The sound of exploding gun rounds was enough to make Alan McNamara want to stay in Ireland.

McNamara’s father, Gerry, an Irish soldier, was in Lebanon in July of 2000 as the Israelis were pulling out after 22 years of military occupation. Alan’s older brother, Ronan, was training as an army recruit.

Alan, 17 at the time, was in Athenry, a small town in Ireland, with his mother, Ann, and his younger siblings, Kenneth and Sarah. The family always crowded around its speakerphone to talk to Gerry.

One night, explosions in the background caused the line to momentarily break, but Gerry soon came back and told his family not to worry. It was always like that, the father said.

But after one booming blast, Alan said he couldn’t hear his father. Later, on the news, Alan heard three Irish soldiers were killed in Lebanon that night.

The family frantically called the barracks, and eventually it learned that its worst fears weren’t true. Gerry was alive, but at the expense of his family’s terror.

Alan, on the Irish under-18 soccer team at the time, had been playing soccer since he was six and was considering offers to kick at either Providence College or Boston University. His family’s scare made his decision easy.

“I didn’t want to leave my mom alone,” McNamara said. “She was devastated even though nothing happened. How can I leave my mother now when my brother is gone and my dad is gone?”

McNamara rejected both Providence and BU, but his mother urged him not to base his decision on her.

“She said, ‘Alan, [your brother and father] are gonna be back in a year. You go and sort yourself out,'” McNamara said.

So a week after telling BU coach Neil Roberts he wasn’t coming to America, McNamara called back with a change of plans.

“I don’t think Neil for sure even knew if I was coming,” he said. “I booked a one-way ticket, and I’ll never forget it. A one-way ticket to America is a scary thing.”

Today, McNamara is weeks away from graduating BU with four years of Terrier soccer experience, a degree in journalism and the belief that he will succeed at anything.

“I came here thinking I was going home in a few weeks and just see what [BU] was like,” he said. “Now, I’m much more confident in myself that I can achieve things and help people.”

McNamara wanted to stay in Ireland and help his mother. The trend continued at BU, where Roberts said McNamara was one of the most helpful players he ever coached.

“The best way to describe him is a teammate’s dream,” Roberts said. “When anybody needed anything, Mac would be the first one to try to do it. You can’t ask for a more dependable teammate than Alan McNamara.”

Dependable is the word for the 21-year-old, whose accent and appearance match the perfect profile of an Irish “lad.” He speaks with a lyrical flow; he has tightly trimmed dirty-blonde hair, engaging blue eyes and an effortless grin that could make even Donald Trump smile.

Roberts said McNamara helped his teammates with anything, whether they were having girlfriend problems, searching for a roommate or looking for a job. Journalism professor Jim Thistle said McNamara has even scored assists in Thistle’s broadcast course on enterprise reporting.

“He goes out of his way to help people,” Thistle said. The professor added that McNamara, who already had a partner for a class project, did two projects when he saw one of his other classmates was without a partner.

“That’s just the way he is,” said Thistle, who had on his desk a recommendation letter he wrote for McNamara. He pulled the letter from the envelope and read, “Alan is a wonderful team player in the newsroom as I guess he is on the field.”

McNamara always fought for his teammates, from his early playing days “on the green” with his friends to his time on Irish youth teams. During training for the Irish team in Dublin, he practiced next to Ireland’s national squad.

After his workouts, McNamara would watch his favorite player, Roy Keane (now a midfielder on the most famous club team in the world, England’s Manchester United), whose trademarks are his drive and determination. McNamara said he learned a lot from his idol by observing and even talking to him.

“[Keane] was like me,” McNamara said. “He wasn’t a lot of skill and he wasn’t about flare. He would beat people up and stick in there and give 150 percent every game. He was tough as nails and people were afraid of him. I loved that.”

McNamara added that during one talk, Keane offered advice on confidence.

“One of the things he said to me was always believe you’re as good as anybody else,” McNamara said. “He had problems with being confident. Sometimes that was my problem as well.”

Roberts first heard of McNamara from James O’Toole, who was originally from Galway (McNamara’s county) and was a physiotherapist for Harvard University’s football team. O’Toole returned to Galway and was McNamara’s team’s physiotherapist before McNamara started playing for the Irish youth teams.

When McNamara finally decided to come to BU, Roberts said the young forward – as he adjusted to his new home – constantly tried to prove to the coaches that he was worthy of his scholarship.

“He was always trying to please, always trying to do his best, but sometimes he would overdo it and put himself into situations where he could get hurt,” Roberts said. “He was a little nervous about making the jump [to America].”

In a game at Nickerson Field against the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in his freshman season, McNamara chased the ball down the sideline next to the bleachers that used to line the far side of the field.

“I’ll kill people to get the ball,” he said. “I’ll never intentionally hurt someone, but I’ll stick in hard and if I do hurt someone, I don’t care. That’s just how I played.”

