Controversy may have grabbed sports headlines this year. But a few shining stars—led by Team USA goalkeeper Tim Howard—put good news back on the front page.

by M.B. Roberts

On the soccer field, goalkeepers like to be lonely. Team USA’s Tim Howard is no exception. “I prefer those one- or two-save afternoons,” he says in a voice much softer than you’d expect from a bald, tattooed, chiseled-bodied 6-foot 3-inch tall intimidator with a beard worthy of Solomon. But, as Howard describes in his book The Keeper: A Life of Saving Goals and Achieving Them (Harper), out this Tuesday, he was the opposite of isolated during the pivotal U.S. vs. Belgium match at the World Cup in Brazil in July, as the relentless Belgians constantly swarmed and attacked his goal.

During a performance that launched him as one of the most important figures in sports this year, Howard pounced, blocked, leapt and impressively lunged his way to a record-setting 16 saves, the most in a World Cup since 1966.

Despite the heartbreaking 2-1 loss, which resulted in the American team’s elimination, an estimated 21.6 million TV viewers in the U.S.—an increase of 44 percent from the 2010 World Cup—watched Howard’s exploits. Many more caught the goings-on via satellite at massive viewing parties around the country, such as Chicago’s Soldier Field event that drew some 28,000 fans.

“I grew up in a generation when there was no soccer on TV,” says Howard, 35. “The fact that there were sold-out parks and stadiums and people were watching, it’s really just incredible. It really inspired me.”

On Twitter, #ThingsTimHowardCouldSave send-ups included cleverly Photoshopped images of Howard rescuing everything from the sinking Titanic to Kim Kardashian’s ill-fated 72-day marriage to Kris Humphries. Fans even briefly hijacked the Wikipedia page of Chuck Hagel, the U.S. secretary of defense, swapping Howard’s name and image for Hagel’s.

It was a thrilling time, but like most overnight successes, Howard’s moment in the American sports spotlight was a slow Tim Howard’s World Cup journey began in North Brunswick, N.J., where his mother, Esther, who worked for a packing container distributor, raised him and his older brother, Chris, in a cramped, one-bedroom apartment. As Howard describes in his book, North Brunswick was ethnically diverse, so his white Hungarian mother and “black, Woodstock hippie turned long-haul truck driver” father was not unusual. (The couple divorced when Howard was 3 years old.)

Howard’s father, Matthew, encouraged his sons’ love of sports. But it was Esther who clipped coupons and gathered her boys around the stove during the winter to keep them warm.

“My mom broke the mold,” says Howard. “She put my brother and I first, always, and worked her fingers to the bone trying to provide for us. She taught us right from wrong and gave us very strong morals and values and belief in family, things that have stayed with me.”

From the start, Howard despised school, mostly because he couldn’t sit still.

Many little boys feel this way, but for Howard, it was a true physical challenge, which became increasingly difficult as odd behaviors, such as the necessity to touch someone before he spoke to them, became more and more prevalent.

When he began manifesting tics such as facial twitching, continually clearing his throat and excessive blinking, Esther took her son to a pediatric neurologist, who diagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), noted for anxiety-induced conscious intrusive thoughts and compulsions; and Tourette’s syndrome (TS), a condition causing involuntary tics and muscle spasms that affects 1 in 2,500 people.

The bad news? There was really no treatment or cure. The good news, the doctor said, was that some people with these disorders display special gifts, such as the ability to hyperfocus and stick with an activity until it is 100 percent mastered.

Like, say, blocking a 28-inch soccer ball rocketing towards him at 70 mph?

Growing up, Howard played every sport, from street hockey and touch football to T-ball and pick-up basketball. Even though he dreamed of playing college hoops, it was soccer that truly grabbed him. As a kid, he couldn’t put into words why he so connected with the game. But looking back, he knows it was—and is—the artistry, the nonstop action and, when he was guarding the goal, the adrenaline rush of being celebrated as a hero or, when balls got past him, feeling like a goat.

“Pressure can be good,” he says. “It helps you to see what you’re all about. I always wanted to gut it out.”

The constant movement and anticipation during games provided an unexpected but very welcome benefit: On the field, Howard’s tics vanished. To this day, when strikers fire soccer balls his way, all involuntary movements cease.

“I have no idea how I do it,” he says.

At school, though, Howard struggled to hide his condition.

“He was very worried that he would be made fun of,” says Esther Howard. “He had this incredibly gentle spirit and was so very sweet and kind, my fear was that people might not look beyond the twitches and see what a wonderful person he was inside.”

But according to his longtime youth coach and mentor, Tim Mulqueen, Tourette’s was a non-issue with Howard’s teammates.

