MIAMI — On an Inter Miami team stacked with global multimillionaire superstars, it is sometimes easy to forget that Lionel Messi’s co-captain and one of the most valuable players is the unassuming, unflappable goalkeeper Drake Callender.

On the surface, the 26-year-old Sacramento, Calif., native seems too mild-mannered to dive and leap into crowds to catch or deflect soccer balls coming at him at 70 mph.

He writes poetry. He draws. He meditates. He recently co-authored a children’s book about mindfulness with former Miami teammate and close friend DeAndre Yedlin. He bakes Naan bread from scratch to go with his homemade curry and rice.

But when he puts on those gloves and gets into a game, he becomes a ferocious competitor. His 6-3 and 200-pound frame seems to grow, and he habitually delivers sensational acrobatic saves that impress diehard fans but rarely make headlines.

“Drake’s one of the most creative people I’ve been around, and when he’s on the field he uses his creative abilities in a different way,” Yedlin said. “Everything he does off the field helps him on the field, and everything he does on the field helps him off the field. That’s rare, and it’s what every athlete is looking for. How can I find the synergy between what I do on and off the field? Drake found that recipe.”

Among the challenges Callender faces this season are ever-changing back lines, an attack-minded offense that takes risks and sometimes leaves defenders vulnerable and a language barrier on a team that is predominantly Spanish speaking.

Nonetheless, he has been able to thrive and is the only player left from Inter Miami’s inaugural 2020 roster.

“He speaks the international language, which is `He’s a badass,’ ” said Henry Foulk, Callender’s college goalkeeping coach at Cal Berkeley. “These high-profile players are great, but they’re aging, not as fast as they used to be, can’t jump as high, and they know Drake can stop the ball and he’s going to bail their ass out of some tough situations.”

Callender’s reliable hands and demeanor are essential for his job.

“The great keepers go from having strong, hard hands to having soft, shock-absorbing hands,” Foulk said. “Some guys bang balls out with flair but give up a lot more rebounds. Drake goes all out to get the ball and right when he gets there, he takes a deep breath for a fraction of a second and is then able to absorb the velocity of the ball, bring it in, collect and catch it.”

Callender is about to become a father. He and his wife, Kyra Rogers, a former UCLA volleyball player, are expecting their first child, a daughter, the first week of September. Callender will be carefully cradling an infant in those big hands.

As he prepares for parenthood, Callender finds himself getting nostalgic for those days playing youth soccer for the Nemos, kayaking on Lake Natoma and the American River, long car rides to soccer practice, and countless hours drawing birds, particularly cranes and herons he saw on walks along the river.

Callender never imagined as he drew birds in his sketch book that he would someday play for a Miami team that has a heron on its logo.

“When I signed with Miami I actually went back and found all these bird drawings from when I was in second grade of herons and cranes and robins and hawks,” Callender said. “I could draw for two hours straight, and did that rather than play video games. Everything from the pencil outline to outlining to coloring it in, it was like active meditation for me.”

He also recalled his parents’ support as he overcame a serious stutter in elementary school that made him self-conscious in the classroom.

“It’s crazy how as you get older and you hit these life milestones like becoming a parent, I start to think about my childhood and all the ways in which they were parents to me and how I’ll be a parent to our child,” he said. “It’s a time in my life when I’m very appreciative and grateful for everyone in my life, especially my parents.”

Callender’s family background

His father, Howard, an insurance agent, ran track at American River College and was a fitness instructor in the 1980s. “He’s very fit, way fitter than I am right now,” Callender said, smiling. “He’s still in very good shape for 63. He looks like he’s 45.”

His mother, Julie, an administrator at the State of California capitol speaker’s office, is 5-11 and played some softball. Although Callender lives across the country, he remains in close contact with his family. His father checks in after every game and his mother texts three heart emojis after every game. He is also close with his older brother, Ian, who is in the Navy.

“My dad’s black, my mom’s white, so we were a biracial household, which was very loving,” Callender said. “We always had what we wanted, and they were super supportive, whether I wanted to play soccer, join a swim team, run track and field, anything.”

There wasn’t a sport Callender didn’t try as a kid. He swam. He played Ultimate Frisbee. He played baseball. He played four varsity sports as a freshman at Bella Vista High School — soccer, basketball, track and field (100 meters, 200 meters, long jump and shot put), and was a kicker on the football team.

