USMNT captain's rise shows why we all need good youth sports coaches

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USMNT captain's rise shows why we all need good youth sports coaches

Stephen Borelli, USA TODAY · USA TODAY Sports

Fri, May 29, 2026 ·

7 min read

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If you want to understand what a sport means to somebody, go back to their formative stages.

In the case of Tim Ream , a member of the U.S. men's World Cup team , check the warehouses.

Ream is from St. Louis , a city with mild to harsh winters that forced his coaches to get creative in the era before the vast indoor youth facilities we see today. Ream's childhood was about honing skills in smaller spaces: warehouses with concrete floors, tennis courts or, when the weather cooperated, local parks.

The tighter venues made your decision-making faster, got you sharper on the ball, but also dislodged something else.

"It's this idea that you can pick up a ball and you can play anywhere," Ream, 38, told USA TODAY Sports in recent interview.

He remembers Kevin Kalish and Tommy Howe, his early coaches, doing everything they could to find places to get touches, to train and to develop what has been his lifetime love.

"I think, when you look at anything really - life, school, sports, finances, family - you always have those people behind the scenes that are helping you out," Ream says. "You don't get anywhere on your own, no matter what you're choosing or what your path or what your journey is.

"The familial introduction by your parents is important, but we all need somebody that isn't a parent, those other coaches and those other people in your life to believe in you and help you and push you to get to where you necessarily don't see where you're gonna end up."

Tim Ream visits and St. Louis warehouse with former youth coaches Kevin Kalish, left, and Tommy Howe.

Ream, along with USMNT teammates Tyler Adams and Matt Turner , are participating with New York Life in "The Assist," a short-form documentary series that highlights the people and communities behind their journeys.

According to a press statement shared with USA TODAY Sports, content from "The Assist" will continue to be released in the coming weeks.

We caught up with Ream, a defender on Team USA and for Major League Soccer's Charlotte FC , who has played professionally ( stateside and internationally ) since 2010, and Kalish, now St. Louis University's men's soccer head coach. They offer ways Ream's story can help younger athletes and their parents with perspective on their own development.

Teach your young athletes to be individuals, but to know that they're not alone

Ream's earliest memories of his youth are with a ball at his feet.

He's the oldest of five. His three brothers and sister all played various sports, but soccer was the common denominator, one ingrained within their city's deep connection to the sport.

"What kind of holds true with all St. Louis guys, it seems like, is they're unbelievable teammates," recalls Kalish, who started watching Ream around the U14/15 level with the St. Louis Scott Gallagher soccer club. "They're very humble and very hard-working. They're blue collar. The character piece of most St. Louis guys is the same.

"A lot of the guys over the years, you look at 'em, you say, great teammate, hard-working, great mentality and a guy that you can go to war with, so to speak. And Tim definitely fits that mold."

It was a mindset Ream established with the help of Kalish and Howe, a legendary figure within the city's youth soccer scene. Howe was demanding and fiery and had strong ideas about how you trained and advanced your career.

Kalish was more laid back and technical. The coach describes his style as having a lot of love, mixed in with high standards, and a very team and family oriented environment.

"I think they taught us to be individuals," Ream says. "It wasn't this kind of, 'Oh, you have to play this way.' It was, 'Hey, we want to play this way. And this is how we're going to achieve it.'

"But it's also kind of, 'Hey, you guys need to go out and in the quiet moments and the moments that no one's paying attention (and) you have to do your own work. And so it didn't always feel like they were on top of you. It didn't always feel like, 'Hey, you have to be doing this. You can't do it any other way.'

"It was, well, here's a way to get from point A to point B. Now guess what? There's different ways to get from point A to point B. There's so many different patterns and ways to do things."

