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"Rochester was full of a lot of supposedly big-name players in this league who didn't get along," Steele said. "I was 19, and it was pretty bad because I thought I had a relationship with Laurie at Syracuse. When I got there, it wasn't what I expected it to be."

Calloway did not return calls seeking comment.

This winter, Steele played indoor soccer for the Baltimore Blast, with whom he had won a title the season before. But he was dismissed with two games left in the season after a halftime altercation with the coach.

"I like Jonny a lot, personally," Blast general manager Kevin Healey says. "He's an excellent player with a great career ahead of him. It was a minor dispute between him and the coach, and it had happened one other time during the year. That's it."

Steele shrugs off the incident, saying, "We bumped heads a few times, and I'm an intense player."

Without him, the Blast missed the playoffs.

Moving forward

Schweitzer and Economides express no concern about what happened in Baltimore or anything in Steele's past. They surrounded him with friends and former teammates such as Maher and Schweitzer, who would have been Steele's roommate in Rochester had he not retired before the season.

Steele lives in Cary with Maher, the godfather of Steele's 10-month-old son, Jayden, who lives with his mother in Baltimore.

"Our team inside the locker room, we know what Jonny is and what he's all about," Maher says. "We're not going to get any sucker punches from Jonny. ... Outsiders looking in might say, 'That guy blew up really quickly.' The guys that know him, we know he's passionate about the game."

Before he joined the Carolina Hurricanes as their marketing director this spring, Curt Johnson spent seven years as general manager of the MLS Kansas City Wizards. He went to the RailHawks' second home game as a fan.

When Steele entered as a substitute late in the game, the name piqued Johnson's memory -- Steele spent one winter with an indoor team in Kansas City -- but his game piqued his interest.

"I really liked what he added off the bench," Johnson says. "He looks young, but the first two balls he hit with his left foot, he just clipped 'em in there. I think he added a lot to the game. He's definitely got mobility and all that. I definitely took notice of him."

If all goes well, Steele's game is all anyone will notice.

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