Callender said his freshman long jump school record still holds at 21 feet and a quarter inch.

But his love for soccer was strongest. It began with the Nemos of the Orangevale Soccer Club. From there he moved up to the Rockets, from the rec league to the competitive travel league. By middle school, he was playing for Cap FC and Placer United and at age 15 was selected to play for the San Jose Earthquakes Academy in 2013.

He commuted two hours each way for practice for two years and then as a senior moved in with a friend’s family in San Jose and got a scholarship to attend Cambrian International Academy, a college prep school that fostered Callender’s love of writing.

Callender, Yedlin write children’s book

“I could express myself through creative writing and poetry,” he said. “I have hundreds of poems in my journals. That aided in my communication skills, vocabulary, and these are skills I can apply in the professional world.”

Callender and Yedlin wrote their first book, X Marks the Spot, while on long flights for Inter Miami road trips, and have a few more coming.

It was at the Earthquakes Academy that Callender first crossed paths with Foulk, who sensed from early on that Callender could be special.

“He had athletic tools that are God-given and when I saw him, I have this alarm system that goes off in my head,” Foulk said. “I can’t really describe what it is, it’s the `It’ factor. You can just tell.”

Foulk has an eye for talent. Among the keepers he trained who went on to the pros were JT Marcinkowski (San Jose Earthquakes), Stefan Frei (Seattle Sounders), David Bingham (Charlotte), Jonathan (son of Jurgen) Klinsmann (Italian second division) and Remi Prieur (now an assistant coach at St. Mary’s College).

“JT was one of the all-time highest athletic IQ people I’ve ever run across, and Drake was around him, and that was important in his development,” Foulk said.

Callender agreed.

“I played behind JT Marcinkowski and Remi Prieur, and they were so far ahead of me that every training I would just watch what they would do and try to replicate that because I was athletic, but I didn’t have the technique or skills yet,” Callender said.

Foulk had a profound effect on Callender’s life as a coach and life mentor. “He used goalkeeping as the vehicle to teach me about life. He pushed me to my edge, right to my breaking point and it was at that point where I really found out what I was made of.”

Callender even took financial advice from Foulk, who urged him not to spend foolishly when he signed his first professional contract and sold him a used green 1996 BMW 318ti hatchback that he still drives today.

“Drake didn’t come from money, and when young athletes all of a sudden have money in their wallets, they usually make mistakes like buy expensive brand, new cars,” Foulk said. “I kept hammering to Drake that he should be frugal and try to have $200,000 saved at the end of his first three-year contract.”

Callender paid heed to the advice, going so far as learning to service the car. “He called to tell me when he did his first brake job,” Foulk said. “Here’s a professional athlete in his driveway doing his own brake job and he has saved money by making decisions like that.”

Foulk has enjoyed watching Callender’s evolution on and off the field. The young goalkeeper has learned to manage the daily grind, going from a maximum of 24 games a season and minimal travel in college to potentially 50 games a year with Inter Miami while crisscrossing the country; and in Miami’s case traveling to the Middle East and Asia in the preseason.

Equally important, Foulk explained, Callender has learned to be durable and play through minor injuries.

“When he was younger, he was way more sensitive about little things; and he had to understand you don’t mess with hamstring pulls and groin pulls, but other things are knocks and bruises, that’s just pain management,” Foulk said.

“He went from being a Porsche to a Chevy truck in his ability to understand his body, what to worry about and what not to worry about. With a Porsche, you can have one thing go wrong and the whole car won’t run right. A Chevy truck you can lose one or two cylinders on the engine, and it still runs. It’ll still get you up the hill. The parts could be falling off the thing and it still works.”

Yedlin was traded to FC Cincinnati and last weekend went up against Callender, who made two massive saves in a 2-0 playoff-clinching victory.

“It would be easy to point and say, `What? This athlete writes poetry? He draws and writes children’s books?’ But he doesn’t care what other people think in that he knows who he is and that is what I respect so much about him,” Yedlin said.

“As a keeper he is not involved in all the plays, but that inner calm helps him focus the entire game. We’ve seen it a million times from him. He has to make one big save in a game and he comes up with it.”

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