the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame that were fine.
“He’s done a lot of the plaques,” O’Brien said. “We’ve never had a complaint.”
But O’Brien said the plaques are made from photographs of the subject, a process that doesn’t always produce a satisfying likeness even for institutions such as the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
“I think it’s very difficult to take a picture and make a perfect rendering,” O’Brien said.
The original photograph the artist used featured Chastain with her hair pulled back and wearing a thick coat with a high collar. O’Brien said that while he “didn’t think it
was well done” when he saw Chastain’s original plaque, “it’s really up to the inductee” and that Chastain told him she “didn’t have a problem with it.” But she accepted his offer to redo the image, which O’Brien said would cost $8,000 to $10,000.
“She’ll send a different picture and we’re going to redo it,” O’Brien said, “and do it until she’s happy.”
Chastain called the gesture generous. But she was more excited about a memorable evening in which son Jaden, 12, talked basketball with fellow Hall inductee Tim Hardaway, the former Warriors great.
The social media dust-up at least left Chastain smiling though she didn’t want to criticize anyone for the effort.
“I hope it brought more laughter,” she said. “We need to have a little levity in the world right now.”