— Akira Fitzgerald swears he likes the moniker “Irish Ninja.”

Considering Fitzgerald's other soccer nicknames have been benign brands like “the Cat,” the conflation of his Japanese and Irish heritages – bestowed by the Triangle Soccer Fanatics supporters group – is a vivid summation of the plucky, proficient Carolina RailHawks goalkeeper.

“I have no problem with it at all,” Fitzgerald says. “I enjoy it. It’s probably the most original one I’ve ever had.”

In Japanese lore, superhuman powers were often associated with the ninja, including legends that they exerted control over the five elements of the Godai. Those forces embody the evolution and perseverance of Fitzgerald’s playing career path. The 28-year-old goalkeeper is currently in his fifth season with the RailHawks, with an intervening but short-lived stint in Major League Soccer (MLS) earlier this year providing a bittersweet taste of the big time.

Chi: In the mind, "Earth" is confidence. Emotionally, it is a desire to have things remain as they are, a resistance to change. It represents a desire to hold your ground and repel an assailant’s attack with your strength. – Shidoshi Jeffrey M. Miller

When it came time for Machiko Shirahata to give birth to her son Akira in 1987, she felt more comfortable returning to Japan and the city of Chiba, where she had graduated from medical school and worked as a hospital anesthesiologist.

Upon returning to America, the family soon relocated to Baltimore, where Fitzgerald’s mother and father, Robert Fitzgerald, began work as research scientists and professors at Johns Hopkins University. As an only child perhaps used to being the center of attention, Fitzgerald gravitated towards positions in his three favorite sports that afforded the most playing time and brightest spotlight: goalkeeper in soccer, goalie in lacrosse, and catcher in baseball.

“Sometimes those are positions that not a lot of other kids want to play,” Fitzgerald explains. “So as a coach, when you have a kid who does well, you’re probably not going to ask someone else to go in. I liked the pressure of those positions, especially in soccer, where I would have coaches who didn’t want to put me in goal. I would ask all the time.”

By the time Fitzgerald was a high school freshman attending Loyola Blakefield, a Jesuit prep school in Towson, Md., he had quit baseball and lacrosse to focus on soccer. “It’s the one sport that I love more than anything else. There was no other sport that was anywhere close,” he said.

And the only position Fitzgerald wanted to play was goalkeeper. He once switched club teams because the coach thought he would make a better field player. During his teenage years, Fitzgerald encountered his most persistent impediment: his relatively diminutive height. Many soccer coaches harbor a strong preference for taller goalkeepers, no matter the league or level of play. Even today, an eyeball test would quibble with Fitzgerald’s listed height of 5 feet 11 inches.

The subject of his height is wearisome but certainly not new for Fitzgerald, who says he “encounter(s) it every day, from anybody who’s watching me play.”

“It could just be coaches coming in and seeing games, and they’re not even going to give you the time of day because they think I’m too small and they don’t want me. I’ve had people tell me that throughout my career, and it’s something that I wouldn’t say bothers me, but it motivates me to make sure every other part of my game is that much better,” he said.

Fitzgerald’s goalkeeping role models include 5-foot-10-inch U.S. international Nick Rimando and legendary 6-foot Spanish keeper Iker Casillas. Fitzgerald sees height as just one of many goalkeeping attributes. He can’t control his size, so he compensates by honing his explosiveness, quickness, technique and reading of the game.

“Obviously I think there are times when, if you’re two inches taller then maybe your reach would be better and you could pull something out,” Fitzgerald says. “But at the same time, if you’re two inches taller are you going to be quick enough to even get to that ball?”

Fitzgerald enjoyed a decorated high school career, winning the 2005 Maryland Player of the Year. He took part in the regional Olympic Development Program squad. His performance at adidas/ESP All-Star camps in Connecticut got the attention of Jay Vidovich, then the head coach of Wake Forest University, who offered Fitzgerald a scholarship to play for the Demon Deacons.

After redshirting the 2006 college season, Fitzgerald appeared sparingly in 2007 as Wake Forest won the national championship. He became the full-time starter in 2008 as the Demon Deacons returned to the Men’s College Cup in 2008 and 2009. During his final season in 2010, Fitzgerald played every minute for Wake Forest and finished the season with an ACC-best 81 saves, earning him Second Team All-ACC honors.

