by Tim Howard
When we said our vows, it was with the mutual belief that we’d be married ’til death do us part. I remembered Laura’s mom saying just that. “You’ll be married forever because you have God in your marriage.”
I believed it then.
If you want your faith to be shattered, enter marriage trusting in that faith to protect you from divorce. Then go through the hell of having your marriage crumble.
Laura hadn’t given me any cause for anger during the marriage. She’d been a good, faithful, loving wife, a sweetheart in every way. But still, I was angry. I was angry at the world, angry at how hard it was to do the right thing, angry that I couldn’t stay true to myself, and have what felt like integrity in this world, without hurting the people I most cared about.
Mostly, I was angry that doing the right thing for my kids—providing for them, protecting their future, our future as a family—meant I had to live apart from them.
A few weeks after talking to David Moyes in his office, I hit the wall.
Ali and Jacob lived 4,200 miles away on a different continent. In Memphis, the school year had started. They had teachers and friends I’d never met.
There’s no scheduled time off for Premier League teams. By tradition, we’ll get the day after a game, usually Sunday, one other day that week, typically Wednesday—but not two consecutive days off when I’d be able to travel. But frankly I didn’t know how much longer I could go on without seeing my kids.
I went back to David Moyes and asked for permission to fly home after the upcoming Saturday match. I’d arrive in Memphis on Sunday evening. I’d spend all day Monday with Ali and Jacob, then drive them to school Tuesday morning. After dropping them off, I’d go straight to the Memphis airport for a plane to Atlanta; from there I’d take a connecting flight to England, arriving Wednesday morning. I’d head straight to the field and train as long and as hard as I could to make up for the time I’d missed.
It was an almost unheard-of arrangement, but Moyes fixed those flinty eyes on me and said, “Absolutely, Tim. You go see your kids.”
I did.
During that trip, I held Ali in my lap as Clayton tried to scramble up onto the sofa with us. I got to listen to Jacob tell me about his new school friends, listen to the sound of his laughter.
It filled me up, gave me the energy to keep moving forward. It kept me going.
We broke the news to the kids that we were splitting up. We said all the usual things—Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to be living together anymore . . . we both love you guys very much—words that try and fail to convey the depth of regret in your heart.
Ali was three years old at the time. I don’t think she sat down the whole time we talked. She climbed off and on the furniture, turned lights on and off, asked if she could watch cartoons. Jacob had just turned five. Did he understand what we were saying? Even a little bit? He said he did, but honestly, it was hard to tell.
When we stopped talking, Laura and I looked at each other—maybe the first time we’d locked eyes the whole trip—and both of us shrugged, as if to say, Well, that’s done. Her eyes were so sad that I wanted to take everything back.
Maybe I should have faked it, I thought. Maybe I should have gone through the motions instead of ripping this family apart.
In early November, Moyes approached me. I’d been feeling dark and jittery, easily frustrated on the field. “You need to see your kids again?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I really do.”
So he let me make the trip again.
And again. Every few weeks for the rest of that season and most of the next, I’d fly back to Memphis on the same schedule: Leave England on Sunday, chasing the setting sun. Spend a little time with the kids that night and all day Monday. Then reverse course on Tuesday, flying through the night, then arriving in time for training on Wednesday. However sore and tired I was on those Sunday flights—the games rip you apart—I’d return feeling refreshed.
The trips were worth every one of the hundreds of thousands of miles traveled, worth the jet lag and the discomfort and the solitary nights in a hotel room.
I wouldn’t fly halfway around the world and back to spend 36 hours with the pope himself. But my kids? Yes, I would. And I did. Every chance I got.
Divorce is complicated no matter what. But it becomes a nightmare when you and your wife live on different continents and you need to be present for depositions, mediation, hearings.
In March 2011, I had to leave U.S. National Team training to attend mediation.
The session was held at my attorney’s office. He and I took one room, Laura and her attorney another, and the mediator went back and forth between us all day.
