http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20040123/5864850s.htm
Page 1A
American goalie rises to top of soccer world Howard starring for famed Man Utd
By Ellen Hale
USA TODAY
MANCHESTER, England -- In his prior life, on the other side of the Atlantic, Tim Howard rarely was noticed. Occasionally, he recalls, a soccer mom with a couple of kids would recognize him as goalkeeper for Major League Soccer's New York/New Jersey MetroStars.
In his new life, the American-born and -bred Howard can't walk down the street without people nudging each other, whispering and asking for an autograph. After playing for a little-known team in a sport little known in the USA, Howard is the starting goalie for Manchester United, arguably the world's most famous team in the world's No. 1 sport. Neither the fish nor the pond gets any bigger.
The 24-year-old Howard's ascent has astounded U.S. soccer players who knew his talents -- never mind skeptics here. In 28 games, he has allowed just 18 goals and recorded 14 shutouts. Along the way, he has brought a distinctly American way of playing -- and behaving -- to a game that here is often sidetracked by ego, scandal and celebrity high jinks.
Howard also has given further credibility to an American incursion into the English game that U.S. Soccer Federation officials believe has reached record numbers. Seven Americans are in the Premier League, including two signed this month; two more Americans play in the First Division and six for the reserve, or developmental, teams of Premier League clubs.
''This Yank's no plank,'' the Sun, the best-selling tabloid, boasted recently after another of Howard's goal-saving performances. ''Yankee doing dandy,'' agreed the Express. ''If the American goalkeeper has a weakness,'' wrote the Daily Telegraph, ''there has not been a team who have located it.''
Just last summer, after his signing, the British papers were smugly asking ''T-Who?'' in a word play on Howard's nickname, T-Ho, and cruelly poking fun at his struggle with Tourette's syndrome. One headline claimed Man Utd was signing a ''disabled'' goalie. Another bellowed expletives filled in with dashes to mock his bout with the neurological disorder, which can cause involuntary tics and, at its worst, inappropriate swearing outbursts.
''I've always believed in my ability,'' Howard says between training sessions at the team's practice center, a high-tech facility plopped improbably amid farmland fragrant with manure. Howard graciously blames ''lack of information'' -- not tastelessness -- for the early headlines. But even he concedes, ''Things really did just take off. I've been playing since Day 1. It was a shock for me and everyone else.''
Classic American story
So whirlwind was Manchester's courtship of Howard that he and fiancee Laura had to shelve their long-planned wedding and, with two days' notice, rush through a ceremony in New York's Central Park so he could get back to play. ''She got the gown,'' Howard said. ''She just never got to wear it.''
Signed in July -- for a bargain $4 million transfer fee -- Howard never spent a day on the bench, booting out incumbent and 1998 World Cup champion Fabien Barthez, who has been loaned to a club in France. Howard has started all of Man Utd's matches in the Premier League, one of the world's best circuits, and in the Champions League, a competition among Europe's best clubs.
''I must admit that when he came over, not only to the Premier League but such a pressure-filled club, I thought the best thing would be if they gave him like six months to build his confidence,'' says Eddie Lewis, a member of the U.S. national team and an England's First Division veteran. ''But he got a great start, and they have great fans and players. And he's taken advantage of both sides of that.''
If Howard's rise seems like a fairy tale, then his life could be scripted as a classic American success story. His parents divorced when he was 3. His mother, Esther, raised him and his older brother, often working several jobs to make ends meet -- and, Howard points out, ''at times they did not.'' Until he was 14, the three lived in a small apartment in North Brunswick, N.J.
''It was a one-bedroom apartment she made into a three-bedroom apartment,'' Howard says. ''I don't know how she did it.''
At 10, Howard was diagnosed with Tourette's. His is considered a mild case, and nervous tics, small head jerks and blinking are the only noticeable symptoms. Howard, however, is always conscious when it happens: ''It may be a mild case, but that doesn't make it mild for me.'' He refuses to take medication for fear it will slow his playing.
