A winning performer

Three years ago, Jon Jonsson got his first real look at Boston. Sitting in the back of men’s soccer coach Neil Roberts’ silver Camry on his way from Logan Airport to Boston University, Jonsson took in the enormity of his new hometown. His family and friends were back in Hafnarfjordur, Iceland, where Jonsson had cried just hours earlier when his parents left him at the airport ‘-‘- his life packed into a few suitcases.

Riding through Boston’s lit streets on that August evening, Jonsson was not his usual confident, outgoing self.’

‘Coach turned around and said, ‘You don’t talk much,” Jonsson recalled. ‘But little did [Roberts] know that Jonny was going to talk a lot.’

Since that evening, Jonsson has hardly stopped talking. After the Terriers beat Binghamton University last month to capture the America East crown, for instance, Jonsson’s teammates circled him on the Nickerson Field track. The 6-foot-1, blond-haired, blue-eyed midfielder crouched down, stuck out his index finger and spun 360 while leading a frenzied chant of ‘When BU goes marching in.’

‘He likes to pump everyone up,’ Jonsson’s teammate and good friend Dan Schultz said of the Icelandic native. ‘He has a natural talent for getting people excited.’

Jonsson has many talents ‘-‘- like guitar and soccer ‘-‘- that have eased the difficulties of adjusting to college life five time zones away from home. But it’s really Jonsson’s engaging persona and subtle ways of staying connected to Iceland that have allowed the 23-year-old student-athlete to be not just another person, but a personality, on campus.

Standing in a closet-sized laundry room at the Scandinavian Living Center in Newton, Mass., one December Saturday, Jonsson pulled his red suit jacket over his BU soccer T-shirt. He was about to sing for a very demanding audience: children.

But this was no typical Jon Jonsson gig. His hands clenched not the neck of his Taylor guitar, but a sack filled with traditional Icelandic candy. And his red jacket was accompanied by matching pants and a red stocking cap with a white pompom on top. For the moment, Jonsson was Santa Claus.

He paraded into the function room offering the best ho-ho-ho his boyish voice allowed. The children gathered around him, much like Jonsson’s teammates after BU won the America East title. Jonsson instructed the children to circle the Christmas tree, and he led them in a rendition of ‘Gekk eg yfir sjo og land,’ a song ingrained into Icelandic people the way the ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ is in Americans.

Everyone pretended to cry as they sang ‘-‘- in Icelandic ‘-‘- that they all came from Cryland. But Jonsson’s sobs were most emphatic. His wails echoed off the tall, wood-paneled ceiling. He left the circle and pretended to rub his eyes, his elbows flailing. A little boy smiled as he followed Jonsson out of the circle to console Santa. Jonsson had played his role perfectly.

Jonsson’s ability to captivate any crowd ‘-‘- kids or adults ‘-‘- likely comes from his confidence in being the focal point.

‘I’m sick for attention. Release the hunger,’ Jonsson said, sitting at his kitchen table. And it has translated into his musicianship.

‘He’s always been a very good performer,’ Kristjan Bjarnason, Jonsson’s friend, pianist and audio technician said via cell phone from Iceland. ‘His performance is so energetic, and he’s so alive when you watch him play. It just takes everybody with him.”

While rehearsing his song ‘Ocean Girl’ for a Dec. 10 concert at BU Central, Jonsson seemed at ease while playing his guitar. His face muscles relaxed as he closed his eyes and belted into the microphone that he was practically swallowing.

Since coming to Boston, Jonsson said he has been able to use his music as a sort of catharsis, and it has helped him acclimate to America.

‘He has discovered himself more,’ Bjarnason said. ‘It’s beginning to be more of Jon’s style ‘-‘- he has more of him in the music.’

Music may contribute to Jonsson’s comfort level while living so far from home, but it doesn’t cure the ailment restricting Jonsson most: the language barrier. Writing English words to his soft-rock melodies is often difficult for the College of Arts and Sciences senior.

