Tyler Adams’ key USMNT role at the World Cup was shaped by his blended family - The Athletic 16/11/22

Sam Stejskal

The drive north out of New York City and up the Taconic State Parkway into the Hudson Valley passes through a series of scenic lakes, dense forests and rocky outcroppings. It’s a tight, curvy ride for long stretches, with a thick quilt of tree branches hanging over the two-lane highway and blocking out much of the natural light on an early-November morning.

Somewhere around exit 35, as you round a corner and crest a hill into Dutchess County, the woods finally open. A sun-drenched valley cascades into view, mountains off to the north and to the west, autumnal bursts of red and gold coloring a landscape dotted with farms and fields. It’s beautiful; a serene, postcard vision of fall in the Northeast.

The peaceful scenery stands in stark contrast to the combative on-field demeanor of the region’s most famous soccer son, Tyler Adams. The U.S. men’s national team and Leeds United midfielder grew up not far from exit 35, just a few miles up the Taconic in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. Adams is a famously feisty player, a livewire who pairs his otherworldly athleticism and endurance with a fearless, unapologetic demeanor that we’ll no doubt see in full at the World Cup, where he may captain the U.S. team.

Though he’s still only 23 years old, examples of Adams’ competitive streak are already legion. There was the time when, at just 17 or 18, he won a locker room fistfight with a senior teammate on the New York Red Bulls; there was his aggressive response to an Andy Robertson challenge in Leeds’ recent win at Liverpool; there have been countless other hard tackles and heated interactions for club and country over the years.

But if you ask his parents about their son’s intense nature, they veer away from the field, instead telling a story about what was meant to be a relaxing family vacation at Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire.

During the extremely brief window between RB Leipzig’s loss in the Champions League semifinal in August 2020 and the start of the 2020-21 Bundesliga season that September, Adams and his family rented a house near Winnipesaukee for a getaway. His mother, Melissa Russo, and stepfather, Darryl Sullivan, were there, as were two of his three stepbrothers, his girlfriend, Sarah, and her sister and mother. (Adams, whose biological father isn’t in his life, refers to Darryl as his father and his stepbrothers as his brothers.)

Prior to the trip, Melissa, Sarah and Sarah’s mother organized a 10-round lawn game competition for the eight attendees. They planned the activities, divided the group into two teams, bought supplies, made T-shirts and organized prizes.

The competition didn’t even get to the third game before tempers flared and it had to be stopped.

The blowup started with the opening round, an egg-and-spoon relay. Adams went first for his team, getting out to an early lead against Darryl, who ran the initial leg for his squad. That was fine with Darryl, who had saved his fastest runners for the end of the race. Adams had his mom, Melissa, run anchor. She went head-to-head with his girlfriend, Sarah, who ended up beating her to the line.

“Oh, he was screaming at me to run faster,” Melissa laughed.

“He was pissed not just because he lost, but because he lost to me in the strategy of how to pull it off,” joked Darryl.

Melissa and Darryl couldn’t remember what game came next — it was either spikeball or cornhole. The particulars don’t really matter. Whichever game was played, it ended with hard feelings for Tyler, his brothers and a few other members of the party, who collectively decided that it’d be best to call off the whole competition before things deteriorated any further.

“Every single one of the boys are the same,” said Darryl. “And we all thought it was best for our family to end it. From that point on, it was decided that we wouldn’t do any more games.”

“Most families have game night,” added Melissa. “We can’t do a game night.”

Melissa and Darryl spoke with me in a small conference room at Roy C. Ketcham High School in Wappingers Falls, where Darryl teaches social studies and oversees the in-school suspension program. Adams and his brothers all graduated from Ketcham. Tyler received his diploma a few hours before the rest of his classmates in 2017 during a special, early-morning cap-and-gown ceremony that was arranged so he could make it to New Jersey in time to play an afternoon match for the Red Bulls against New York City FC.

Mid-interview, one of Darryl’s coworkers popped in to inform us that Ketcham just received approval to post one of the billboard-sized “notes” addressed from Ted Lasso to select U.S. players. Melissa and Darryl said that actor Jason Sudeikis, who plays Lasso on the eponymous Apple TV hit, personally wrote the copy that ended up on Tyler’s sign.

They settled into an easy back-and-forth, reminiscing about Tyler, his brothers and their journey as a couple. One occasionally chimed in with a correction, talking over the other in the easygoing way that parents do when sharing happy memories about their children. They both reveled in the moments when their recollection is proven right. Tyler, it’s clear, gets his competitiveness honestly.

Melissa wore a shirt emblazoned with the message that “families don’t have to match.” On the surface, theirs doesn’t. Tyler is biracial, but he moves through the world as a Black man. The rest of their blended family is White. Understanding how they came together is key to understanding Adams.

When Tyler was born in February 1999, Melissa was single and 22 years old. She was living at her mother’s place in Wappingers Falls and had just finished community college, but chose to put off applying to four-year universities so she could devote more time to raising Tyler. They remained at her mother’s for a couple of years before moving into an apartment in nearby Poughkeepsie when Tyler was two.

Eventually, when Tyler was six or seven, Melissa began taking classes part-time to work toward a bachelor’s degree. A typical evening involved mother and son at the local library, Melissa fitting in some studying after a day on the job as a mortgage underwriter, watching Tyler, who was observing, seeing how hard his mom was working.

Young Tyler always wanted to be in the middle of everything. As an only child, he was the center of attention at home, shaped and molded by his mother and grandmother, who, Darryl and Melissa theorized, helped him develop a kind, caring demeanor. Even today, for all of his fire, Adams is quick to put his arm around a teammate and try to give them a mental boost.

