FLORHAM PARK, N.J.—Tyler Adams, psychology major, would diagnose himself with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). He says it’s played a part in making him a perfectionist on the field, with a career soon to continue in the Bundesliga after breaking out in MLS.
Also included in Adams’ self-diagnosis is a pursuit of a college degree that won’t stop, even as the 19-year old leaves his home state of New Jersey and starts his time with RB Leipzig in January.
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“It’s hard to portray the importance of following your education and pursuing it when you’re living the dream of professional soccer,” Adams told The Athletic. “Every day I wake up and go to practice – I don’t think it’s going to be my last time playing, and that is why it is so important to get your education. You just really don’t know what’s going to happen with your career, it can go either way.”
Last summer, in the middle of the Red Bulls’ season and just a couple of weeks after graduating from high school, Adams enrolled to take online classes at Southern New Hampshire University. It wasn’t a spur-of-the moment decision. Back in 2015, when Adams was signing his first pro contract with the Red Bulls, his mother negotiated a clause stipulating that his tuition would be reimbursed each time he passed a course in college.
Adams might have been forgiven if he had claimed not to have time to take advantage of that offer. His burgeoning soccer career saw him play 58 league matches over the past two years, plus heavy minutes last year with the United States U-20 national team as well as now being a regular with the full national team. It has been a full calendar with plenty of travel, but also one that has seen him earn 36 college credits since last summer.
Oh, and a 4.0 G.P.A.
“For me, it is finding the right balance of things you enjoy,” Adams said. “It might be a little of a struggle and a grind but that’s good for you. That’s school for me. There are some things you might not like or enjoy. That’s part of the process.”
Adams chose his major because he likes the idea of practicing sports psychology after his soccer career is over. The Red Bulls have sometimes utilized a sports psychologist for team presentations, but Adams has never utilized one personally. Still, he sees how the practice can be beneficial and thinks that someday he can combine his background as an athlete with his studies. He said that a cousin is also studying psychology and they have talked about going into practice someday.
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Online classes at Southern New Hampshire run for eight weeks and, unlike a traditional brick and mortar college campus, there is considerable schedule flexibility. A week before the class begins, Adams has the chance to review a syllabus that is posted online and view the textbook on his laptop. His goal, he said, is to always be a week ahead of the scheduled homework and postings that are required in the online portal.
He estimates that he spends two hours a day on homework, taking advantage of his heavy travel schedule to cram in extra course work and studies on planes and in airports. Often he will work from home or, like today, at a Panera café in suburban New Jersey.
With free wi-fi and refills of coffee, Adams sits in a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants on the quiet side of the café, away from the chattering senior citizens who are solving all the world’s problems over a pastry and a newspaper. Near this Panera location are three college campuses and Adams looks like any other student at a laptop, finishing off his semester. School, he says, is a part of his life, “something I’m not willing to compromise on…I make time for it.”
He has taken two classes per semester for most of the last year, but he scaled back to a single class this past fall given that “well, you know, everything going on.” Translation: His transfer to RB Leipzig and the Red Bulls’ run through the MLS playoffs.
He’ll continue his one-course schedule this spring, with a class in abnormal psychology. With the move to Germany and plenty of changes coming his way, Adams wants to ease into his life as a yank abroad. But he also doesn’t want to take a semester off, wary that it could derail his steady march towards a bachelor’s degree. His solution is to scale back his coursework as he deals with a new team, league, culture and time changes, not to mention immersing himself in the German language.
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Three times a week for the past five months, Adams has had a Skype session with a German language instructor. Each online language session with the professor runs about 90 minutes and is a private study, not at all connected with his degree (though he’s hoping to get college credit for the work). He hopes that his first media interview at RB Leipzig will be conducted in German.
With soccer, psychology, and German work to address, Adams has become adept at keeping highly structured days. He was prepared to maintain this after the MLS season concluded, when his new club sent him a workout schedule before his arrival in early January. As part of the routine, they mandated that he take three weeks off from any scheduled physical activity. No gym workouts. No running. Just rest.
It was something that Adams and his self-diagnosed OCD didn’t take to originally.
“I would say OCD is something I have, for sure,” Adams said with a laugh. “People that have OCD are people whose brains are running a thousand miles all the time. I would say that finding and constructing a good balance and schedule with what you’re doing is definitely important. If you have a good routine, then everything will fill in the blanks. There’s nothing you have to do. The routine will take care of itself, which is what I do.”
So what has Adams done with this newfound downtime? He hangs out with friends – “Everyone seems to want to go out to dinner these days…” – and at his apartment complex in north Jersey, he watches a lot of Netflix. He just got done with Designated Survivor, which he liked, but has yet to see Kim’s Convenience.
Overseas, Adams knows things will be different. He is heading to one of the best leagues in the world for a team that has very quickly risen to near the top of the Bundesliga. He has work ahead of him to earn a role with the national team under a new head coach. Time will be stretched thin once again, and he still has several more courses to go before he could possibly earn his degree.
Yet, taking a break from college isn’t in his future.
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“I’m going to make time for it, there’s no doubt about that,” Adams said. “I like the classes and I like learning about psychology. But for me it is also good discipline and something I just genuinely enjoy. Why can’t I do it?”
He likely won’t walk at graduation when that happens but his mother, he said, “is going to print that degree out a million times.”
(Photo by Eric Verhoeven/Soccrates/Getty Images)
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