While playing for the MetroStars, Howard was an indefatigable campaigner on behalf of Tourette's sufferers. He was on the board of the Tourette Syndrome Association of New Jersey and invited children with the disorder to his games, then met with them afterward to answer their questions.
(The British media's insensitivity to Howard's disorder so offended goalkeeping coach Tony Coton, who recruited him, that he has refused to talk to them since.)
Howard went to North Brunswick High School, where he played basketball and soccer. Big and muscular but nimble and with powerful leaping skills, Howard could readily have played college basketball. Instead, he pledged allegiance to soccer, which he also had played since childhood.
''I knew I wasn't going to play for the NBA,'' Howard says simply. He was drafted by the MetroStars after high school, six years ago. His salary: $24,000. His current salary is rumored to be nearly $3 million.
Coton first saw Howard in the 1999 World Youth Championships in Nigeria, where the goalie beat England 1-0. He became convinced Howard could end the team's frustrating search for a goalie who could match the brilliant (and imperious) Peter Schmeichel. Man Utd had been through nine since the ''Great Dane'' left in 1999.
''My mates kept me informed about'' Howard, Coton says. ''I liked everything I was hearing but (was) trying to be cool.''
He finally edited his tapes of Howard to one, showed it to coach Alex Ferguson and said, ''of all (the goalies) I've seen over the years, this is the one who could come here and not look out of place.''
(Manchester United communications director Paddy Harverson discounts recent charges that the transfer deal for Howard was improper. Some reports suggest Ferguson's son profited from it and question how the team quickly obtained a work permit for Howard. All of Man Utd's transfers are approved under Football Association rules, Harverson said. The Football Association is investigating.)
Ferguson, known to administer the ''hair-dryer'' treatment to recalcitrant players (a dressing-down involving so much hot air it blows your hair dry), has called Howard a revelation and his star player of the year. He has, Ferguson says, ''that American thing'': an ability to focus intensely, a will to train hard and a desire to be the best.
''They want to be No. 1, the best at what they do,'' says Coton, who sometimes has to tell Howard to take a break from training. ''That's a pretty good way to look at life.''
The American goalkeepers also are noted for a certain selflessness often missing among European players (and especially among goalkeepers), who tend to be eccentric and flamboyant. Schmeichel was a screamer who shaved his head, Barthez a flashy showman who dated supermodels and would pop over to Paris for dinner.
'The aura of a brick wall'
At 6-3 and 210 pounds, Howard, says Ben Lyttleton, European soccer writer for the Daily Telegraph, ''has the aura of a brick wall.''
''A lot of goalkeepers want to look good,'' Lyttleton says. ''They dribble the ball around an attacker because it's a sexy thing to do and the fans love it. Tim spreads himself all over. He just wants to get his body in the way. He doesn't mind making ugly saves. It's the sign of a great goalkeeper.''
The way Howard figures it, ''If it looks great, fantastic. If it looks ugly and works, that's OK. I just try and stop it. That's it.''
Howard seems equally pragmatic about his private life. He drives the same car (a BMW) that he drove in New York and still bargain shops for his clothes. (''It's easy to just go out and buy a $200 piece of clothing,'' Howard says. ''The real challenge is finding it for half that.'') He and his wife finally have located a Baptist church to attend.
In their home in the upper-class suburb of Wilmslow, he and Laura rent movies, walk their dog, Clayton, and eat out (fish and chips is a favorite). Americans Brad Friedel of the Blackburn Rovers and Claudio Reyna of Manchester City have become close friends. Howard remains adamantly American and persists in calling the game soccer although it is known as football in every country but the USA.
With Howard's growing confidence, Coton believes his protege can surpass Schmeichel. Because goalkeepers don't peak until their 30s, the American could serve Man Utd well into the next decade.
Howard, Coton says, picking his words judiciously, ''is on a path to lead him to big things.'' He pauses for a moment and throws his caution to the wind: ''He could be the very best in the world.''