“He was a little pain in the butt,” Melissa said with a smile. “He always wanted to play, always wanted to have a good time, always wanted to be around people, always wanted to win, but he was also very loving. He was always giving hugs, always asking, ‘Do you need help? Can I help you with dinner? Can I help you with laundry?’ Like, weird stuff for a little kid. A kid normally doesn’t want to do those things, but he just wanted to be involved. Whether it was with me, if we were at my mom’s, he was helping.”

Life changed for Melissa and Tyler when he met classmate Darryl Sullivan Jr. in seventh grade. Both kids went out for the school soccer team and quickly struck up a friendship. As they were partnering on the field, Melissa and Darryl Sr. were reconnecting on the sidelines. They had crossed paths while attending John Jay High School in East Fishkill, N.Y. in the ’90s — he was two years ahead of her in school, but their circles occasionally overlapped. Not long after their sons started playing soccer together, they began dating. They merged their families about a year later, with Tyler and Melissa joining Darryl, Darryl Jr. and Darryl’s younger sons Dylan and Donovan at their blue, split-level house on a hill in Wappingers Falls.

Tyler had already spent plenty of time at the Sullivan home before he and his mom moved in; he and Darryl Jr. had become close and he slept over fairly regularly. But being a full-time resident was a massive adjustment. No longer was he the star of a one-child household. That led to some early growing pains and battles with his new brothers, especially with Donovan, who, as the youngest Sullivan, had been used to receiving a good amount of attention himself.

Mostly, though, the change was overwhelmingly positive. When they weren’t at practice for one of their various sports teams, Tyler, Darryl Jr., Dylan, who is now a midfielder for reigning NCAA men’s soccer champion Clemson University, and Donovan were constant companions — and competitors. They’d have marathon two-on-two FIFA sessions and regularly head into the yard to kick or throw a ball around. One unfortunate game of snow football ended with Tyler tackling and breaking the leg of the much larger Darryl Jr., who is now in his final season as a 6-foot-3, 290 pound offensive lineman at Robert Morris University.

“They all had it in them to compete,” said Darryl Sr. “But (living together) brought it out even more.”

The presence of Darryl Sr. created another important new dynamic for Tyler. Melissa played soccer when she was growing up and coached four-year-old Tyler’s first team in Poughkeepsie, but Darryl has a deeper background in the game. His parents left Scotland to make a life of their own in the U.S. when they were just 17. His father, a devoted Rangers supporter, was head coach at John Jay High, where Darryl was an all-state selection. He went on to play in college, first at Virginia Wesleyan, then back in the Hudson Valley at Mount Saint Mary’s. After college, he coached at Ketcham and then at John Jay, leading the girls’ team there to a pair of state championships and winning an ESPN national coach of the year award before landing at Marist University as an assistant coach of the men’s team around the time that Melissa and Tyler moved in.

Still, it didn’t take a soccer genius to see that Tyler, who joined the Red Bulls academy at age 12, was a talented player. Darryl provided him with important guidance, though, kicking the ball with him and coaching him up. At Tyler’s request, he still texts his son at halftime of every single one of his games with some thoughts on how the match is playing out. Tyler always reads those notes before going back out for the second half, Darryl said. On the rare occasions when Darryl doesn’t text — mostly when he’s watching in-stadium and cell reception is poor — Tyler can become visibly agitated.

Away from the game, Darryl also challenged Tyler in ways that he wasn’t necessarily used to. Melissa’s work ethic as a single mother helped ingrain Tyler with his relentless nature, both of his parents said. But when it was just the two of them living together, Melissa said that Tyler would occasionally get away with some bad behavior. She was the single mother of an energetic kid; she had to pick her battles.

When they moved in with the Sullivans, that changed. Darryl saw Tyler as a kid who had lived life on fast forward. He had been playing up age groups in soccer, and spent a lot of time off the field with his older teammates. That allowed him to develop as a player, but not necessarily as a leader, with Tyler sometimes deferring to his older counterparts when it came time to clamp down. That carried over at home.

“He’s said that he was a punk,” said Darryl. “He wasn’t that, he wasn’t a punk, but, when they moved in, he would sometimes get away with things. And I wanted him to use his leadership abilities for good. So I hammered him early on. I was very tough on him, very tough on him. He needed that, though, and once he understood it, he really developed into the leader of his brothers. He just took it all on, became an absolutely fantastic big brother and you started to see those qualities emerge on the field.”

Part of that growth involved Tyler dropping down to play with kids his own age the first summer after the families began living together. It wasn’t as high of a level of play, but playing with his own classmates allowed Tyler the freedom to express himself and refine his own identity.

“My big thing was, he needed to be brought back a level, you know, play with kids his own age for a little bit, become that leader, and then take off,” said Darryl. “And that’s kind of what happened. From a leadership standpoint, playing with kids his own age made a huge difference.”

A couple of years later, Adams turned pro, signing with the New York Red Bulls reserve team in the USL in 2015 before being bumped up to the MLS club in 2017. Though he hadn’t yet obtained his driver’s license and had to be hauled 150 miles round trip to and from training by Melissa or Darryl for much of his first year under contract.

This summer, he made a $20 million-plus move to Leeds, where he reunited with Jesse Marsch, the coach that brought him up to the first team with the Red Bulls. He’s thriving in England, fitting like a glove in the manager’s high-pressing system, which is now so familiar to him. If the U.S. is to make any noise at the World Cup, Adams will need to be immense.

“Tyler would be the first to say that what comes out of him in the field is what his journey was,” said Darryl. “His journey with his mom by himself, and then his journey with his brothers and me next. You see all those things come out, you know? He’s tough, his mother is tough and they had to be tough coming up how they came up. You see him having fun, you see him being a leader, picking everyone up and making sure that he has everyone’s back. That’s what we do as a family. You see that in him.”