Even though he’s been a professional footballer for a decade, one of a handful of Americans to find success in Europe and a mainstay for a number of years with the U.S. men’s national team, Alejandro Bedoya had managed to keep a relatively low profile, especially in an age when many athletes build massive audiences using social media. That changed on Aug. 4th, when Bedoya scored in the third minute against D.C. United and his premeditated celebration — a demand for action from lawmakers to prevent mass shootings, the most recent of which had just taken place in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas — made headlines the world over.



In May, I spoke with Bedoya to gather his thoughts for a profile, well before those events thrust the midfielder into the spotlight. (My colleague Pablo Maurer pitched in by interviewing Bedoya’s coach with the Philadelphia Union, Jim Curtin.) But given what Bedoya said during our interview, and what Curtin had to say about...