Cover storyCover story
Page 1A
American goalie rises to top of soccer world Howard starring for famed Man Utd
By Ellen Hale
USA TODAY
MANCHESTER, England -- In his prior life, on the other side of the Atlantic, Tim Howard rarely was noticed. Occasionally, he recalls, a soccer mom with a couple of kids would recognize him as goalkeeper for Major League Soccer's New York/New Jersey MetroStars.
In his new life, the American-born and -bred Howard can't walk down the street without people nudging each other, whispering and asking for an autograph. After playing for a little-known team in a sport little known in the USA, Howard is the starting goalie for Manchester United, arguably the world's most famous team in the world's No. 1 sport. Neither the fish nor the pond gets any bigger.
The 24-year-old Howard's ascent has astounded U.S. soccer players who knew his talents -- never mind skeptics here. In 28 games, he has allowed just 18 goals and recorded 14 shutouts. Along the way, he has brought a distinctly American way of playing -- and behaving -- to a game that here is often sidetracked by ego, scandal and celebrity high jinks.
Howard also has given further credibility to an American incursion into the English game that U.S. Soccer Federation officials believe has reached record numbers. Seven Americans are in the Premier League, including two signed this month; two more Americans play in the First Division and six for the reserve, or developmental, teams of Premier League clubs.
''This Yank's no plank,'' the Sun, the best-selling tabloid, boasted recently after another of Howard's goal-saving performances. ''Yankee doing dandy,'' agreed the Express. ''If the American goalkeeper has a weakness,'' wrote the Daily Telegraph, ''there has not been a team who have located it.''
Just last summer, after his signing, the British papers were smugly asking ''T-Who?'' in a word play on Howard's nickname, T-Ho, and cruelly poking fun at his struggle with Tourette's syndrome. One headline claimed Man Utd was signing a ''disabled'' goalie. Another bellowed expletives filled in with dashes to mock his bout with the neurological disorder, which can cause involuntary tics and, at its worst, inappropriate swearing outbursts.
''I've always believed in my ability,'' Howard says between training sessions at the team's practice center, a high-tech facility plopped improbably amid farmland fragrant with manure. Howard graciously blames ''lack of information'' -- not tastelessness -- for the early headlines. But even he concedes, ''Things really did just take off. I've been playing since Day 1. It was a shock for me and everyone else.''
Classic American story
So whirlwind was Manchester's courtship of Howard that he and fiancee Laura had to shelve their long-planned wedding and, with two days' notice, rush through a ceremony in New York's Central Park so he could get back to play. ''She got the gown,'' Howard said. ''She just never got to wear it.''
Signed in July -- for a bargain $4 million transfer fee -- Howard never spent a day on the bench, booting out incumbent and 1998 World Cup champion Fabien Barthez, who has been loaned to a club in France. Howard has started all of Man Utd's matches in the Premier League, one of the world's best circuits, and in the Champions League, a competition among Europe's best clubs.
''I must admit that when he came over, not only to the Premier League but such a pressure-filled club, I thought the best thing would be if they gave him like six months to build his confidence,'' says Eddie Lewis, a member of the U.S. national team and an England's First Division veteran. ''But he got a great start, and they have great fans and players. And he's taken advantage of both sides of that.''
If Howard's rise seems like a fairy tale, then his life could be scripted as a classic American success story. His parents divorced when he was 3. His mother, Esther, raised him and his older brother, often working several jobs to make ends meet -- and, Howard points out, ''at times they did not.'' Until he was 14, the three lived in a small apartment in North Brunswick, N.J.
''It was a one-bedroom apartment she made into a three-bedroom apartment,'' Howard says. ''I don't know how she did it.''
At 10, Howard was diagnosed with Tourette's. His is considered a mild case, and nervous tics, small head jerks and blinking are the only noticeable symptoms. Howard, however, is always conscious when it happens: ''It may be a mild case, but that doesn't make it mild for me.'' He refuses to take medication for fear it will slow his playing.
