August 1st, 2020 in the 84th minute of Union Omaha’s inaugural home match, 22 year old John Paul Scearce, known as JP, steps on the pitch for the first time as a professional. Moments later, Elma Nfor, working a heroic shift himself, lays off a ball to just outside the top of the 18 yard box. Into frame appears a streaking JP Scearce and with his first ever professional touch, he hits a screamer. The screamer is a little too central of a shot but still requires a spectacular stop from Alex Zamuido, the North Texas keeper, depriving JP of a fairy tale professional debut. 

Here’s the thing about fairy tales they make for good stories, but aren’t very realistic. Even at the third division level, professional soccer is a meritocracy. Your background has nothing to do with your present. You wouldn’t be there if you were not good enough. But here at The Journey we are all about a player’s background and JP’s story is one of personal determination, positive attitude, lack of ego, and tremendous self belief. He took a decidedly non traditional path to his first professional touch for Union Omaha, but from the time he first started kicking a soccer ball on the sidelines of his sister’s soccer game in Nogales, AZ, he knew he wanted to go pro. 

After displaying his talents along the sidelines of his sister’s U-8 games, JP began playing for a rec league team where his coach was his mother. Around the age of 8, he began playing for his dad on a travel team. During this time, JP was a small guy, but he was fast, so he spent his time as a winger and a forward. At the age of 12, JP started playing for a club team out of Tucson. After one more season on the wing, JP moved to the central midfield position we’ve seen him at in Omaha. Even though he had not been playing a ton of defense on the wing, he found the additional defensive responsibilities of central midfield to be an easy adjustment likely due to his competitive spirit. 

Before his freshman year of high school, JP’s dad got a job in the Phoenix area and the family moved to Scottsdale, AZ. Moving to a new school in a new town JP was nervous to try out for the soccer team at Chaparral HS in Scottsdale as a freshman and yet he made varsity and was a starter from day one. Chaparral was not exactly a soccer powerhouse, and JP quickly became the best player on the team. Despite playing for a well known Arizona club and staring at his high school, JP never played for a USSDA program. 

Not playing DA, JP didn’t have much exposure to the coaches of top DI programs, and since he was not the kind of goal-scoring “ten goals a game freak” that would attract attention anywhere and more of a “pretty decent,” but “low-key” kind of player, the DI attention was very slow to arrive. However, during his senior year of college, the Air Force Academy offered JP a scholarship. 

For those not familiar, it is not easy to get into a service academy. For starters, the process requires you to be nominated by your congressperson, senator, or the president or vice-president. Additionally, there is a tremendous amount of paperwork. However, since he had received this prestigious offer, JP got in gear and got the work done and was ready to report to a mini boot camp in mid-July. 

About a month in advance of boot camp, JP received a letter informing him he was medically disqualified from the Air Force because he indicated he had a peanut allergy on his medical forms. After some back and forth on the phone, JP agreed to get allergy tested for his peanut allergy. He successfully argued that since it had originally been diagnosed as a child and occasionally children grow out of their childhood allergies, he should get a chance to prove he no longer had the allergy. 

Always one to commit fully, JP began microdosing peanuts in advance of his allergy test in hopes of building up enough resistance to pass the test, However, it was all for naught as about five seconds after being injected with peanut serum, JP’s arm began to swell, and his Air Force career was over before it even began. 

For what was surely a heartbreaking experience, I should point out that JP and I laughed at the absurdity of the situation throughout the anecdote. This is not the last time I will be impressed with JP’s ability to laugh off hardship and talk openly about the setbacks in his life. With his DI soccer offer off the table, JP considered quitting soccer entirely, going to Arizona State, and moving on with his life. Instead, he called up a school that was interested in him very early in his recruiting that he had turned down: Yavapai College in Prescott, AZ. 

Talking with the coach a week before practice started, he discovered there was a spot for him on the team and so began a very successful juco career for JP. His freshman year at Yavapai College, he scored three goals and had the fourth most assists, 16, in NCJAA. His sophomore year was even more successful with ten goals, 15 assists, good for ninth in NCJAA, he was Yavapai student-athlete of the year, and Yavapai played 29 games, more than anyone else in the country. Yavapai also made an appearance in the National Championship game where they lost to Tyler (TX) 3-2 in the 91st minute. 

