Keeping It REAL

GOING STRAIGHT FROM THE PITCH TO THE TELEVISION STUDIO, TIM HOWARD IS SMOOTHLY MAKING THE TRANSITION FROM WORLD CLASS GOALKEEPER TO ASTUTE ANALYST

- charlie connell

Fate can be a very funny thing.

Whether or not you even believe in fate or destiny, it’s undeniable that there are millions of little instances that must happen in an exact manner to get a person to where they end up. Even the slightest alteration in one’s path can determine entire decades of the future. It can be as banal as taking a left instead of a right, taking drama instead of band in high school or, in the case of Tim Howard, experiencing his first overdose of youthful exuberance in fall, not spring.

“I was a rambunctious 6-year-old and my mom said, ‘You gotta get out of the house. You’ve got to do something, pick a sport,’” Howard says. “It was fall, so the first one was soccer, so soccer was it. I went out there and the love affair began. It was everything—I got to run around and be with my friends, yell, scream, slide on the ground, get muddy, kick the ball. It was brilliant.”

At the time, his mother likely thought she was simply buying herself a couple of hours of relaxation while a young Howard ran off some steam. There’s no way she could have predicted it would alter the entire future of soccer in the United States.

Howard found so much more than an outlet for the well of activity bubbling inside of him; he found a passion that will consume him for the rest of his days. After spending two decades as a goalkeeper in Major League Soccer (MLS), the Premier League and for the United States Men’s National Team, Howard has traded in his kit for a suit.