Would you cut your own kid? Gregg Berhalter did and it changed his son’s path

Put yourself in Gregg Berhalter’s shoes.

You’re the head coach, and you have a chance to put your son on the most decorated men’s team in the country. Do you do it?

For Berhalter, the answer was "no." There simply were other players who were more deserving.

"You asked me if I thought you had a chance to make the roster," Berhalter, the former USMNT coach wrote to his son, Sebastian, about constructing the team in 2024. "And I had to answer honestly. I told you that if you weren’t consistently starting for your club yet, it would be difficult to make the National Team."

How many youth coaches do you know who would do something like this? You probably have found the opposite to be true. They volunteer to coach the All-Star team so their son or daughter can be a part of it. It’s an act that seems harmless, but it can also help build up your child into something they aren’t.

At least not yet.

"I think he’s always been real with me," Sebastian responded to his father’s open letter, which came after the 25-year-old midfielder made the U.S. squad for the 2026 World Cup, under a different head coach (Mauricio Pochettino). "I’ve always been delusional about things. I’ve always been almost crazy at some points, and believing that I should be on something that I’m not."

Gregg Berhalter, whose 5½-year tenure as USMNT head coach ended after the 2024 Copa America, was issuing his son a challenge. Sebastian accepted it.

"What I admire most about you is that you’ve never taken anything for granted," the father wrote in his heartfelt letter. "You understood early that nothing would be handed to you."

Extra motivation from a setback can fuel us to achieving our goals, athletic or otherwise. But in sports, especially as kids move to more advanced stages, resilience can win out, sometimes even over sheer talent.

Gregg recently spoke with USA TODAY Sports about juggling his feelings for his son between parent and coach. Here’s how his story with Sebastian can help parents (and parent coaches) manage these familiar struggles.

Whomever your parent is, their belief in you is what matters most. Most everything else is noise.

Gregg seemed to have his head buried below the surface when Sebastian was born in 2001 as his first of four children. The lithe defender was playing for Crystal Palace in England, trying to stay afloat in his first professional season.

"We had just played the final match of the season with Crystal Palace against Stockport and won to stay in the league," he wrote to his son in the letter. "At the time, it felt like a big moment in my life. Then you were born. And suddenly life gave me something infinitely more important."

The next time you have a free moment of reflection, think about the gift you have as a parent of an athlete, perhaps even as their coach. You are doing something that you love and, as you nurture your son or daughter through life, they are discovering what they love.

During his early life as he followed his father through England, Germany, Sweden, Ohio and California as a player and coach, Sebastian followed games closely. As he started to play, he was developing his own passion.

"For us, as parents, we always were his guides," Gregg Berhalter told USA TODAY Sports, speaking also of his wife, Rosalind, whom he met at North Carolina, where she won four national titles as a soccer player. "We understood that he's gonna have to do it himself. So, we were there for support. Never pushed him. We made it his thing.

"And again, that's why we're so proud of him, because this is his accomplishment. And we were there whenever he needed an ear. And whenever he needs someone to talk to, whenever he needs support, we were always there. But, you know, he did this by himself."

He was speaking, of course, of Sebastian making the national team. Sebastian has said he and his father speak daily, usually about life and family rather than tactics.

"No matter what happens on the field, I hope you always remember this: I am proud of you because of who you are, not because of what you accomplish," his father wrote to him in the letter. "You’ve stayed humble through all of it. You’ve stayed grounded."

We need to be willing to do the work without guaranteed results. The process of trying to achieve them makes us who we are.

Can you hear me OK?

The question on the other end of the call came from a voice that was warm and friendly, not unlike one you might have heard in the Baltimore Orioles clubhouse of the 1980s or 1990s.

Ryan Ripken had just gotten back from a trip to Greece the night before, explaining how tired he was when he returned.

"But I appreciate your patience," he said. "Sorry it took a little bit of time, but I’m glad we could make it work."

We were chatting for my column about his famous family, with a baseball lineage passed down from professional coach Cal Sr. to Hall of Fame player Cal Jr. to Cal’s son, Ryan, who is now a sports media personality in the Baltimore/Washington region.

Ryan, 32, had been a baseball player, too, reaching as high as the Orioles’ Class AAA minor league affiliate in Norfolk, Virginia. It wasn’t anything, he says, his father felt he was destined to do.

"My family would have loved me if I'd never ever picked up a baseball once in my life," he told me during our 2024 interview, "and that's something that I am grateful for."

When he was a player, though, Ryan felt the weight of expectations of his family name, even if his dad never put any pressure on him to live up to it.

