USF receiver Christian Helms and coach Alex Golesh win great within the community

In his first four seasons of football at USF, Christian Helms came exactly in one game. The intense heat and intensity of the pre-season camp, injuries followed by long-term pieces of rehabilitation, a coaching staff change and a pandemic-reversal season. He did it all like a walk-on.

It seems a lot to endure. Unfortunately it was a piece cake compared to what the father of Helms, Chris, had undergone the past for about three years. Indeed, the spirit and drive of the older helmets can only be matched by the dedication and dedication of his son who, by the way, passes light years past the gridiron.

“My father is dealing with a way that many people would not expect,” said Helms, from Chris’ final stage kidney disease and large chunks from every day dedicated to dialysis treatments. “You never see him complaining. Of course there are times when he can become emotional, but he never complains. He puts his head down and takes care of what he has to take care of.”

Helms, who has been healthy for the past two years, regularly performed at the USF’s specialty units and takes Snaps as a recipient under coach Alex Golesh, his third head coach since his first year of 2019, has contributed more than to help his father and others help an organ donor. A zero chance with Lifelink, a non-profit organization that promotes organ and tissue donation, has served as a huge platform.

“There are a lot of people I have met those organs,” said Helms, who is also the son of Darlene and older brother of Zach and Twinzussen Sophia and Amelia. “Someone I know recently received a kidney and I was super happy. I only know if I can spread the word over an organ donor and change someone’s life, not only it will benefit me and my family one day, but it can benefit thousands.”

Helms has benefited others through his zeal with Lifelink, Habitat for Humanity and Fundraising Initiatives that promote education and consciousness for Parkinson’s disease. He also gives instructions to football players from different age groups, including helping younger players to learn and enjoy the game.

Speaking of pleasure, a special evening will take place on USF on 24 August when the football program participates in what has become an annual Victory Day Under Golesh, who leads the bulls in his third year. It is an evening when the participants in the Special Olympics Florida mix with players and play football activities while enjoying the sights and sounds of the band and cheerleaders.

“It is so nice to see the smile, not only on the faces of those who participate, but parents, family, friends and everyone there to support them,” Helms said.

It brings a smile to Golesh’s face. It is indeed an evening that is a chance to do a lot, taking much more than a breathing break from the time of the preseason practice. Where his career has brought him, is back, is at the top of his checklist.

“I acknowledge the fact that we are the door of the university and it is an opportunity to give back to a community that always supports us,” said Golesh. “It is such a chance to change people’s lives for the better, and the older I have gotten, the more I have thought about the impact I have the chance to make young people. It’s a pretty incredible job.”

The above only touches why Helms and Golesh belong to the nominees for the Good Works Team of the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA).

Recognition of the Community Service

AFCA nominated 197 players and 14 coaches in all NCAA divisions and the Naia for his Good Works team. Nominees are chosen on the basis of their ‘dedication of services to the community and leadership outside the Gridiron’.

Helms, who was born about 15 miles east of the center of Tampa in Seffner, is also on the Wuerffel Trophy Watchlist. Just like the Good Works team of AFCA, the prize, named after the former Quarterback by Florida, Danny Wuerffel, those who serve selflessly within the community.

“Christian is a young man who thinks of others before he thinks of himself,” said 41-year-old Golesh, who launched his career in 2004 as a student assistant in Ohio State, where he received a bachelor in education two years later. “He has had a number of difficult situations with his father and dealing with it, and he is literally 100 percent of the time team-first. It is the same for him in the community. He continues to find manners to give back and find manners to be involved with the community.”

Starting in 2019 under Charlie Strong and the next three seasons under Jeff Scott, Helms once recorded the field. Torn thumb aments that required surgery during his first year on campus, and a broken foot cost him most of the 2021 season did not help. After Golesh arrived, Helms tore his left Labrum in the spring of 2023.

“I was nervous,” he said about the labbublenessure. “Stresses are real.”

However, Helms worked as the Dickens to get back to the field, had a productive summer, built faith with a new staff and has had a consistent role in the team ever since. The 2025 season will be his seventh with USF, which is the result of a Redshirt season, several injury setbacks above and a free year of eligible eligible pandemic-disturbed 2020. Not that his career at USF was not sure. After all, Helms was in the transfer portal after the 2022 season when he thought that perhaps, perhaps, was enough enough.

“No more playing came to me,” he said. “I didn’t touch football for a few months and everything started to happen to my father around that time. I thought it might be time to continue and be there for my family. My family pushed me back (in football).”

With the relationship he has built up with Golesh since then, members of the coaching staff and his teammates combined with his continuous excellence in education – he received a study fair in June – the decision to stay with USF, has more than proved great.

“It was just about knowing that I am in a good place with the training I received and coach Golesh and the coaches he brought in,” said Helms, whose girlfriend, Vivianne Bessette is a USF aluin and a defender in the Sun football team of Tampa Bay. “I could see from the first day that it would be a good relationship.”

Golesh is of course in a company where success is based on victories and losses. As he has learned at UP through his coaches from the youth level, success does not have to be limited to what is reflected on the scoreboard or in the rankings of the conference for three months in the fall.

“I started as a high school coach with a self -guided mission to give back and return to young people what my coaches gave me,” said Golesh, whose staff one of those coaches, his offensive coordinator at Dublin Scioto (OHIO) High, Jeff Jones, who serves as the director of the Bulls’ director. “My coaches have changed my life and gave me a goal.”

That goal includes, but is certainly not limited to, the aforementioned Victory Day at USF.

“In addition to family and faith, there is so much of us to give,” said Alexis’ husband, and father of daughter, Corbin, and son, Barrett.

Another degree, and hopefully more victories

Helms is looking forward to something that is planned to happen and something that he will work as crazy to make it happen. He is on schedule to achieve his third degree at the end of the autumn semester, and we are not talking about completing courses in the base of Chipping and Put or such, although he would like to sharpen his game on the links to compete in a rivalry between brothers and sisters with Zach, who competed in a brother or sister later this month.

Instead, the degree of Helms will be in psychology. That would follow the Master in practice science that he received last year and a bachelor’s degree in health sciences that he completed in 2023.

“It has been very satisfactory and I will graduate with my third degree in December,” he said about his academic career. “I look back when I started in 2019, and then the following year was a haze with the pandemic when football was taken away and I tried to take science lessons online. Then there was a new staff and a short season. It was unreal.”

Here he was a remarkable journey in 2025, one that he wants to close with a larger number in the win column for his bulls, who went 7-6 with Bowl victories in each of Golesh’s first two seasons.

“The only thing I ask is to win more games and win some hardware,” he said. “It would be a fairytale -like end.”

On the other hand, it can just be the start for Helms, and Golesh will be there to help him in any way.

“Christian is a real, very special person who will be super successful when he is ready (at USF),” said the coach. “I will help him in every conceivable way and hire him in a heartbeat.”