Still, we got nowhere. Laura remained furious with me, and by now I was furious with her. Neither side would bend even an inch. I’d say it was the biggest waste of my time in 35 years of existence. The only people who benefited were our lawyers.
At the end of the day, the mediator called us into a room together. Laura walked in with her head high. Not once did she even glance at me. I jiggled my leg under the table and wouldn’t look at her, either. The mediator addressed both of us in turn. “Guys,” he said, “I could literally solve this in five minutes. You think it’s complicated. It’s not. Eventually, one of you is going to have to budge.”
I thought then, Nobody’s ever going to budge here. This is going to go on for 20 more years.
I believe divorce comes down to who can endure the longest beating. You poke and punch away at each other, piling up one bad feeling on top of another—all while shelling out hundreds of dollars an hour in legal fees. It doesn’t matter what’s on the table or how much it’s worth. In the end, nobody wins.
I was on a bus in Scotland with Everton when the phone rang. It was nighttime, and I saw Kasey’s name light up on my phone.
I knew it couldn’t be good.
“Jack Reyna died,” he said.
I held the phone against my ear and didn’t speak. Outside my window, the landscape was dark and shadowy.
Jack Reyna, my friend Claudio’s son, was gone. He’d been a beautiful, happy boy, beloved by his parents.
I thanked Kasey for calling, then I pressed my hands against my forehead.
I dialed Laura’s number. Somehow I had to tell her this unfathomable thing.
God, it was all so fucking precious. The time we have with our kids—with anyone—was so fleeting. In the best of circumstances, it would be gone in the blink of an eye.
It was a blessing, every bit of it—the skinned knees, the temper tantrums, the sleepless nights. I recalled my mom’s words when Jacob was born: How can you be a father, when I can still remember holding you?
I wanted to grab my kids, breathe deep, and inhale the smell of their skin. I wanted to protect them, throw myself between them and every terrible thing that could happen on this earth.
But they were in Memphis, and I was in England.
I stayed in Memphis for the summer of 2011, and bought a three-bedroom town home so Jacob and Ali could have their own bedrooms—Ali decorated hers with butterflies while Jacob opted for a surfer theme. It was Daddy’s house, but theirs, too. Jacob sat on the sofa watching SportsCenter until he fell asleep. In the morning, Ali padded into my bedroom on her tiny bare feet, ready to curl up and snuggle.
I covered them with kisses every chance I got, and at night I lay in bed, thanking God for this moment, when our three hearts could beat in sync under a single roof . . . at least for a while.
There is a favorite photograph of my kids from before the divorce: Ali’s lips are parted slightly, a wisp of hair falling onto her forehead. Jacob looks intently forward—eager, calm. I love this photograph: it captures them exactly—their innocence, the joy that’s ready to burst out of them.
I wanted them with me all the time, so I took the photograph with me to my favorite tattoo artist, Alex Rodriguez, who works in Liverpool.
“Can you tattoo this image?” I asked.
&nb
sp; He studied it closely. “Sure can,” he said. “But it’s going to take some time on the table.”
Around the same time, I got another tattoo, this one on my lower ribs. There were lyrics I couldn’t seem to get out of my head—the lyrics to James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain,” a song that my mom had played endlessly when I was a child.
Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus . . .
I won’t make it any other way.
The divorce proceedings needed to be over. It had to end, and fast. I couldn’t stand it anymore. Couldn’t stand the lawyers talking in circles. Couldn’t stand going around and around until we were dizzy and our wallets were falling out of our pockets yet again. Life is too short for this, I thought.
Finally, Dan made an offer: “What if I spoke to Laura? Would that help?”
“At this point,” I told him, “I have no idea what would help.”
But I phoned her.
“Laura, none of us trust each other. I don’t trust your lawyer and you don’t trust mine, and quite frankly, I don’t trust him myself. But we both trust Dan.”
Dan spent the better part of a month talking with us one at a time. One by one, the issues narrowed.