Fitzgerald’s dream was to become a pro soccer player. But despite his amateur accolades, the end of his college career brought a harsh reality.

“Most of the guys who were starters or played consistently were getting courted by agents who would come in and pull them aside with the coaching staff, saying, ‘Hey, MLS is interested in you. You may get drafted.' That just never happened for me. I never had any interest from any MLS clubs.”

Sui: Mentally, "Water" represents the ability to adapt to and change our strategy or way of doing things if change is needed and what we are currently doing is not working. At our core, it is our emotionalism and ability to ‘go with the flow.’

During the summers of 2008 and 2009, Fitzgerald played for the Cary Clarets, a U-23 amateur team then competing in the USL Premier Development League. The Clarets’ manager, Dewan Bader, was also an assistant coach for the Carolina RailHawks. During the summer of 2010, Fitzgerald drove back and forth from Winston-Salem to Cary to train with the RailHawks’ senior squad each morning.

After leaving Wake Forest and brief, unsuccessful trials with the Columbus Crew and Chivas USA, Fitzgerald contacted RailHawks manager Martin Rennie, who invited Fitzgerald in on a trial basis. Brad Knighton, a former and current MLS goalkeeper, was already signed as the RailHawks’ presumptive starter for the 2011 season. Fitzgerald's hopes of becoming the backup keeper were dashed late in the preseason when the club signed Caleb Patterson to a contract that ran through July, when Patterson was scheduled to join Estoril in Portugal.

The RailHawks told Fitzgerald the team would provide his with room and board so he could continue training with the club, but didn't offer him a salary. With no other recourse short of abandoning his pro soccer dreams, Fitzgerald stayed in Cary, essentially serving as a practice keeper. When Patterson left for Portugal in July, the RailHawks offered Fitzgerald his first pro contract: room, board and just under $1,000 per month.

Despite the meager salary, Fitzgerald was elated. “For me, my first contract was amazing. I’m getting paid money to put in a bank account to play soccer," he said. "It was awesome.”

Fitzgerald didn’t appear in any games during the 2011 season, during which the RailHawks finished with the best record in the NASL but were bounced from the playoffs. When Rennie and Knighton left to join the Vancouver Whitecaps of MLS, Fitzgerald believed he was in line to become the team’s starting goalkeeper. He spent the offseason playing indoor soccer with the Baltimore Blast.

Fitzgerald trained most of the 2012 preseason as the RailHawks’ starter. His coming out party to the home supporters was a March friendly win over the Whitecaps, where he made five spectacular saves and stopped another kick during a penalty shootout.

“I wanted to be the starter,” Fitzgerald says. “I wanted to do really well, and I knew getting games as a goalkeeper was the most important thing. So I came in thinking, ‘I’m going to make this position mine and kill it this season.’ That didn’t happen.”

What did happen was new RailHawks manager Colin Clarke brought Ray Burse with him from the Puerto Rico Islanders to be Carolina’s starter. Burse was a strong-willed veteran with years of MLS and NASL experience.

Still unaccustomed to the pro soccer meritocracy, Fitzgerald believed that he had paid his dues in training and earned the right to assume the starting spot.

It fell to Nic Platter, hired as the RailHawks’ goalkeeping coach in 2012, to break the news to Fitzgerald.

“Akira was in a situation where he probably thought he should have been playing,” Platter remembers. “But it was also a situation where Ray had played for Colin and they had gone into battles together. Colin knew what Ray was all about, and it was a matter of us learning what Akira was about.”

As a result, an oil-and-water rapport developed between the RailHawks’ keepers.

“Ray and I didn’t have the best relationship, and that just happens in professional sports or any job,” Fitzgerald says. “I had a bad attitude about not playing, and I felt like I should be playing more.”

Practices turned awkward.

“We just never spoke," Fitzgerald recalls. "We would go through an entire practice and literally not a single word would be spoken. One person makes a good save, nothing was said. It was silent. And looking back, it was a terrible experience.”