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Who made the USMNT World Cup roster? Meet full 26-man USA squad

The U.S. men's national team World Cup roster is out, for real this time. Three days after the team's squad was fully leaked, USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino officially revealed his 26-man roster for the 2026 tournament on Tuesday, May 26. The release confirmed the leak was, in fact, accurate, as the 26 names matched the 26 The Guardian first reported over the weekend. The names didn't feature too many surprises, though there were still one or two decisions that could be characterized as head-scratching. "We are confident this is the best group of 26 players to help us achieve success at the World Cup," Pochettino said. See who made the team:

Christian Pulisic, attacking midfielder/winger

(Kevin C. Cox, Getty Images)

Tyler Adams, midfielder
(Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images)

Antonee Robinson, defender
(Kevin C. Cox, Getty Images)

Chris Brady, goalkeeper
(Icon Sportswire, Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Joe Scally, defender
(Eric Canha, Imagn Images)

Haji Wright, striker
(Dylan Buell, Getty Images)

Miles Robinson, defender
(Megan Briggs, Getty Images)

Mark McKenzie, defender
(Johnnie Izquierdo, Getty Images)

Matt Turner, goalkeeper
(Troy Taormina, Imagn Images)

Chris Richards, defender
(Maria Lysaker, Imagn Images)

Alex Freeman, defender
(Troy Taormina, Imagn Images)

Tim Ream, defender
(Troy Taormina, Imagn Images)

Sergino Dest, defender
(Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images)

Tim Weah, midfielder
(Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images)

Alejandro Zendejas, attacking midfielder/winger
(Joseph Maiorana, Imagn Images)

Sebastian Berhalter, midfielder
(Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images)

Brenden Aaronson, attacking midfielder/winger
(Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images)

Auston Trusty, defender
(Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images)

Malik Tillman, attacking midfielder/winger
(Kevin C. Cox, Getty Images)

Folarin Balogun, striker
(Kevin C. Cox, Getty Images)

Ricardo Pepi, striker
(Jared C. Tilton, Getty Images)

Matt Freese, goalkeeper
(Dale Zanine, Imagn Images)

Max Arfsten, defender
(Dale Zanine, Imagn Images)

Gio Reyna, Attacking midfielder/winger
(Kevin C. Cox, Getty Images)

Cristian Roldan, midfielder
(Kevin C. Cox, Getty Images)

Develop a tolerance for mental adversity; character development carries a lot of weight with coaches

Still, Howe had a general idea of the way he wanted things done, and he showed his temper when they didn't go as planned.

"I feel like in a way that helps you," Ream says. "And especially as you get into the 14,15,16, where you're starting to grow, you're starting to get into that late teens, how are you gonna make it in the game?

"Him and Kevin were the first club coaches that really focused on us as individuals and as players. He truly looked at each individual and said this is how we're gonna get better. This is how we're gonna practice. This is how we're gonna train. This is what we need and this is where (Howe) saw us going as people and as players."

When he recruits players for college, Kalish loves to look inside kids and see their competitive makeup.

"It's very rare that a player doesn't have to go through some form of a setback, and it's which guys are gonna throw in the towel?" Kalish says. "Which guys can stay grounded, keep controlling what they can control, keep moving forward, and then, just win coaches over or wait their time until maybe a new coach comes in?"

Ream says your mental resiliency developed from dealing with setbacks can determine whether you have a soccer career beyond college. For example, when he was about 14, he ruptured his quad, which knocked him out for about a half of a year.

"At the time, it feels like the end of the world," he says. "You're going through rehab, you're seeing different doctors and potentially surgeons and you think that's my soccer playing done. Having the team, Tommy, having Kevin, I was able to just go and be a part of training and still be there and still feel like I was part of the team .

"You're getting knocked down and you're having people who are picking you up. You need those people around you to say, 'Hey, listen, it's gonna be fine.' You can't train, but at least you can be around the guys. At least you can hear the communication. You can feel their energy, feel the vibe of the group.

"When you're out, you get such a better understanding of the whys of what you're doing and what they're training."

Find a coaching environment that's best for you, not everyone else

Howe and Kalish made training fun in those St. Louis warehouses. They played games where everyone got touches, everyone was engaged and stayed focused. It made Ream want to play more and more.

He played basketball until his junior year at St. Dominic High in O'Fallon, Missouri, as well as on the school's soccer team in the days before academies started draining players from high school teams.

But Ream made soccer work as part of his life throughout the year, thanks in part to the environment his club coaches created. Kalish still thinks there is a place for high school soccer, even on an elite player's ladder.