Through these conversations, he was helping us settle a lot more than the terms of our contract; he was also enabling us to trust each other again, and to envision a future without animosity as we developed separate lives.
Bit by bit, he guided us out of the pit and into the light.
Then, at last, it was done. We brought a finished deal to our own lawyers.
Tada! we said. It’s over.
Honestly, I don’t know how any couple anywhere manages to get divorced without Dan’s help.
MOVING FORWARD
In July 2011, U.S. Soccer announced that they’d fired Bob Bradley and hired Jürgen Klinsmann as head coach. Jürgen had once been a world-class German striker; now he was regarded as a successful, if controversial, coach. He’d taken over the German national team after they’d had a poor showing at Euro 2004. He’d shaken things up, replaced older players with younger ones, brought in new coaches, changed formations, and even rotated goalkeepers during the 2005 Confederations Cup. He hired sports psychologists and motivational speakers and nutritionists. But he must have done something right on the field as well. By the time the Germans got to the 2006 World Cup, they swept their group and advanced all the way to the semifinals.
When you play professionally, you get accustomed to turnover. Players come and go—they get injured, they get transferred, they get cut from the team. Coaches are hired, and coaches are fired. It’s just part of the world you live in.
But that doesn’t mean everybody likes it.
I’d been lucky; I’d had remarkable continuity since my MetroStars days—I’d had a decade of training with Mulch, five years with Bruce Arena in my early days on the U.S. team, five years with Bob Bradley, all three of my Manchester United years with Ferguson, and now five years under David Moyes.
But that kind of consistency is the exception, not the rule.
I had always admired Bob, both as a person and a coach. He was driven and competitive and thoughtful and good. I was sad to see him go.
Jürgen was different from Bob in so many ways. Whereas Bob had been closed off to the media, with a steely, quiet demeanor, Jürgen was charismatic and telegenic, quick to flash a smile or make an off-the-cuff remark in front of the cameras.
Whereas Bob had been focused on tactical adjustments, modifying each game plan according to the strengths of our opponents, Jürgen talked about a broader vision for American soccer. He wanted to instill a more proactive philosophy throughout all levels of the sport—from youth clubs to the national team.
In Jürgen’s view, we needed to create our own opportunities, instead of reacting to our opponents. And he wasn’t shy about changing the way we did things under Bob, starting with our training regimen. With Bob, we’d generally had one long session each day, often filling the afternoon with discussions of tactics and video sessions. Jürgen had us training twice a day. Sometimes three times.
Bob was an American, through and through: he had always allowed us to dress the way we wanted in our free time. If we had a craving for a chicken fajita every so often, Bob was cool with it. As long as we were at training on time, he didn’t care when we woke up, or even when we went to sleep.
Jürgen was an Americanized German . . . but the man was still a German at heart. He managed every action of the players—some even said he micromanaged them.
Jürgen dictated when we woke and when we slept. He insisted we wear USA track suits during training, and even when we hung around the hotel. Sugary snacks were replaced by leaner, high-protein bars, “Performance nutrition,” he called it. I’d spent my whole life eating PB&Js; somehow, under Jürgen, the sandwich morphed into a natural version of the staple that was practically unrecognizable . . . and to my taste buds, inedible.
We had earlier curfews. Less time to sit around after meals shooting the breeze.
Jürgen was even determined to change our breathing.
Some of our training sessions became two hours of yoga exercises. If there is a less likely sight on this earth than Clint Dempsey, the Texas trailer-park kid, doing downward-facing dog poses, or the stalwart Michael Bradley deep breathing through a tree pose, I have yet to see it.
Jürgen banned cell phones from the locker room. He insisted that the team administrator was on call 24/7. We began bringing our own gym equipment to hotels, to ensure we always used state-of-the-art machines. Each dawn, we took “empty stomach runs,” 30 minutes of sprints designed to pull energy from body fats. He took us on field trips—to Versailles, to the 9/11 Memorial—to inspire us as human beings.
