The Use of Fame to Fight AIDS
From nytimes.com
By JACK BELL
Published: June 22, 2004
Ethan Zohn was known as the soccer guy when he won “Survivor Africa” and $1 million in the finale broadcast on CBS in January 2002. Zohn is still the soccer guy, but his quest is now more important than eating creepy-crawlies and going native in some exotic locale.
He has parlayed his 15 minutes of fame on reality TV into an embrace of an unvarnished reality: helping in the fight against AIDS in Africa through Grassroot Soccer, an international nonprofit AIDS awareness foundation that uses former and current professional players from Africa, where millions of people have the virus that causes the disease.
“Before ‘Survivor’, I lived and played soccer for the Highlanders in Zimbabwe in 1999 and 2000 in the second-largest city, Bulawayo,” Zohn said in an interview at the European Championships in Porto, Portugal, last week. “A friend passed away from AIDS and I saw first-hand what a killer disease is doing to an entire nation. I felt helpless.”
In addition to Zohn, 30, the group’s board includes the actor Andrew Shue, who played for the Highlanders in the early 1990’s. Zohn said soccer could be the ultimate teaching tool, and he is unashamed to use his celebrity status to fight a disease that he said has cut the life expectancy in Zimbabwe from 63 years in 1990 to 39 in 2000. The group is also working in Ethiopia and Zambia.
“We can make value judgments all we want, but through some cultural differences it has been all right for me in Africa to have multiple sex partners,” Zohn said. “Now all that’s left in a population that is 25 percent H.I.V. positive are children and their grandparents. The parents are dead. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and Grassroot Soccer has developed a curriculum that we believe will help boys and girls, men and women make better decisions. We’re not simply handing out condoms and telling people what not to do. We’re giving them the proper information, passed along by their heroes - professional soccer players.”
Zohn is from Lexington, Mass., and was a goaltender at Vassar College in Division III. He was later an assistant coach at Fairleigh Dickinson University and played in the minor leagues in the United States with the Cape Cod Crusaders and the Hawaii Tsunami. He also played for the United States Maccabiah team in 1997 and 2001.
Then came “Survivor.” His life has not been the same since. After being watched by 30 million people on TV, Zohn is now the subject of gossip columns (he is dating Jena Morasca, another “Survivor” winner). He is a sideline reporter for the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer, and has been recruited by the likes of Hummel, Capri Sun and Philips Electronics. The catch: The companies have to support Grassroot Soccer (grassrootsoccer.org).
“Soccer is my life,” Zohn said. “I’m at the peak of my popularity now, but the window is short and I have an expiration date. If I can make an impact, I want to help some kids and bridge the gap between soccer and celebrity in America.”
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company