Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” – James 1:2-4

A Year I Never Saw Coming

2025. One for the books. And if I’d ever had any doubts about that, they’ve been completely diminished. 

It’s been unexpected, challenging, and testing in ways I never could have predicted, nor prepared for.

When you’re in the ER with a “heart problem,” woken up in the middle of the night by eight doctors rushing into your room to intervene, you’re scared. Scared for your life. Unsure of what’s happening, what your diagnosis will be, or what your future might look like.

Nevermind playing soccer. Forget the growth, the meaning, and the ascension I’d been seeking for the entirety of my life up until that point. During a time as such, I remember thinking, “God please just allow me to get home to see my daughter and my wife (who was pregnant with our second). Please help me get through this night. Please keep me alive for my family.” 

That’s the kind of scenario I was least expecting to encounter while away at my 8th professional soccer pre-season.

The Diagnosis That Changed Everything

On the backend of the preliminary scare, I was diagnosed with something called pericarditis, which was explained to me as inflammation of the pericardium (a thin sack surrounding your heart). The pain experienced amidst the initial flare was brutal, to say the least. I was unable to move and struggled to inhale. I couldn’t lean forward, backward, or sideways, and was forced to sleep while sitting upright for nearly a month as a ramification.  

Pericarditis was a word I’d never heard of until it suddenly became the word that, by no choice of my own, seemed as though it was going to define my year. I’d spent the offseason that superseded this instance working tirelessly. I’d hired a personal trainer of my own and spent a short period away from home in San Diego, whilst seeking expert, specified training. I was pushing my body to limits I never had, pushing myself to the point of exhaustion nearly every single day and pouring every ounce of energy I had into ensuring that this was going to be my year. That allocation of time and commitment only amplified my pain and disappointment when I encountered my newfound reality.

A Season Built for a Breakthrough

My expectations were grand and I’d fantasized about having a sort of “rebirth,” breakout year. Everything was there for the taking. The Chicago Fire was taking a new direction under the helm and leadership of a new coach and moving to a brand new, top of the line, world-class training facility. The opportunity to start fresh and get myself back to producing my best play on the field was fully there for the taking. And I was going to grasp it. At least, so I thought.

When Everything Came to a Halt

Instead, I’d been forced to spend the entire season on the sidelines. And surprisingly, it seems as though I’ve learned more from this season than any other that’s come before it. I’ve seen lessons manifest in different forms, insights emerge, and hard truths reveal themselves. 

Furthermore, they’ve allowed me to extract new, profound wisdom that I believe I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life. Wisdom that would have likely been impossible to unveil had it not been for such a dire, strange, and random circumstance. Something that really threw things off, took me out of my comfort zone, and forced me to grow in ways that hadn’t been necessary before the matter. 

The Fork in the Road

That, however, was a choice. 

I could have easily closed myself off. Victimized and felt sorry for myself for the misfortune bestowed upon me. It would have been much easier for me to turn my head away from the growth that couldn’t possibly surface without the inception of such a bizarre, seemingly catastrophic condition.

The Shock of Stillness

For a professional athlete who’s used to hours of physical and mental training a day, to be forced into zero activity for months at a time was the first of many, massive shocks. My body craved, and became accustomed to, movement. My mind craved routine. Both of which were stripped from me overnight (literally). I was directed to rest. Unable to raise my heartrate at all. And the regimens and protocols I’d once known and engaged with on a daily basis were suddenly to be involuntarily abandoned for the foreseeable future. 

I made it home, at least. And was restlessly trying to process and navigate a new world I’d never come close to colliding with before.

Wrestling With the Mental Battle

As I worked through this new reality, some days were hopeful. Though my attempts at remaining optimistic and positive were painful and often unsuccessful. Most of the days, at least during the initial stages, were crushing. I’d been stuck in a cycle of rumination, where my focus was dominated by everything that was missing. The games, the training, the competition, the locker room vibes and conversations, the grind, and every other small, ordinary component of a professional soccer player’s lifestyle that I never thought I’d miss until they were gone. Yet in those hard moments, especially during the painful flares, I wasn’t thinking about my career stats, my next contract, or how many goals I did or didn’t score.

All I wanted, then, was to be healthy enough to live a normal life again. To be able to go for a walk with my wife around the block. To be able to get down on the floor and play with my kids. To be able to sleep, lying down, flat, in my bed.

Lesson One: Health Is Everything

That’s when the first lesson hit me like a freight train being guided by a conductor who forced the throttle as far forward as its mechanical configuration could manage… 

The lesson was this: When you have your health, you have everything. 

Lose it, and all the money, fame, and accolades you’ve spent your life dedicated to attaining instantly lose ALL of their value. Every day you wake up in good health might as well be on par with winning the lottery. Why? Because you wouldn’t trade your monetary winnings, no matter how many millions the powerball promised you, for the expense of losing or missing out on good health. 