On the backs of this impressive season, JP got the attention of five or six DI programs including Cal Poly, American University, Grand Canyon and of course, Cornell. During his visit to Cornell, JP clicked the coaching staff and decided to continue his journey in Ithaca, NY.

If you’ve been tracking the geography of our story, JP has been moving north steadily from the southern border of Arizona in Nogales, to northern Arizona in Prescott. That’s about a 280 mile drive. Prescott, AZ to Ithaca, NY is about a 2,300 mile drive. Having attended college in Central New York myself (what’s up Hamilton College!), JP and I had a good time reminiscing about how terrible the weather is in that part of the world. But like everything else, he took terrible weather in stride and thrived in the situation. As a junior transferring in, he was named a captain in preseason at Cornell and led them to a season that was much better than the previous, improving four wins from the previous year, and ten from two seasons prior. 

Between his junior and senior seasons at Cornell, JP went to Newport News, VA and played for Lionsbridge FC in USL League 2, starting all 12 matches and playing 90 minutes in each match. Back at Cornell for his senior season, JP scored all five of his goals for the season in the final eight matches he played for the other Big Red. His efforts on the season earn him an All-Ivy nod as well as a spot on the all-region second team. As a cherry on top, MLS lists JP as one of the players available for the 2020 MLS SuperDraft. 

During his senior year, Daniel Haber, one of the last Big Red players to go pro, was back on campus after six years playing around the world, finishing up his degree and gave JP tons of advice and connected him with an agent and helped prepare JP for the journey that was about to come. 

JP was one of 30 players brought into an invitational combine by New Mexico United, but does not get offered a contract or a trial. And so JP headed to Omaha where Jay Mims had invited him to go on trial at the start of preseason camp. As other trialists slowly start leaving camp, JP remained and the coaching staff offered him a contract before the club left for Salt Lake City making JP one of the first two trialists to be signed to the club.

JP had firmly established himself as a part of the team when the world turned upside with COVID-19. Months passed, the season resumed, and it seems like JP was going to start in the middle of the park alongside Tyler David. But once again, JP’s body has other plans for him.

After the team’s recovery session following the intrasquad scrimmage at Papillion Landing, JP’s stomach starts hurting. He thought it was the same issue that brought short his Instagram takeover a few months before, but when medicine doesn’t resolve the issue JP knew he was in trouble.  “The pain just started getting so much worse and worse and came to a point where I realized I should probably go to the hospital because this isn’t normal. (Ferrety) Sousa takes me to the hospital at probably 9:30-10 o’clock at night, and I was in the waiting room for an hour just going through so much pain. Once, they got me into a room and the Doctor checks on me, he says it’s probably appendicitis.” And so, JP went into surgery the next morning and was out of training for two weeks, the first of which he struggled to move. Finally, at the start of the third week out from his surgery, JP returned to training. In the meantime, the season has started and Devin Boyce has staked his claim on the midfield spot we all thought was JP’s. 

In advance of our call, I wondered if JP would be sensitive about this ill-timed medical issue. So before I even switch on my recording equipment for the interview I ask JP if he is willing to talk about his appendicitis, and he answers “oh we can talk about the appendicitis all day,” and laughs. By the end of our chat, I’ve learned that this is who JP is. He’s got tremendous perspective to go with his tremendous drive and he’s willing to laugh off even the cruelest of setbacks. 

JP followed his own path to the start of his professional soccer career and as a fan of the club, it’s hard to not appreciate his contributions so far and be excited for what is to come. He’s played in five of the six Union Omaha games after recovering fully from his appendicitis, starting two of them and making the bench for every game. JP also has scored his first professional goal, the first equalizer in Arlington against North Texas, a goal that provided a tremendous lift for fans and team alike. As is fitting for JP, it’s not perfect, it’s not a fairy tale, but it is a dream come true, and it is hard to ask for more than that.