Sam Sarver knows it sounds implausible now, with his scuba-diving, beer-guzzling antics gone globally viral on social media, dissected in glowing detail by myriad podcasts and news programs, that night’s MLS 360 broadcast, Dallas sports-talk radio, and even The Pat McAfee Show.
Yet he never thought his delirious celebrations of his injury-time winner in FC Dallas’ 3-2 victory at the San Jose Earthquakes last weekend would blow up like this.
“I just expected some MLS guys to send it around,” Sarver told MLSsoccer.com in a wide-ranging one-on-one conversation Thursday afternoon. “But Dak Prescott DMed me because he saw it. It was crazy.”
A bit of context for those from outside the Lone Star State: Nothing says you’ve arrived on the North Texas sports scene quite like a personal message from the Dallas Cowboys’ starting quarterback.
“All my teammates are like, ‘Dude, I'm sick of seeing you. Every time I open my phone, it's your celebration on another account,'” Sarver said.
Going viral
If Sarver’s colleagues actually were annoyed by his sudden stardom, he has an easy way to make amends.
The popular Mexican beer brand he quaffed after an angry Earthquakes supporter heaved a can of it in his general direction at PayPal Park? They came through with a huge free shipment of it on Wednesday – delivered right to his front door, perhaps nudged along by a strategic Instagram post from Sarver a few days prior, as inspiration struck him while driving past a convenience store with a friend.
The Sarver residence’s stockpile is so flush – 200 bottles or so, he estimates – that he had plenty extra to share with head coach Eric Quill & Co. at Toyota Stadium.
“Whole fridge full of it,” he explained. “I had about eight extra cases, so I dropped them off at the facility for all the coaches and staff. They sent me a lot of beer – like, my whole fridge is literally just beer right now.”
Even when Sarver showed his gratitude by chugging one of them in one gulp on an Instagram story, the technical staff couldn’t stay mad at their bubbly young attacker for very long.
“It was just meant to be funny,” said the 23-year-old. “[Quill] was like, ‘I was thinking about yelling at you for it, but then you dropped by those cases of beer for us, so I decided to let it slide.’”
Mr. Clutch
And why not? Sarver has indeed arrived, blossoming into a super-sub for a surging FC Dallas side who have provided fans and neutrals alike with some of the current MLS season’s most entertaining moments to date.
He gave a hint of his potential last July, when he scored a record-breaking four goals for North Texas SC in an MLS NEXT Pro match in Kansas City, then flew back to Dallas to make a substitute appearance for FCD the very next night, coming off the bench to earn a late penalty kick converted by Croatian star Petar Musa.
“The kid's on fire,” said Quill afterwards. “He's as humble as they come, he's as fun as they come. That locker room right now, because of him, is a few octaves up, and we need that. Personality helps.”
Sarver has now scored three goals in his last four MLS appearances, all of them late clinchers in transition situations where his blazing speed and finishing instincts make him a menacing weapon.
“It's very rewarding, finally just seeing the pieces of the puzzle falling together that you've been working so hard for,” he said. “Some people unfortunately work their whole careers and don't get many chances, and luckily I'm at a club where they really give guys good chances.”
Long road
‘Instant celebrity,’ though, is not the same as ‘overnight success.’ It took years of grinding and enduring some dark, scary nights to get here.
Growing up in quiet Geauga County, Ohio, Sarver fell for soccer early; last year his father Dave told a local newspaper his son’s “nose for goal” was evident even at age 4. He would star for prominent youth club Cleveland Internationals, eventually earning an invitation to join the Columbus Crew Academy. At first, he and a few other players from nearby areas carpooled for the near-daily commute to practices, a drive of more than two hours each way.
The Sarvers needed a better option. Sam spent some time living with an uncle’s family, then moved into the basement of then-Crew academy director Kelvin Jones, who today is an assistant coach at San Diego FC. Sam would attend four different high schools in four years as he chased his dream of a homegrown contract, juggling his studies with the soccer education he was gaining from Crew veterans like Wil Trapp, Bradley Wright-Phillips and Darlington Nagbe on the training ground.
Beyond on-pitch knowledge, that time taught him the value of an elder’s perspective – “It's important you get advice from people like that, because you can't buy wisdom,” Sarver said – and years later, when he won the 2025 MLS NEXT Pro MVP award, Wright-Phillips surprised him with the news.
Yet when all was said and done, Sarver never got a homegrown offer from Columbus, not even after he racked up 24 goals and 22 assists in 90 college matches at NCAA powerhouse Indiana University, “the Alabama football of college soccer,” in his words.