While playing for the MetroStars, Howard was an indefatigable campaigner on behalf of Tourette's sufferers. He was on the board of the Tourette Syndrome Association of New Jersey and invited children with the disorder to his games, then met with them afterward to answer their questions.
(The British media's insensitivity to Howard's disorder so offended goalkeeping coach Tony Coton, who recruited him, that he has refused to talk to them since.)
Howard went to North Brunswick High School, where he played basketball and soccer. Big and muscular but nimble and with powerful leaping skills, Howard could readily have played college basketball. Instead, he pledged allegiance to soccer, which he also had played since childhood.
''I knew I wasn't going to play for the NBA,'' Howard says simply. He was drafted by the MetroStars after high school, six years ago. His salary: $24,000. His current salary is rumored to be nearly $3 million.
Coton first saw Howard in the 1999 World Youth Championships in Nigeria, where the goalie beat England 1-0. He became convinced Howard could end the team's frustrating search for a goalie who could match the brilliant (and imperious) Peter Schmeichel. Man Utd had been through nine since the ''Great Dane'' left in 1999.
''My mates kept me informed about'' Howard, Coton says. ''I liked everything I was hearing but (was) trying to be cool.''
He finally edited his tapes of Howard to one, showed it to coach Alex Ferguson and said, ''of all (the goalies) I've seen over the years, this is the one who could come here and not look out of place.''
(Manchester United communications director Paddy Harverson discounts recent charges that the transfer deal for Howard was improper. Some reports suggest Ferguson's son profited from it and question how the team quickly obtained a work permit for Howard. All of Man Utd's transfers are approved under Football Association rules, Harverson said. The Football Association is investigating.)
Ferguson, known to administer the ''hair-dryer'' treatment to recalcitrant players (a dressing-down involving so much hot air it blows your hair dry), has called Howard a revelation and his star player of the year. He has, Ferguson says, ''that American thing'': an ability to focus intensely, a will to train hard and a desire to be the best.
''They want to be No. 1, the best at what they do,'' says Coton, who sometimes has to tell Howard to take a break from training. ''That's a pretty good way to look at life.''
The American goalkeepers also are noted for a certain selflessness often missing among European players (and especially among goalkeepers), who tend to be eccentric and flamboyant. Schmeichel was a screamer who shaved his head, Barthez a flashy showman who dated supermodels and would pop over to Paris for dinner.
'The aura of a brick wall'
At 6-3 and 210 pounds, Howard, says Ben Lyttleton, European soccer writer for the Daily Telegraph, ''has the aura of a brick wall.''
''A lot of goalkeepers want to look good,'' Lyttleton says. ''They dribble the ball around an attacker because it's a sexy thing to do and the fans love it. Tim spreads himself all over. He just wants to get his body in the way. He doesn't mind making ugly saves. It's the sign of a great goalkeeper.''
The way Howard figures it, ''If it looks great, fantastic. If it looks ugly and works, that's OK. I just try and stop it. That's it.''
Howard seems equally pragmatic about his private life. He drives the same car (a BMW) that he drove in New York and still bargain shops for his clothes. (''It's easy to just go out and buy a $200 piece of clothing,'' Howard says. ''The real challenge is finding it for half that.'') He and his wife finally have located a Baptist church to attend.
In their home in the upper-class suburb of Wilmslow, he and Laura rent movies, walk their dog, Clayton, and eat out (fish and chips is a favorite). Americans Brad Friedel of the Blackburn Rovers and Claudio Reyna of Manchester City have become close friends. Howard remains adamantly American and persists in calling the game soccer although it is known as football in every country but the USA.
With Howard's growing confidence, Coton believes his protege can surpass Schmeichel. Because goalkeepers don't peak until their 30s, the American could serve Man Utd well into the next decade.
Howard, Coton says, picking his words judiciously, ''is on a path to lead him to big things.'' He pauses for a moment and throws his caution to the wind: ''He could be the very best in the world.''
Cover storyCover story