Be it disease, cancer, injury… whatever. Good health is your most valuable asset. And you would be better off appreciating that blessing daily because it’s something you (and I) naively take for granted on a regular basis. We often ignorantly proceed through our daily lives seeking progress, growth, peace, comfort, status, and pleasure (to name a few), all while forgetting and often neglecting, this tremendous fortune. 

However, the threat to my health wasn’t where my daunting concerns and fears had come to a conclusion. I was also in a contract year. And missing the entire season with my contract set to expire at its conclusion, forced me to contemplate a few things with deeper consideration.

The Weight of the Unknown

Firstly, it meant I’d have no chance to prove myself on the field. Any club could easily write me off at that point. And why wouldn’t they? Why might they take a chance and sign a player who’d spent the entire previous season battling “heart issues?” Furthermore, I was destined to lose any leverage I might have had heading into my first period of free agency. 

Were these worries? Sure. But those seemed trivial compared to the questions that not only troubled me deeply, but were disastrous concerns which I couldn’t seem to escape. 

How was I going to provide for my family? Where was I going to work and get a stable job to sustain my lifestyle, without even having completed my degree yet? How would I pay for insurance for my wife and two little girls? How would I create stability and safety for my family when the one thing I’d always relied on was taken away?

The pressure felt heavy, and I’d frequently agonize and obsess over this category of potential distress. There were nights I’d sit up in bed, crying with my wife, afraid, in pain, and ask God: “Why did this have to happen? Why now? And why me?” 

Days, maybe even weeks, had been spent moving through a fog, dragged and beaten down by discouragement and uncertainty. Every day I’d wake up wondering what was going to happen, feeling crippled by the anxiety of the unknown that haunted me like a shadow that followed me everywhere I went.

Rebuilding Through Scripture and Study

Eventually, in my desperation and curiosity, I sought and found the answers I needed to push me through this turbulent time in my life. I ultimately found the encouragement I needed in the books I’d feverishly consumed throughout the past decade of my life, and, more notably, in God’s Word. Being the Christian I’d always claimed to be, I picked up the one and only book whose stories and promises had stood the test of time. By following through the books and scripture, I stumbled across a few axioms and truths that had sparked my revival and ultimate ascendence out of the hole of discouragement I’d found myself frequently occupying.

Hebrews 11:12 reads: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

Viktor Frankl, author of the noteworthy Man’s Search For Meaning, who endured the worst imaginable horrors of the Holocaust’s torture camps, once said that nothing, not even the darkest of circumstances, can extinguish a small flicker of hope. There is nothing as formidable as the human spirit and nothing can break us when we remember that we always hold the freedom to choose how we respond.

God spoke to me during those times and reminded me that I too, did have a choice, although that wasn’t apparent to me at the start.

The Two Paths We All Must Choose Between

People in life face trials of all sorts that they’re unprepared for. Circumstances that seem unfair. Unfoldings that feel unjust. Revelations that just don’t make sense. And so, that leaves us with two choices (so long as we’re wise enough to recognize that we ALWAYS maintain the capacity to choose).

I could follow one of just two paths… 

1. Become bitter, resentful, and eventually depressed. Fall peril to “learned helplessness” and lose hope for taking any productive action ever again, because what’s the point if variables beyond the realm of your control have the capability of deterring your plans anyway. And become angry at God for dealing me a less than favorable hand. Shake my fist at Him for cursing me with a challenge I had not predicted nor prepared for. 

OR 

1. Aim up (as Jordan Peterson had taught me while reading through his latest book We Who Wrestle With God). Keep my faith. And take on the responsibility for my outcomes, the variables in my control, the unfoldings that would surface in the wake of this occurrence, and continue to put my best foot forward, NO MATTER WHAT. 

Instead of folding up, becoming paralyzed by fear, and doing nothing worthwhile with the extra time I was granted, I chose growth. I chose faith. And I chose hope. And maybe, just maybe, that might just be my most proud accomplishment to date.

Choosing Action Over Self-Pity

Because what did I decide to do when I was cursed (or blessed?) with an Everest that was placed on my path, which I had no way of anticipating, dodging, or presupposed plans of climibing? 

For starters, I devoted myself to being the best teammate I could possibly be for the rest of the year. That was my first mission. I decided to do what I could; which, simply put, was to try and bring enthusiasm, uplifting energy, and encouragement to the team, when needed. And of course, to lead by example, despite my journey’s less than desirable detour away from the field of play.

I also re-enrolled in school at the University of Wisconsin–Madison to finish my undergrad in Economics. Additionally, I applied for, and eventually got accepted into, the Harvard Business School’s “Crossover Into Business” program for active professional athletes, allowing them the possibility to earn a certificate from a world-renowned institution. 

And lastly, I built BTB Path 2 Pro (the first real product I’d created and tied to my brand BTB). This, more descriptively, is an online program designed to help young soccer players get recruited and chase their dreams by providing them with tools, resources, and insights I never had at their age. But more importantly, the platform was developed to act as a medium to infuse, what I’ve found to be, life’s most valuable lessons through our shared passion for the beautiful game of soccer.

