Advertisement

On the field, he motivated the guys and called the defensive plays. He liked setting the tone for the team, an outlook he thinks could apply to politics, business or his weekend flag football league: Talk trash, but don't dismiss your opponent.

"You still want to bury 'em, but you respect that they're giving you a challenge," Tyler says. "I'd much rather play someone who's beating me every time than someone I continually beat all the time. When you do win, it's that much more a feeling."

A major blow came his sophomore year of high school when he tore his hamstring in three places during a scrimmage. He sat out most of the season, his first on the varsity squad. To stay close to his team, he went to every practice and game and spent hours in the weight room with athletic trainers, trying to maintain strength and avoid more injuries. Under their care, he realized he might have found his next step.

As he began to think about college, he zeroed in on athletic training as a major, but there was something else to consider: His parents wouldn't allow him to go more than a few hours' drive from home. The rule was the same from the first York boy to the last. With a 17-year span between their sons, Gail and Don didn't want them to grow up strangers. They expected them to be at each other's big games and birthday parties, to return home for weekend get-togethers. If they instilled the habit of staying close while they were young, the parents thought, maybe they'd stick around when they were older, too.

Tyler decided on Plymouth State University, his dad's alma mater and home to a competitive athletic training program.

"The day he left, I'm not gonna lie, we all cried," says Dylan, the youngest York brother, who was 11 when Tyler headed to college and the last one still living at home. "It was definitely different to get used to. I was always by him. We'd literally spend all day together. We'd go play catch, go watch TV. When his friends would come over, I would try to hang out with them, and he always let me. I don't think he ever really kicked me out."

Like his parents hoped, Tyler came home often during college: Friends, a girlfriend, his grandfather's last years all drew him back to Bedford. But he had been one of a few accepted into the athletic training major, and the coursework was rigorous. He had summer jobs fitting casts for broken limbs and school-year training gigs with soccer, lacrosse and football teams. His friends and college roommate describe him as focused but friendly, a guy who could talk to anybody. "A professional wingman," one friend said.

He graduated in four years, in May 2009, just as the dust was settling from the imploded job market.

Tyler shows up a bit late to his little nieces' pirate-themed birthday party.

They've already moved on from eye patches and stick-on beards to heart-star-glitter-covered bathing suits. Still, they fall into giggly, shrieking fits when Tyler arrives with his girlfriend, Emily Getto. She's tall and slim with long, soft waves in her hair and a knack for vintage style. She works for Panera Bread in Boston -- she was on a poster promoting the store this year -- but her degree, and dreams, are in fashion design. Her voice is high and sing-songy, like a Disney princess, and she crouches to make eye contact when talking to the little girls. It's the kind of thing that makes the whole family love her.

All the family is here -- the aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents wearing skull-and-crossbones hats, sipping beer from koozied bottles and keeping a watchful eye as the girls leap into the wading pool behind Tyler's brother Evan's house. If not for the tricorn hats, this could be any weekend; the kids and grandkids often spend sunny afternoons together by Don and Gail's pool, or at each other's houses. The York brothers and their ever-expanding passel of children all live nearby, in a radius even tighter than their parents set for college. The oldest is 35 and lives in the house his mother grew up in.

Tyler bends down to play the "high-five game" with his niece. He holds up a hand, then yanks it away as she tries to smack it. If she's quick enough, she wins.

She misses. "Be better." Again. "Be better." Again. "Be better."

She reaches to take his hand and stop the game. "No," he says, "Be better." She laughs.

Later, with the two nieces blissed out on gifts of unicorn slippers and princess skates (the sisters were born around the same time, two years apart) the York brothers' attention shifts to the high school football schedule. Dylan's team lost in last year's state championship, a painful end his older brothers can commiserate with from their own time on the field. They'll be at Dylan's games this year, and maybe next year, too. He's a senior at Bedford High School, the team captain and the most gifted athlete among the brothers; it's no surprise that colleges are calling.

"There was a time when you older boys were in as good a shape as your little brother," Don York jokes, a quick swipe at the egos of his older sons.

Tyler, once voted "best looking" by his high school classmates, tries correcting his dad: "Brothers! Brothers!" he insists, emphasizing the plural. When it comes to fitness, he'd rather be compared to his athletic younger brother than his older siblings.

Kyle, the middle brother at 29, jabs back: "There was a time we had jobs, too."

"I have a job," Dylan reminds them, lest they forget he's staying in shape and holding down a few hours at Indian Head after football practice most days.

Tyler lets it drop. They all know he has a job too. Three, actually. His older brothers may tease, but they're the ones who helped him pull the work together.

Tyler was up for an athletic trainer job while he was still in college, but it evaporated. By the time he graduated, he didn't have another one lined up -- nor had he passed the exam to become a certified professional. He thought the four-hour, typed test was "a joke and a half," an absurd way to measure a hands-on profession. He failed on his first try.

His parents were happy he wanted to move into the little apartment above their garage; it meant he'd be around more during his youngest brother's last years of high school. But they worried he was too willing to stay up late, sleep in, snack on leftovers, hang out poolside and spend his savings on overseas trips. They wanted him to at least attempt to find a job in the field he'd studied.

"He was floundering," Gail York says. "He'd be watching TV or playing a video game or something like that. He wanted to travel. You want them to do those things, but ... you want them to recognize that's not real.

"Someone bought the chicken. Someone is paying for the propane for the pool. It's not really a free ride."

He failed a second time but was already making other plans. In college, he'd started planning and promoting charity benefits around Manchester, and that work was starting to draw clients and a little income.

After re-reading textbooks front-to-back, he passed the exam on his third try. His parents were relieved, but he was nonplussed. Athletic training had become more a profession of paperwork than passion. Passing the test was not a satisfying win.

"I almost felt, like, defeated," Tyler says. "That was really strange for me."

It seemed like everyone else was marching through life's milestones: His friends and brothers were settling into marketing or engineering careers, jobs that absorbed them 10 or 12 hours a day. They were buying houses, finishing advanced degrees and having babies. Wedding invitations were showing up in the mail. Occasionally, there were funerals for people he knew, or their parents.

He played the game as best he could. In fall 2010, he landed a one-year gig as an athletic trainer and teacher at a boarding school an hour away, and he commuted there and back from his parents' house. He liked the students but realized he wasn't aching for that type of job. He watched a documentary online, "Lemonade," about career climbers who'd been laid off in the recession and used the time to rediscover their passion through art, yoga, parenting, coffee roasting, running a small business -- even changing genders.

Tyler went on long drives or stared at his bedroom ceiling: Was he too young for a second career?