Earl Edwards has a picture on his cell phone of him colliding with a youth player from Brazil. The Brazilian has his cleat on Edwards' chest.

“I was fine,” Edwards says, “but he went down.”

E.J. Edwards

Edwards is a 6-foot-2½, 205-pound goalkeeper. He is also 16.

He is the answer to the perpetual question in soccer circles about what would happen if the big, strong athletes American football and basketball endlessly churn out ever gravitated to soccer. Earl Edwards is what happens. He is expected to be between 6-6 and 6-8 and weigh in the 230-pound range, and already he can outrun nearly half the field players on the U.S. under-17 national team.

“The other day I was watching football with my roommate and he was talking about how I have the perfect body for football,” Edwards says. “I always wanted to be a tight end, but I've never played tackle football in my life.”

Football's loss, futbol's gain.

Edwards attended La Jolla Country Day from seventh through ninth grades, but he'll make a rare appearance in San Diego when the U-17s play an under-18 team from the La Jolla Nomads on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at Kinsell Field (part of the Hickman complex just east of I-805 and north of Clairemont Mesa Boulevard). The younger players in the U-17 national pool, among them San Diego Surf product Erik Stephenson, will play another Nomads team at noon.

Rare, because Edwards has been part of U.S. Soccer's under-17 residency program in Bradenton, Fla., since August 2007. He recently was asked back for another year and is to be the starting goalkeeper at the U-17 World Cup next year. After that, it's off to UCLA or Maryland – his top college choices at the moment – or, perhaps, European pro leagues. International scouts are already calling.

He's that good. That promising. That big, literally and figuratively.

You might recognize the name, Earl Edwards. His family calls him E.J., for Earl Jr. Earl Sr. has been the athletic director at UCSD since 2000.

U.S. national teams have long consisted of the sons of immigrants or former soccer pros, with Italian or Argentine or English games on TV serving as a soundtrack to their formative years. The next step is to get athletic families from more traditional American sports to embrace soccer for their talented offspring, to get a guy who grew up in Staten Island, N.Y., and played college basketball at East Stroudsburg (Penn.) University and for whom “soccer didn't exist” as a youth to produce a family of footie stars.

Yohance Edwards was a midfielder on the top-20 Brown University men's teams in the early '90s. Jasmine Edwards, a La Jolla Country Day High alum, is already getting playing time at Rutgers as a freshman. Now there's E.J.

He was a sweeper until a goalkeeper on his U-12 Nomads team wasn't having a good day and the coach asked him if his heart was really in it. The keeper shook his head and quit. The team needed a new one, and the coach pointed to Edwards.

“I didn't want to be in there, either,” Edwards admits.

But the position grew on him, particularly when he realized goalkeepers are basically given free rein by referees in the penalty area and collisions were akin to a Hummer and a Corolla.

That lesson was driven home in a game against Japan, after Edwards hesitated on a cross and watched it drilled past him into the net. On the next cross, he didn't hesitate and flipped some unsuspecting forward cleats over head.

The Japanese players gave him a wide berth after that.

“Every time I step on the field I'm the biggest man on the field, and I recognize that,” Edwards says. “The biggest thing with my size is making sure I use it to my advantage, making sure my presence is felt – I like to get contact with at least one or two guys in the box, just to let them know I'm there.”

On penalty kicks, he extends one hand onto the post and the other onto the crossbar without jumping, then walks to the opposite side and does the same thing. Just a little reminder that the goal shrinks when he's in it.

And that's at 6-2½, 205.

Imagine, after a few more steaks and glasses of milk, what it will look like when he's 6-7, 230.

Dorados in town

A San Diego select team will face Mexican club Dorados of Sinaloa in an exhibition tonight at 7 at Montgomery High. Dorados also will face a reunion team from the San Diego Flash on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Balboa Stadium. The Flash played from 1998 through 2001 at various venues in San Diego and featured several players who later became MLS stars, including defender Jimmy Conrad and goalkeeper Joe Cannon.