"I got older, and I was having some success, the success in some people's eyes was never good enough," he says. "And at some point, I started to worry more and more about, 'I need to try to prove people wrong,' or 'Why would they say things about me,' and that felt like criticism and negativity. And I didn't understand why, especially a concept that I had a tough time with as a teenager: Why do so many people love my dad, but they are so critical or look negatively at me?"

Perhaps he didn’t realize it at the time but Ryan, too, was building something independent of his father as he was trying to get better.

"By going to this next venture, and especially the media side, a lot of who I am is based off of extreme values that I learned all the years being involved in the sports world," he says.

It’s an idea Gregg Berhalter had in mind when he saw the disappointment on his son’s face, and heard it in his voice when the father delivered the message his son wasn’t ready for the national team yet.

Gregg wrote in his letter he then saw something change in Sebastian, who was taking responsibility for his dream.

"It really was about how proud I am of him and the work he's put in to get to this point," Gregg told USA TODAY Sports, "not the outcome, not getting to this point. It's really about his process. And I was there. I've seen all the work that he's done, and it's a relentless pursuit of this goal to make the World Cup team. And you don't always get results, right? You don't know if your work's going to pay off, if you're going to get the appointment at the end of the road, but he did."

The most meaningful success comes after experiencing adversity

Ryan Ripken didn’t achieve his ultimate goal of reaching the major leagues, but when he looks back, he realizes he accomplished a significant amount in his effort to get there.

“The ability, at any sport, to communicate, the ability to work on your relationship skills, the ability to problem solve, you know? How do you handle adversity?” he says. “All those things, there's a huge list of concepts I learned from playing that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world, and being on different teams, and different sports that had different challenges and obstacles, that when I look back, I'm so glad I went through.”

As a polished athlete, you learn to confront the intersection of success and failure head on, accepting whichever side you come down on. When he has coached kids, Ryan Ripken says he truly understands what they’re going through. When they’re hitting, he likes to ask them: “Who helps you when you’re in the batter’s box?”

Some will say, “Nobody's helping me.” That’s the point he wants to drive home: It’s them vs. the pitcher. They are doing it themselves.

He says he will be there if they need help, but the goal is, “How can you figure out who you are?”

How can we figure out who we are without failing?

St. Louis University soccer coach Kevin Kalish, a mentor of USMNT captain Tim Ream from Ream’s youth, told USA TODAY Sports in a recent interview he delves deeply into the character development component when he recruits players.

“It's the mental resiliency of having to deal with setbacks that's going to determine whether you have a career in this game,” Kalish says. “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, which guys can stay grounded, keep controlling what they can control, keep moving forward, and just win coaches over or wait their time until maybe a new coach comes in.”

Ryan Ripken only wishes he had realized the value of his challenges and obstacles at the time. Good news: As parents, there’s still time to convey that message to your kids.

Late developers are real, even at the world stage

Sebastian Berhalter, his father says, is a late developer. According to Gregg, when his son turned pro at 18, his physical age was more like 16.

“He was behind the curve growing,” Gregg says, “and it took him, I think, until 21, maybe even 22 years old, to really turn into a man. You know, so he was playing for four years as a pro and not really being in a man's body and he had to fight.

“He wasn't always a starter. He had to keep improving. He had to refine his process. He had to plan a path of how he's gonna get better. And then he had to let time elapse where you actually mature and you get stronger. And there was a moment, I remember in 2024 watching him play, and I said to my wife, ‘He's starting to look like a man now. You can see his movements. Everything's crisper, everything's sharper.’ ”

Sebastian, who has played for Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew and Austin FC and become an All-Star for the Vancouver Whitecaps, told his dad in 2025: “This is going to be my year.” When his dad asked why, Sebastian responded, “I feel prepared. In all of these areas, I feel prepared: mentally, physically, tactically. I feel like I'm ready. And sure enough, last year was his breakout year.”

Sebastian scored an equalizing goal and was active around the ball in Team USA’s 3-2 loss of their final World Cup group game against Turkey. But the team advance to play Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32.

If you are really committed to something, and you put in the practice time, especially on your own, you can gain ground on and pass other kids at older ages.

Get yourself in the pipeline. Try out again if you’ve been cut from a high school team or a travel club. Rededicate yourself to improving. The coach will see the strides you make. If you still don’t make the team, keep going.

The exercise will teach you about resilience for another chapter of your life.

If you’re a parent, you might have an opportunity to coach your son or daughter on a team you feel, deep in your heart, they don’t deserve to make. You know they could benefit from more experience, and even a setback, first.

Do you do it?

Contributing: Ralphie Aversa

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.

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