Seeing God’s Hand in the Detour

And so, sure… none of this year was expected. 

Although, in some ways, it’s not too dissimilar from the year prior after my step-father had suffered a severe hemorrhagic stroke. An altercation with reality that drastically changed his, my family’s, and most specifically my mother’s, life for the long-term.

The Example That Guides Me

Yet still, I truly believe, from the bottom of my heart and pit of my soul, that despite the cards we’re dealt, we’re called to bring our best to the table regardless and no matter what. 

Just as Jesus did, for example. Imagine being walked, tortured, and berated down a path on your way towards the most brutal death. How easy it would be to turn away, to become bitter, to stand up, and to fight back. Yet, He bared His cross, carried it on His back, and walked that path voluntarily. He didn’t choose to be slaughtered and nailed to the cross. Yet, He did choose to aim up. To forgive and to love, even when it seemed impossible to do so. 

Perhaps that’s one of the many lessons that’s to be extracted from His story. The son of God, leaving the confines of the pearly gates of a perfect, merciful heaven, to come down to an imperfect, unholy, and dishonorable Earth, where free will has granted those who walk it to take unfathomable, evil, and sinful actions. And pay the price for all, even those who don’t deserve it, by being brutally crucified, nonetheless.

That story relays this… 

No matter what you go through, no matter what circumstances challenge your faith, no matter what injustices unfold before you, you must continue to aim up, continue with your faith, and put one foot in front of the other. Even when the difficulties made manifest on your path have been to no discretion of your own, you have no other choice but to keep on keeping on. 

Bring your best. Be your best. Or at least, the best you can be, without question or compromise. That is your deepest responsibility to yourself, to your family, and to your community.

Buried or Planted?

There’s a quote I’ve carried with me since the initiation of this challenging period:

“Sometimes when you’re in a dark place you think you’ve been buried, but actually you’ve been planted.”

At the beginning of this season, to say I felt buried would be an understatement. But, what I’ve come to realize is that this unfolding has forced me to grow roots, to prepare for storms, and to construct myself into a version much stronger than the versions of me that came before this diagnosis.

What This Season Gave Me

Looking back, my experiences with pericarditis have become an anchor. Something that’s reminded me: “If I can survive this (months of uncertainty, physical pain, financial stress, the loss of the game I love, and sense of self that’s woven into that identity) there wouldn’t be much else, if anything, I couldn’t find a way to endure. It has grounded me in faith, in gratitude, and in the perspective that life is about more than just soccer. 

For me, it became about being present for my wife, for my girls, and for the people who love me. Furthermore, it’s become about aiming up and taking responsibility for myself no matter what emerges before me. And that doesn’t mean it’s easy, however. As a matter of fact, some days felt impossible to overcome. But each day became a chance to aim up, to show up as the man I wanted my daughters to learn from, and to show them how to properly deal with adversity of the highest degree, no matter how shocking the collision with it may be.

A New Beginning

And now, I’m on the backend of it all. I’m training again. I’ve been re-signed for next season (praise God) and I’m going to have the opportunity to cross the white lines once more. 

Stepping Into the Future With Purpose

But here’s the difference between then and now:

I’ve set myself up. I’ve built a backup plan. I finished my degree. And I created a business model that I’m passionate about (alongside playing the game) that will support my family and I beyond soccer, and hopefully for long after I’m done. And I’ve found unparalleled liberation in knowing that the hand that once fed me can no longer starve me. That freedom, that empowerment, and that confidence? It means I’ll step onto the field with less pressure when the time comes. With nothing to lose. And everything to gain, once again. 

And that’s when, I think, you’re able to play your best. That’s when you become truly dangerous. That’s when you BTB.

The Transformation

This past year has been one of, if not the, hardest of my life. But it’s also been the most transformative. Pericarditis tried to take from me. But in many ways, it gave me more than I could have ever expected. It gave me perspective, wisdom, resilience, and clarity about what truly matters uniquely to me.

For Anyone Walking Through Their Own Storm

If you’re amidst a trial of your own right now, here’s what I want you to know: 

Unforeseen challenges will come. Life isn’t always fair. But you have the responsibility, to rise, to maintain your faith, and to turn your pain into purpose. It’s your deepest and greatest responsibility to bear those challenges courageously. To take the outcomes that come onto your own shoulders. And to move forward bravely, come what may. 

That’s what real faith is. You can not claim to be courageous, nor faithful, without facing a paralyzing amount of fear, attempting to derail your progress. If there was no fear, how could you be courageous? If there was no reason not to believe, what would faith count for? If you had never been through something immensely difficult, how could you ever grow strong, resilient, and claim to be robust? 

The answer is, you couldn’t.

What Hardship Builds in Us

You need these moments of adversity. Better yet, we all do.

They build us. They forge us. And they give to us, much more than they take from us.

Planted for Growth

So yes, there may be moments when you feel buried. 

But maybe, just maybe, I want you to consider… maybe, in all actuality, you’ve been planted.

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