‘The lyrics are always a little bit harder part for me,’ Jonsson said, clipping a capo onto his guitar’s frets. ‘I don’t want it to be complete [expletive]. I want it to be about something. But still, I am not going to be this really deep guy.’

When Jonsson struggles with meaning, he can usually make up for it with humor. Take a song like ‘Little Tree,’ for example.’

‘It’s about me talking to a little tree. Little tree, you thirsty? You want water? Should I talk to a cloud?’ Jonsson explained.

By using his goofiness, and not just in his music, Jonsson has been able to make friends in Boston while also making himself feel more at home.

You may have already talked to Jonsson and his roommate Petur Sigurdsson ‘-‘- who is also from Iceland ‘-‘- in the dining hall. One of their favorite gags is to bring chocolate pie or Jell-O to random strangers.’

‘We [mess] with them. That’s how we met a lot of people,’ Sigurdsson said. ‘Sometimes they come to us weeks later, and we forget that we talked to them.’

Jonsson has also brought his humor to the soccer team. Roberts recalls one Halloween when the Terriers were traveling for an away game, and the coach got on the bus to find Jonsson dressed as a 1970s version of Roberts.

‘He’s supposed to be in a tracksuit and there he is in a wig and fake mustache,’ Roberts remembers.

But Roberts said Jonsson’s antics and lighthearted, positive attitude serve the team well.

‘Whether it’s making fun of himself so someone else doesn’t feel bad about something, there’s a method to his craziness,’ he said.

Jonsson’s humor has spiced up the Terrier locker room, too.

‘It has some nudity to it. I don’t really want to talk about it more,’ Sigurdsson, who used to play for BU before getting injured, said.’ ‘

At team dinners, BU generally is broken up into four or five tables. Jonsson’s mission is to make it seem as though his table is having the most fun.

‘He won’t say jokes, he’ll just make sure everyone starts laughing,’ Schultz, who Jonsson credits with helping him get through economics classes, said.

‘I’ll be like, ‘In two minutes, I am going to say a punch line, and you are all going to laugh even though it doesn’t make any sense,” Jonsson explained.’ ‘

When he first arrived in Boston, however, Jonsson’s jesting was held back ‘-‘- just like his lyrics ‘-‘- by his language. On his first night in town, Jonsson played poker with a few players and hardly spoke because he felt intimidated.

‘They were making jokes and it was hard to follow and stuff. It was just being quick,’ Jonsson reminisced. ‘Those first days I didn’t talk as much. I was just observing, figuring out the humor.’

Now, a confident Jonsson dishes out unending comedy ‘-‘- but it still sometimes oversteps the bounds of American tastes.

‘It’s just English is his second language and sometimes the delivery is on the edge a little bit,’ Roberts said. ‘Some people, if they wanted to, could take his stuff in an offensive way.”

But Jonsson’s humor is usually well-received, and delivering it puts him at ease, allowing him be to himself ‘-‘- even if it possibly makes others uncomfortable.

Back in Newton, Jonsson, dressed in a blue sweater vest over a plaid shirt, has finished his Santa act ‘-‘- the children now oblivious to his true identity. Sigurdsson reached for a clementine and peeled it into the shape of an ‘elephant’ with a long ‘trunk’ and two ‘ears.’ Jonsson snatched the peel out of his friend’s hand, examined it briefly and smacked it down onto the table, chuckling impishly. Jonsson and Sigurdsson walked out of the Scandinavian Living Center, leaving the fruit’s shell in the shape of male genitalia.’

On the ride home from the SLC, Jonsson sat shotgun ‘-‘- not in the backseat. He glanced casually out his window as the sea-green Toureg passed Copley Square and the Citgo Sign. Conversing comfortably in Icelandic with driver Inga about Facebook, Jon had Inga laughing at every other sentence. Jonsson was winning over another audience. Then, driving down Beacon Street, Jonsson directed the driver to turn.

‘Right here,’ Jonsson said in Icelandic. ‘This is where I live.” ‘