“It never came up,” says Mulqueen, who in 1991, as Rutgers University’s goalkeeping coach, discovered Howard, then age 12, when Esther scraped together $25 for a one-on-one session at a soccer clinic.

“You recognized that he had [TS], but no one asked about it. Everyone just accepted him because he was so talented but also so nice and so humble.”

Soon, Howard was competing for U.S. national youth teams and at age 15, he made the under-17 World Youth Championship team.

One month before high school graduation, Howard played his first pro (minor league) soccer game for the North Jersey Imperials of the ramshackle United Systems of Independent Soccer Leagues (USISL), earning $250 a week. The next year, he joined Major League Soccer’s New York/New Jersey MetroStars, and after three years was named starting goalkeeper in 2001. That’s when he also made the decision to speak out publicly about his TS.

“I was more in the public eye, and I knew I was going to have to answer questions,” he says. “I wanted to get it out there so I wouldn’t have to talk about it all the time. Subsequently, it turned into an incredible platform.”

It was then that Howard first became involved with the New Jersey Center for Tourette Syndrome & Associated Disorders Inc., a pioneering center providing services for people with TS and their families. A decade later, Howard is still dedicated to the organization, which recently launched the Tim Howard NJCTS Leadership Academy, a three-day program designed to teach kids with TS how to advocate for themselves.

“Kids with TS know what their weaknesses are, but we help them learn to concentrate on their strengths,” says Faith Rice, NJCTS executive director.

Howard’s big break came when a Manchester United coach spotted him, and in 2003, he moved to England to play for “Man U,” one of the most storied soccer (or “football” as they say in the U.K.) franchises in the world.The dream of playing for the English Premier League, where “footballers” are paid handsomely and treated like rock stars, had its downside. The British tabloids took the low road regarding his TS, referring to Howard as “retarded” and blasting headlines such as “Man U signs American with brain disorder.” The fans could be brutal as well, taunting him with rhymes and daring him to curse. (As Howard explains, most people with TS don’t swear uncontrollably. He says he doesn’t curse unless he means to.)

During this time, in which he also struggled on the field, Howard dug deep, calling on his Christian faith long nurtured by his mother and grandmother. “My faith helped me stay grounded in defeat and victory,” he says, “to not get too excited about the successes and too low about the failures.”

In 2006, Howard moved to Everton, another Premier League club, where he immediately meshed with his coaches, teammates, and especially the fans, who he describes as “roll-up-your-sleeve, blue-collar fighters” who remind him of his own family.

“For what I do, this is the best job in the world,” says Howard, who recently signed an extension through 2018. “I’ve carved out a niche for myself here.”

The downside is that he’s an ocean away from his children, Jacob, 9, and Alivia, 7, who live with their mom, Howard’s ex-wife, Laura, in Memphis, Tenn.

“Tim loves being a father,” says Mulqueen. “When it’s just the three of them—Tim, Jacob and Ali—the whole world stops.”

In order to spend more time with his kids, Howard recently announced a one-year sabbatical from Team USA, although he says the 2018 World Cup in Russia is on his radar.

“I want to have another crack at it for sure,” he says.

And when he does, half the world’s population—including millions of his new fans in the U.S. will be watching.

Stand-Up Stars

Tim Howard’s World Cup performance was undeniably among the best and brightest sports moments of 2014. There were others — the underdog UConn Huskies shocking the college hoops world by winning the National Championship, and the bolt from the blue Kansas City Royals making it to – and getting oh so close to winning—the World Series. Here are a few other inspiring narratives we won’t soon forget.

Rescue — Freestyle skier and Sochi Olympics silver medalist Gus Kenworthy jumped through major hoops to adopt and bring home a malnourished dog and her four pups. Sadly, two of Kenworthy’s pups died, but the other two are thriving and living with him in Denver. The mother dog, Mamuchka, lives with Kenworthy’s mom, Pip, in Telluride, Colo.

Go Girl — At this summer’s Little League World Series, Philadelphia’s Mo’ne Davis made it beyond cool to throw like a girl when the 13-year-old became the first female to pitch a shutout in the Little League World Series.

Marathon Man — When 38-year-old Meb Keflezighi won the Boston Marathon in April, he became the first American since 1983 to win the storied race, which carried even deeper meaning on the heels of the bombing at the finish line in 2013.

A Foe’s Farewell — After initially releasing defensive tackle Devon Still during preseason, the Cincinnati Bengals re-signed him to the practice squad so he could keep his health insurance to cover cancer treatments for his 4-year-old daughter, Leah. The team also donated all profits from the sale of his No. 75 jersey, raising over $1 million—so far—for pediatric cancer research.

Good Son — When Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant was named the NBA’s 2013-2014 MVP in May, he elevated the award with an unforgettable, tear-filled tribute to his mother, Wanda Pratt, saying, “You’re the real MVP.”