Tom Byer

Byer started his soccer career at Rondout Valley High School where he was named Mid-Hudson Player of the Year and led the team to two league championships. He continued to play soccer at SUNY Ulster while studying for his associate degree in Liberal Arts - Humanities and Social Sciences in 1982. Byer later played for the University of South Florida and was a member of the U.S. Olympic Sports Festival. Upon graduation, Byer trained with the Tampa Bay Rowdies franchise, but the NASL was in decline and the league folded soon after. Byer then undertook a brief stint with Leiston in England before becoming the first American to play soccer in Asia by signing for Hitachi SC (currently named Kashiwa Reysol, playing in the J-League).

Over the past 20 years, Byer has been conducting events in more than 2,000 locations with a total of 500,000 children participating. To culminate his achievement, Adidas honored Byer with the Golden Boot award, which he accepted in France after the World Cup draw of 1998 for his contribution to youth soccer in Asia. Byer remains the only youth coach to have received this award. In 2012, the AFF football blog named Byer as one of the top 10 influential foreign footballers in Japan.