8 min readTHE MOST MEMORABLE athlete memoirs—Andre Agassi, Michael Phelps, and Landon—tend to not be so much about sports. They’re explorations of young men growing up, giving everything for their passion, losing themselves along the way, and the struggle to find their identity—a narrative many guys who seek success at all costs may recognize in their own lives. Donovan’s new book hits wild highs—he made the national team at 18 and scored the winner against Algeria in the 2010 World Cup enjoying a “corner-slide dogpile that included another 100 million Americans on top.” And extreme lows, enduring a bout of depression, he smokes a joint, hallucinates, and contemplates jumping off a cliff, “Should I do it? Should I not? The coldness and fear of these words.”
Like many guys, Donovan struggled initially when considering treatment and asking for help. I hated feeling that I couldn’t figure “me” out for myself.” But he credits therapy with saving his life, enabling him to see himself more clearly, and giving him the mental fitness skills to manage other episodes of depression. Now 44, the married father of three and host of the Unfiltered Soccer podcast, has developed a streak of radical candidness—see the social media post that shook the internet about wearing a hairpiece. It may make you cringe, but that’s on you. We caught up with Donovan to talk about grit, confidence, and identity, and what it takes to get to a happy place of self-acceptance.
Men’s Health: Let's get right to it. What were you thinking when you when you went on social media and wrote “Time to fix this balding head once and for all <Bald head emoji>”
Landon Donovan: “Well, there's an amazing thing that can happen in your life when you just don't give a shit anymore. When I turned 40. I had kids, and I started to just care less and less about that stuff. Another thing: My dad passed away in December and I was there at his deathbed watching him, and you start to sit and think, ‘What’s gonna matter? Are any of these things gonna matter?’ The reality is no. Throughout the book and my life, there's a thread of vulnerability that's always been a part of my journey and I've been okay with that. I've been through so much therapy that I've talked about these things so much that to me, they're normal. So in this process with the hair, my choice was just do it. All of a sudden, I show up and you see me like this, and you're like, ‘Well, there's something going on there.’ There's so many things that women and men do around their looks and this is one that's still stigmatized. Who cares? I got bald—that's the way I was born—so who cares?”
MH: You previously tried a hair transplant, right?
LD: “I did two, one in my early twenties and one a year and a half ago. The first one was in LA and it was in the front and it helped—my hair would've gone even faster. Yeah. Then the second one last year here in southern California was in the crown of my head. It just didn't work. It was frustrating. It was a pretty easy process and it works for a lot of people. For me, the next step was either just go completely bald or try one last thing—try the hairpiece.”
MH: What was the response?
LD: “The amount of people who reached out blew my mind. I still get messages all the time saying thank you. The amount of famous people who reached out, who you would never know, ‘Like, oh my god, really!?’ I also hope more people do it and don't worry about it. It's OK. We all do things every day to make ourselves look better and feel better, and wearing a hairpiece is no different.”
MH: Freedom to be yourself is a big theme in the book. You wrote, “I surrendered family occasions, proms, college, friends, girlfriends, time exploring America and other countries I’ve lived in. I gave up freedom itself—on and off the field—for it.” It being becoming an elite soccer player. Can you unpack that?
LD: “I lost my identity. My identity became Landon Donovan soccer player and not Landon the person. Through therapy and through lots of work, I learned to differentiate the two. My full identity had become what I did for a living. It's all in on work and success. But then who are you without that? In soccer that can get stripped away really fast. It’s a really dangerous path to go down if you don't have a true identity outside of what you do for a living. Fortunately for me, it came in my early twenties [after a tough 2006 World Cup], so I didn't have to deal with it when I when I retired.”
MH: But going all-in on soccer as a teenager who felt he had something to prove because your dad left your family gave you a competitive edge. What was that mental jiujitsu?
Landon: “That’s the challenge, right? Because I can look back and say, ‘Oh, my dad wasn't there and that sucked,’ but that also drove me. That's the hard part you try to manage. For me, most of it was unconscious. I was just going and going and going and wanting more attention, more attention, because it was giving me the attention I didn't have from my dad. It drove me to be wildly successful. So the challenge is how do you create that grit, that desire, that insatiable need to be successful with being healthy ? Right. I don't have an answer for that. I don't know how you can have one without the other.