Even as he advocated for a creative game, personal expression on the field, he left nothing to chance when it came to the players. We were his now, and he wanted to mold us, shape us, push us further than we could imagine.
As an OCD guy, I find change difficult. But it’s possible Jürgen’s innovations were easier for me than some of the others. After all, I’d had over a decade of playing in Europe. I recognized Jürgen’s approach. I understood, at least, the context of where he was coming from.
None of the players argued with Jürgen, but you could sense misgivings from their body language, a kind of tension when they were around him. Or I might glimpse one player’s eyes flick to another’s as Jürgen explained the way things were going to look from now on—a tiny moment of “what exactly is happening here?”
It wasn’t an easy transition. Maybe if we were a club, training together daily, week after week, we would have settled in faster.
But Jürgen kept at it. He wasn’t going to modify his system for us. He believed in his methods. He was planning to usher in a new era of American soccer, and he wasn’t afraid to let the world know.
I couldn’t have been more thrilled with one of his changes: he announced he was hiring Chris Woods, my Everton goalkeeping coach, to work with the U.S. keepers.
To me, this was ideal: I’d have Chris’s steady, calm, expertise guiding me both at Everton, and on the national team. And I knew Chris would be a great fit for the other keepers, Brad Guzan and Nick Rimando, too.
Back in New Jersey, the New Jersey Center for Tourette Syndrome was becoming increasingly influential. Under Faith Rice’s leadership, the NJCTS educated schools and hospital staffs, counseled families, and organized antibullying programs. Its expanding library had become one of the best resources in the country. They’d teamed up with Rutgers University to establish a first-of-its kind clinic, offering therapy, testing, and skills training for TS kids and their families.
And then there was the Leadership Academy that Faith was planning. If she could pull that off, the lives of people with TS would dramatically change.
During the 2010 season, I’d helped the NJCTS earn $50,000 in grant funding from Pepsi; it was a promotion they’d run as a part of their U.S. Soccer sponsorship. Several
players had picked a favorite charity, and fans had voted online for where the money would go. I’d chosen NJCTS, and won. All the money would support the Leadership Academy.
More recently, Faith had created a fund-raiser in the form of a raffle called “Team Up with Tim Howard.” The winners were from Plainsboro, New Jersey: Tim and Leslie Kowalski and their two daughters, 12-year-old Tess and 8-year-old Paige, both of whom had been diagnosed with TS. The four of them would fly to England with my mom, we’d all have lunch together, and they’d be my guests at the upcoming Everton game.
“Just so you know,” Mom said, “Tess in particular has a pretty severe case.”
The lunch took place at a Thai restaurant in Liverpool. I got there first, and when I spotted the Kowalskis I thought, This family seems really in sync with each other. I liked how gently Tim nudged the girls forward, encouraging them to shake my hand, and how warm Leslie’s voice was whenever she spoke to one or the other; you could sense that Tess and Paige trusted their parents, and that the trust worked both ways. Sort of like Mom and me, I thought.
Mom and I sat on one side of the table, the Kowalskis on the other. Both Leslie and Tim urged the girls to come sit near me, but they shook their heads; they were sticking close to mom and dad.
Tess and Paige were lovely, both with Leslie’s dark hair and sparkling eyes. Did they fidget more than other kids their age, make more noise? Sure. But that didn’t change who they were. Sweet, shy, young girls.
“You know, I really want to thank you for this,” Leslie said to me.
I shrugged, as if to say no big deal.
“No. I mean it,” Leslie said. “It’s been a really tough year for our family. Tess has been dealing with the strongest tics she’s ever had, and it’s been hard for her.”
She turned to Tess. “Okay if I tell him about your TS?” When Tess nodded, her mom added, “Do you want to tell him yourself?” Tess looked alarmed; her eyes said no. Mom and I exchanged a quick glance of recognition.