ONTD

Bad Dreams

"You always have that bad dream, where you're naked on the soccer field, you know?" Ben Olsen said Wednesday afternoon. "I've had it before, for sure. You forget your uniform, you're out there, and it just somehow came true during a photo shoot. It was pretty trippy."

I talked to four of the United players who went ahead and took their clothes off for ESPN, and all four said went through moments of second-guessing.

"It was definitely bizarre," Olsen said. "Leading up to it, we said yes to it, not really knowing what it was. And then the day came when we really were gonna do this thing, and we were like, 'What did we do? Did we really agree to this?' "

"It was a little bit weird in the beginning," Jaime Moreno agreed. "Different, very different."

"I thought it'd be pretty cool, but I guess reality kind of set in when [PR guy Kyle Sheldon] showed me the picture," Clyde Simms said.

"It hit me hard, too," Santino Quaranta said. "People have been asking me about this since I told them, asking when is it coming out. And I just said, 'I think in October.' But now I'm not telling anybody."

The Shoot

The shoot was done on a blazing hot day. The six players went out on the pitch with their ESPN robes on. Then they were asked to take them off. They all sort of looked at each other, and finally Olsen disrobed.
 

"I had a job to do," Olsen said. "And that was part of the job, was to drop the robe."

"It was awkward," Quaranta added. "They were like 'Jump, all right jump, jump.' We just kept jumping. Naked. In RFK."

Building the Wall

The players, as you can see, were formed in the traditional soccer wall, facing balls driven in their direction by United's equipment manager. Apparently, they were attempting to build a genuine wall, which required Bryan Namoff to make the Scheyer Face, and, oddly, to scissor his legs.

"The ball's gonna go right underneath the wall, man," Quaranta complained.

"Namoff was hamming it up there a little bit," Olsen said. "It's a pretty good looking wall, besides the fact that we're all naked. See, those guys were all flexing. You know, I'm a method actor. And I was really into the wall. A lot of those guys are jumping and flexing; I'm trying to do my duty to block that ball."

Avery John walked by a few moments later and asked what the picture's headline would be.

"The headline is Everybody Flexes Besides Ben," Olsen said.

At Least They Weren't Chara

Did you see this photo from the same issue of Bruins defender Zdeno Chara?

"Oh my God," Quaranta said, upon seeing Chara's pose. "I feel good about myself now."

Family and Friends

I guess that's one of the issues when you pose naked for the world. Rookie Chris Pontius was out today, but he previously talked to the Examiner's Craig Stouffer about the issue. "I think my mom's going to kill me," Pontius said.

"I told my parents," Simms said. "I don't think it'll hit them until they actually see it."

"Man, I don't know if I can show that to my daughter," Quaranta observed.

I asked Moreno and Olsen about their wives' reaction; "Well, I guess like anybody, who would want to see your husband naked [on the newstand]?" Moreno said. "When I explained what the pictures were, she was fine."

As for Olsen's wife, "she's seen me naked before, believe it or not," he joked. "My mother's not happy. She's gonna have to explain this at her Catholic church."

Sex Symbols?

This photo appears in the magazine's more humorous section, but still, I needed to find a place to use this quote:

"You know, athletes, we spend a lot of time without our clothes on in the locker room," Olsen said. "We're never that shy about being naked, and the guys say I'm less shy than even most of them. I mean, whatever."

And also this quote:

"I don't see anything sexy about it, to be honest with you," Moreno said.

And also this quote:

"It makes you look a lot less hairy," Quaranta noted, while looking at Olsen's image.

"I look diesel," Olsen responded.

And also this quote:

"I turned down a lot of people asking me to pose nude, and I just finally got sick of turning people down," Olsen said. "I said, all right fine, I'm gonna do one. And then I'll never do one again."


source  D.C. United

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