"I think there's a lot to be said for playing within your community," Kalish says. "It's not right for everyone but it can be right for a lot of players. There's a lot more to being a well-rounded person than just juggling a soccer ball or whatnot.

"The support structure that they have, the coaching staff, the environment that those coaches are creating, those things to me are what's really gonna drive development more than anything. … The character development piece is something that I think is just so vital and I think we saw a lot of that throughout those years. When Tim was coming up, it was old school in some ways, and I think there's a lot to be said for that."

More Coach Steve: 3 steps to deal with a 'bad' coach

'Play the long game' even when you reach high school or college

In Howe and Kalish, Ream saw coaches who knew when to push him, but also knew when to take a step back and put their arm around him. They knew what buttons to press to get the best out of you. It's every coach's job, really.

"You have so many instances where coaches can ruin sports for kids," Ream says. "You have so many instances where parents can ruin sports for kids and that could be the parents of their own child or parents on the sidelines doing and saying whatever they're saying. That takes the fun out of it for other kids.

"I play because it's fun for me. I don't play for the money, but I play for the people who have helped me. The people who have put in their time and their effort.

"I owe it to them to play as long as I possibly can because they're just as much a part of this."

When Kalish watched Ream as he was coming up, he was always one of the top players in the age group, but he really started to separate himself from his peers in his junior and senior year in high school.

"Tim wasn't the one that you would have ideally picked out right away as a high school player or even a college player," Kalish says. "He was a little bit more of a late developer. And his game intelligence, his decision making, his technique, his composure, those things you learn to appreciate over time, but he wasn't like the biggest, strongest, fastest guy that always stood out in every match.

"But he was a guy that once you worked with, you realized his value was through his consistency, through the rigor and discipline of doing things right over and over and over again. But I think he would even tell you he wasn't like 'the star' during his high school years."

We can always get better if we love what we're doing. And when we do that, as Kalish says, we play the "long game."

"He didn't worry about who was getting the most accolades or if he was the high school player of the year," Kalish says. "You got the same guy every single time he showed up at training and games. It was like Mr. Consistent. And I think because he was that way, it's prepared him really well to have success in college and then obviously in the professional game and to be able to deal with all the hard things that goes along with being a professional athlete."

'You get what you earn,' and sometimes you have to struggle

Kalish says if players can create an environment, like Ream did, where they keep getting better "the coaches will find you if you're gonna be good enough."

Ream was an attacking left back as a youth player, he played a little bit of center midfield in college and then center back later in his career, even as a professional in MLS and in England .

Tim Ream's superpower from a youth age, former coach Kevin Kalish says, is his composure and calmness in possession. He has been named USMNT captain 26 times, according to USA Soccer.

He's always been a well-rounded player, but Kalish says his superpower, which he has had since he was a young player, is his calmness and composure on the ball.

"It's kind of like similar to a left-handed pitcher," he says. "When he strikes a ball with his left foot it, there's a crispness to it that was unique."

Playing the long game, Ream's former youth coach says, means trusting that doing the right things over and over again will work out for you in the end.

"My father was an electrician," Kalish says. "My mom was a receptionist, really middle class family. I think the messaging that held true throughout all my years was you get what you earn and the coach is always right in the sense of like, you have to work through your issues and don't come complaining to me about something.

"You talk to your coach and it was very much, 'that's life.' Life isn't always fair in some ways and you gotta just grow up and deal with it and manage through it and we'll support you through it but this is part of it."

Ream knew he could lean on his coaches. Now he leans on his wife, Kristen Sapienza, who played soccer at St. Louis University like he did.

They have three kids: Aidan,12; Theodore, 10; and Lilia, 7.

"She understands all in the field and she knows what that means," Ream says. "Having someone that you can come home to and bounce everything off is so important. It allows you to not just be on your own. Those quiet moments can be important, but they also don't have to be alone.

"She connects all of us. She keeps us connected even when I'm thousands of miles away. I'm able to keep in touch on how the boys are doing in swimming and how my daughter's doing in her soccer games. It allows me to feel like I'm not so far away in those moments. …

"Everyone sees the bright lights and what we do, but there's so many people in the background that have helped all of us in every walk of life. And those are the people that don't get highlighted."

Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His Coach Steve column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here .

Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@usatoday.com