“I don't think I was ready to be a pro,” he says now. “I think I would have gotten chewed up and spit out. College was good for me, so I'm super grateful for that.
“I have no resentment towards [the Crew] or anything. It just wasn't meant to be, you know?”
You're not alone
Sarver loved the college experience and playing under longtime Hoosiers coach Todd Yeagley, who has helped nurture a long list of future professionals over the years. Yet the emotional fallout from a painful tragedy lingered, sent him reeling into brutal bouts of depression, even suicidal thoughts.
“I went through some very deep, dark things,” Sarver explained. “I lost my cousin in my senior year of high school, in the summer. He lost his life in a motorcycle accident. That took a toll on me. He was that cousin you always look forward to seeing at the family events. And then during college, I had some stuff happen to me too, and it was bad.”
Soccer was his safe space, and as you might have guessed from those exuberant goal celebrations, Sarver’s a life-of-the-party type; “I'm a very outgoing person, I could talk to a wall,” he jokes. He hung out with teammates and played video games with his friends back home. But too many nights, he found himself terrified, alone, unable to sleep.
As the darkest thoughts closed in, he’d reach out to his teammate and friend Luke Reidell, a product of Sporting Kansas City’s Academy who lived nearby, and ask a simple but potentially life-saving favor.
“It was to the point where I was so scared of being alone at night,” Sarver recalled. “[Reidell] lived like 40 steps down the road, and I would always be like, 'Dude, can I come and sleep over? I don't want to be alone.’
“My teammates, some of them didn't understand – like, ‘dude, why are you sleeping over at his house so much?’ But I feel like if you can relate to it, then you understand just how terrible it is to be alone at night when you're going through stuff like that. And I think people don't understand in the pro world how lonely it can get, too, because once you're done with training, you're all alone at your house, unless you have family.”
Sarver shared some of what he was going through on Instagram, which led him to write a piece about his mental health struggles for USL League Two’s website while playing in the pro-am competition for FC Motown in the summer of 2023. He sought out different forms of counseling, both the clinical sort and informal conversations with those around him, including an IU assistant coach who’d gone through similar heartbreak in his own life.
That work continues to this day for Sarver, who was scheduled to meet with a mental-health specialist right after his interview with MLSsoccer.com.
“Lots of people have some skeletons in their closet. You never know unless you ask,” he said. “You never know what they’re going through.”
Taking his chance
Thanks to Quill’s stint on Caleb Porter’s staff in Columbus, FC Dallas knew a bit about Sarver’s story – and spirit – and selected him in last year’s SuperDraft. He still hadn’t really made it, though, as he realized when Quill informed him he’d be sent down to the second team rather than travel to Portugal for the second phase of FCD’s 2025 preseason.
It was a temporary setback in retrospect, though it stung enough for Sarver to contemplate a plan B. That week, he reached out to the kicking coach of Brandon Aubrey, the former MLSer who jumped sports to become an NFL placekicker with the Dallas Cowboys. Sarver had done some gridiron kicking in his youth, showing impressive range, and thought he might be able to follow suit.
Then he thought again.
“I just committed – like, screw thinking about a backup plan,” he said. “I'm just going to grind it out for a year and be the best version of me I can, and if that's not enough, I can live with that. So I kind of just burned the boats with the kicking idea, and just stuck to it.”
Bigger picture
‘Burn the boats’ is one of Sarver’s favored phrases, a reference to Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, who is said to have set his ships aflame upon arrival in Mexico in 1519, signaling to his troops that retreat was not an option. The tale inspired Sarver enough that he worked it into the celebration of his first career MLS goal, against Red Bull New York earlier this month.
That moment was sweet vindication, reward for the resilience that was already evident enough that league officials asked him to speak at the rookie symposium held for MLS newcomers at the start of every season.
“I told the rookies my story, about how the things I first struggled with were, and I told them that comparison is the thief of joy,” Sarver said. “You see these guys you played against in college starting in MLS, and you're on a second-team deal. How can you not compare yourself? You get jealous in a way, like, that should be me. I can't believe I'm watching this guy play on TV and I'm not.
“I just learned to let that stuff go. I learned everyone's got their own journey, their own path, and you just got to embrace your own.”
Wherever Sarver’s path takes him next, he’ll have a lot more people watching every step of the way.
Up next: FCD’s visit to the Colorado Rapids on Saturday night, their final match before the MLS season pauses for the 2026 FIFA World Cup (9:30 pm ET | Apple TV).