The problems were exacerbated as Carolina went on a nine-game winless skid to open the 2012 season. Indeed, the team’s first victory was a U.S. Open Cup win over amateur side PSA Elite, Fitzgerald’s first pro start in goal for the RailHawks.

“It was a tough working environment to be in,” Fitzgerald says. “Neither of us was a big enough man to squash it and accept it as a coach’s decision. No one really told me that at the time, so that was a big growing experience and wake-up call for me seeing what professional sports was about.”

Ka: "Fire" is a directness, commitment and desire to be better than we are. Internally, from the heart come the qualities of will or intention, motivation and competitiveness as well as an outgoing or domineering spirit.

After the 2012 season, Burse retired and Fitzgerald re-signed with the RailHawks. “That offseason, I completely dedicated myself to the next season. I didn’t play indoor. I lived [in Cary] and focused on getting ready and being sharp for the next season.”

Still, Fitzgerald watched as the club rotated in a carousel of veteran goalkeepers on trial, ultimately signing Tim Murray, who had spent the previous three with the New England Revolution. Ultimately, Fitzgerald was tapped as the opening game starter, a position he wouldn’t relinquish all year.

“It was great,” Fitzgerald says. “I was playing games, and there’s nothing that makes you happier as a soccer player than if you’re playing every weekend.”

That year, the RailHawks advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open Cup, defeating the LA Galaxy and Chivas USA along the way. Carolina finished with the best overall record in the NASL, but was denied a playoff berth due to the league’s new postseason format.

Carolina exercised their club option on Fitzgerald’s contract for the 2014 season, which he again began as the RailHawks’ starter. But following a 6-1 thrashing at FC Edmonton in early June, Fitzgerald tore the volar plate in his thumb in preparation for a U.S. Open Cup rematch against Chivas USA the following weekend.

“Picking up that injury the way I did during training was super frustrating,” Fitzgerald says. “At a certain point they thought my season was going to be done.”

Fitzgerald instead watched as Scott Goodwin, the team’s new backup keeper, stood on his head during another RailHawks run to the Open Cup quarterfinals. After returning from the injury in late July, Fitzgerald spent three games on the bench before reclaiming his starting spot for the remainder for the season.

Fitzgerald had never utilized the services of a player agent, a decision motivated by a mutual lack of interest. The day after the end of the 2014 season, he heard from one.

“I got a Facebook message from an agent who wrote, ‘Hey, I have some teams who are interested in you.’ He gave me his website, and he was representing a lot of New York players, so I thought maybe it’s a New York team. I gave him my number, and he called me the next day and said, ‘Hey, New York City FC is interested in signing you; would you want to go there?’”

Jason Kreis, a former Duke University and MLS standout, was the new manager of New York City FC, the new MLS expansion side beginning play in 2015. Kreis spent several weeks in the Triangle during the late summer and early fall of 2014, and he saw Fitzgerald play while scouting the RailHawks.

Several days after speaking with the agent, Akira held a video conference with Kreis and his staff. The next day, NYCFC offered Fitzgerald a contract. Fitzgerald soon moved to New York, renting an apartment in nearby White Plains. His girlfriend eventually left her nursing job in Raleigh to take a similar position at a hospital in New York. Preseason training included a visit to the Manchester City facilities in England.

“I loved every minute of it,” Fitzgerald says. “Talking with others guys on the team who had been in MLS, NYCFC took it to another level with the way they took care of their players and set everything up. When you think of how you’d be treated at a top level club, that’s how they did it. So it was an amazing experience.

“Then you see the ugly business side of it, and that’s hard.”

Fū: "Wind" is our intellectual capabilities and ability to be ‘open-minded.’ Emotionally, we are carefree and not influenced by stress.

Although he expected to be the third or fourth keeper on the roster, injuries elevated Fitzgerald to gameday backup for NYCFC’s opening three matches, including the 2015 season-opener at Orlando and the club’s debut home game in Yankee Stadium.

However, after starter Josh Saunders came off suspension, loanee Ryan Meara returned from injury and the club brought in Eirik Johansen, a Norwegian youth prodigy and product of the Manchester City Academy, Fitzgerald found himself at the bottom of the depth chart.