MH: You mention many coaches in the book and how those relationships, and especially having the trust of a coach, enabled to play at your best. What defines a good coach?
LD: Maybe it was kismet because my dad wasn't around, but I was fortunate to have many, many positive men in my life starting with my youth P.E. teacher, Pat Hafley. Also my youth national team coach, John Ellinger, and then my club coaches, Frank Yallop, Bruce Arena, Bob Bradley, David Moyes. When I found a coach with integrity, someone who was honest and who had faith in me, I would do anything for them and run through walls.
MH: Are you tempted to coach yourself, even at rec level?
LD: It’s funny you ask because I've had just had a really bad experience with my 8-year-old kid, and his club team got split apart and he was devastated. We were all crying in bed and he's eight years old and I'm thinking, what the are we doing? He's an 8-year-old, why are you doing this to these kids? They were all devastated. It's made me think: One, either coaching them potentially, but more importantly is how do we change the system and the culture? If you're really putting the kid and the athlete first, you wouldn't rip apart a team that's been together for two years. That just makes no sense. How do we fix that? I'm starting to work on that now.
MH: Your first wife Bianca Kajilich invited you to do a meditation session and that how you got into therapy?
LD: I was like, what do I need this for? I thought it was woo woo, new age-y, but I ended up going and really liked Juliette. A few months later I went to see her and it was the best decision I've probably ever made in my life. It allowed me for the first time to speak about things that had impacted my life, but also learn what they all meant. Like, it's one thing to have your dad not be around, but what does that mean? How does that impact you? How are you acting now in your daily life because of that? And if you don't like that behavior, how do we now change that behavior?
MH: What mental fitness skills did you learn through therapy?
LD: The goal in therapy is to develop the tools so that you can handle challenging situations. For instance, my dad passed away in December and that was really hard for me. In the past I might have spiraled out of control and gone into a really deep place. But I now have the tools, for me that includes medication that I've been taking for 15 years, Lexapro. But also meditation and exercise.
MH: What kind of meditation do you do?
LD: I don't know what it's called, but it's with your eyes closed, breathing in through the nose and out through the nose. Then when a thought comes and passes, you acknowledge it without judgement. Then you bring yourself back to the breath. That cycle can repeat hundreds of times during a meditation session. It's always being aware of what's going on, but not reacting to it, not judging it, and then bringing yourself back to the present.
MH: Do you still train daily?
LD: If I can, yeah. I like to sweat ad get my heart rate up. I can do a 15-minute workout and be totally good for the rest of the day. I've added in lifting weights to keep my muscles strong because I can feel my body deteriorating now. Also I need to compete. It’s been a part of my life since I was two years old. So now if I can play pickleball, I do. I'm playing ice hockey tonight. I need to do things where I'm getting that aggressive energy out—then I'm way more calm.
MH: You detail your struggles with situational depression, was the darkest time when you went to Cambodia on a solo retreat and smoked some weed that may have been laced with opiates?
LD: Yeah because that was as an existential threat. It was drug induced. I hallucinated and when I would open my eyes, I would see frogs and lizards and worms. When I closed my eyes, my brain was telling me, just go jump off the cliff into the ocean and end it. So I was in this tussle of do I keep my eyes open? Do I close my eyes? Eventually, my brain said, ‘Oh, this is what's going on. Come back to the breath.’ That's what I had practiced so many times in meditation. And that was the exact reason why you meditate so that you see what's all going on. ‘That's not you. You're back here present.’ It saved my life.
Interview edited and condensed for clarity.
Landon: A Memoir By Landon Donovan($30; March 24, 2026; pagetwo.com)
Ben Court is the Executive Editor of Men's Health. He has a decade of experience writing and editing stories about peak performance, as it relates to health, nutrition, fitness, weight loss, and sex and relationships. He enjoys yoga, cycling, running, swimming, lifting, grilling, and napping.