But this time, McNamara’s intensity and momentum caused his slim 5-foot 8-inch frame to slip and crash into the bleacher stairs. He injured his quad, bruised almost the whole left side of his body and was out for most of his rookie year.

“He just ran full speed into the bleachers, and it was serious,” Roberts said. “It was like he was hit by a car.”

McNamara, though, always played his game with the gas pedal against the floor and performed best when his emotions were in check.

Just after his grandmother died during his sophomore season, McNamara decided to wait until after BU’s game against the University of New Hampshire to leave for the funeral. He said he was devastated, but he stayed because he knew that’s what his grandmother would have wanted.

Roberts didn’t use McNamara at the start because of what McNamara was going through, but when the Wildcats took a 2-0 lead in the first half, McNamara begged his coach to put him on the field.

Roberts gave in, and McNamara responded. He scored two goals (the only multiple-goal game of his career) and the Terriers took a 2-2 tie.

“In my head, I was thinking, ‘It’s for [my grandmother’s] honor,'” he said. “I was riled up.”

He was never selfish – his only goal was to win. This past season, Roberts asked McNamara to play defense because BU lacked speed in the back. McNamara sacrificed for his team, and Roberts said he played so well at his new position that he wished the coaches had made the change earlier.

Hillary Richard, McNamara’s girlfriend of more than a year and a junior journalism major, said McNamara can sometimes look like a “vicious axe-murderer” on the field and takes losing personally.

“Whenever he talks about [a loss], it’s really obvious,” she said. “It’s always, ‘I should have done that,’ or, ‘These guys aren’t that good.’ He takes it to heart because he likes it so much.”

Richard and McNamara had classes together every day in the fall of 2002, and when the two started talking, they realized they had an Irish connection. Hillary spent a summer going to school in Ireland, and she had many Irish friends. She said McNamara quickly shed his “axe-murderer” persona off the field, and the couple has been together since.

“He’s just a pretty good guy,” said Richard, who added that McNamara’s looks and soccer skills have earned him several female admirers – one in particular that waited outside his apartment for him to come home. “Some people you can tell right away that they’re not going to get along with you and some people you just want to get to know.”

Richard also said McNamara has become much more dedicated to his classes. While she said McNamara would fall asleep in class last year, this year he realized that he needed to prepare himself for life after BU.

McNamara agreed, saying he never cared about school because “school was always second to soccer.” But now, he’s focused and has applied for jobs across the country and heard back from television stations everywhere from Louisiana to California.

Citing his father and brother’s military influence, McNamara (who was once in the Irish reserves) said he wants to be a television war correspondent. He had thoughts of joining the United States Army, but because of his international status, he would have to work his way up to an officer’s rank, which he said wouldn’t make sense now that he’s about to graduate.

But after almost four years in the United States, McNamara said, “I would have no problem going to Iraq in the morning and fighting for America.”

Soccer, though, will have its place in McNamara’s future. The senior has one year left on his visa, so if he doesn’t find a job here that will renew his status, he will return home and likely play in the Irish premier league or possibly in a lower league in England.

Thistle, however, doesn’t think McNamara will have trouble finding work.

“Very often, people think of the athlete as some kind of dumb jock, and Alan is exactly the opposite,” Thistle said. “He’s very knowledgeable, and he’s very worldly. He’s the kind of guy I would hire in two minutes in a newsroom on my own.”

McNamara said he keeps up with current events by doing a lot of reading and traveling. Music has become one of his other hobbies. He said he especially likes going to O’Leary’s Pub on Beacon Street every St. Patrick’s Day to take the stage – with hair dyed green – and do his best Bono impression with an Irish band.

When he first stepped off the plane at Logan International Airport almost four years ago, McNamara said Boston was intimidating (specifically the summer heat and tall buildings) and he knew he had a lot to prove to himself.

He’s prepared to leave the city soon, confident that he’ll succeed even though he doesn’t know where he’ll end up, but the feisty footballer said it’s the game at BU that he’ll miss the most.

“It’s playing, it’s fighting, it’s your friends,” McNamara said. “The season is ridiculously stressful, but it’s the greatest feeling in the world.”

And maybe even more than his breakaway speed and brilliant dribbling skills, McNamara, who finished his BU career with 10 goals and 11 assists, will be remembered for his least advertised attribute – his giving nature.

“Alan will always help his friends,” Richard said. “At the same time, he will never ask for help. He’s had to deal with a lot in the four years since he’s come to America, and he pretty much did it all on his own.”

“I think that’s very much a part of being Irish,” McNamara said. “I come from a small town where people needed help. It’s a mentality of helping your neighbor. If they’re you’re friend, you’ll die for them and that’s the way it should be.”

Roberts summed up McNamara’s legacy.

“When you’ve coached a lot of kids, you’ve got a few guys that are special players, you’ve got a few guys that are gifted students and then you’ve got a few guys that are really special teammates that go out of their way to help people,” he said. “Alan’s one of those guys.”