Once again, Carolina came calling, although this time it was not Fitzgerald’s decision to return to the RailHawks for a three-week loan in May.

“Being part of four goalkeepers was difficult to begin with,” Fitzgerald admits. “I wasn’t getting very many reps or getting chances to show anything, so I knew I needed to be in these coaches’ faces every single day. So getting sent on loan was difficult.”

As always, Fitzgerald developed a game plan. “At that point, I thought I needed to do well these next three games [in Carolina], and hopefully New York watches these games, sees me do well, and realizes they have a good goalkeeper who can play in games.”

Fitzgerald earned two clean sheets on the road before closing his loan at WakeMed Soccer Park against Minnesota United on June 6. Before the match, the Triangle Soccer Fanatics unfurled a banner reading, “Welcome Home Akira – Irish Ninja.” Fitzgerald keeps a picture of it on his mobile phone.

“These fans have been unbelievable for me ever since I’ve been here,” Fitzgerald says. “They’ve been super supportive. So I was floored by that gesture.”

Two weeks after Fitzgerald's return to New York, the players and coaches enjoyed a team dinner following a fan event in SoHo. Afterwards, Kreis sent Fitzgerald a text asking for a meeting the next morning. Fitzgerald didn’t sleep all night.

“I was holding out hope maybe they were sending me back out on loan [to Carolina]. But when I went into the office, they released me,” he said.

Fitzgerald was waived a week before his contract would have become guaranteed for the year. He knew that given the way his contract was structured and his place in the pecking order, he’d be one of the first on the chopping block when roster changes were made.

“For me, the most disappointing thing about New York was I never got a chance to do anything,” Fitzgerald says. “That’s what is so frustrating about my time there. It’s one thing if you’re playing games and everything is too fast, or you’ve made mistakes that have cost the team games and then you get released. You can swallow that. But to not even get a chance [to play] and then get released? That’s more difficult.”

The RailHawks immediately sought to re-sign Fitzgerald for their fall season. Fitzgerald says it was tough soothing the sting of being released and the upheaval to his burgeoning life in New York. Ultimately he returned to Carolina, and his girlfriend was able to reclaim her old job at WakeMed Hospital.

“There are so many guys who have been in my situation and all of a sudden you don’t have any club to go to, or you have to go on trials and figure things out with no stability,” Fitzgerald says. “I was lucky that I came back to a place that I know, a club that I know, a coach that I know and a system of play that I’m comfortable with. So it could have been a lot worse.”

Kū: The ‘void’ element is represented by our ability to think and communicate with others. Mentally and emotionally it represents our creative nature, as well as our personal means of self-expression as we identify with and operate in the world around us.

“One of Akira’s biggest strengths has always been his voice and vocal presence,” Platter says. “The information he gives and his leadership in the back … from an organizational standpoint it goes a long way. The team always knows he’s back there.”

If a soccer team has possession in their half, the goalkeeper is already thinking about where his next pass will be if he receives the ball. If the ball is in the midfield and being played backwards, the keeper is looking if he can relieve defensive pressure. If the team has possession in their attacking half, the keeper’s already looking at his defenders to see, in case there’s a turnover, where they need to be in order to stop a counterattack. He’ll inform the center backs where the forwards are and what shoulder they’re on, so if the ball is turned over they’ll know quickly where to look.

“I don’t see myself as disconnected from the team," Fitzgerald says about his approach to goalkeeping. “Sometimes fans feel like there’s 10 field players and a goalkeeper. I see myself as part of the 11. The way I play the game, I feel attached to the game with the ball at my feet and playing out of the back. So when we score a goal, sometimes I feel part of that goal because the buildup started with me or a pass came through me.”

Fitzgerald still has an agent, and his current RailHawks’ contract ends after this season. “My ambition is to play at the highest level I can play at. Hopefully I can make it back to MLS and play games there," he said. "I’ve seen the goalkeepers there, and I think I can have the ability to do that … Maybe the NASL is the highest level I’ll get to. You just never know.”

While Fitzgerald’s confidence and ambition has not waned, the “Irish Ninja” has found his inner peace.

“The whole experience in New York has given me a different perspective on just enjoying every time I get to play. Every chance I get to play a game here is the best day,” he said.