Photo credit: Colorado Rapids
After making his 200th appearance for the Colorado Rapids, the 32-year old is looking toward the future
Note: this piece originally appeared in inboxes on Sunday, August 9. Sign up for Nourse’s Notes here to get first access to newsletter stories.
The field at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park and Keegan Rosenberry are synonymous, and seeing one without the other is becoming increasingly inevitable, but harder to imagine.
Rosenberry joined some elite Rapids company last Saturday against Austin FC when he made his 200th appearance for the club, joining Pablo Mastroeni and Drew Moor — both Gallery of Honor members — as the only players in club history to amass that many appearances.
It was a natural opportunity for reflection, but as Rosenberry often does, he looked forward. For the first time, though, he didn’t talk much about being on the field in a playing capacity.
As our time conversing with him after the Austin match went on, the elephant kept growing behind the 32-year old right back until we couldn’t ignore it anymore. Every question we asked inched him towards talking about retirement; every answer he gave did the same.
The push and pull in the room mirrored what he actually thought about the subject. In eight years with the club, he’s gone through six head coaches (including interims), countless game scenarios and wild results. He was a part of one of the best squads in club history, as well as its worst.
His main goal, something he learned from his parents, remained the same throughout. And at this stage of his career, it’s what he’s most proud of.
“When you join something or when you’re a part of something, try to leave it in a better state than when you found it or when you joined,” Rosenberry said. “I think this year makes that even more obvious to me. I feel like the standards, expectations, professionalism — I think this new staff has taken us to a new level in terms of the day in and day out, and what we expect from each other.”
He has increasingly had to make his impact from the bench and the training ground this season, which has been a unique challenge. He was the starter in ink on the Rapids’ back line for years, until his usage dropped last season to just 10 starts in 16 appearances. This year, he’s got just two starts in 12 sightings.
Rapids coach Matt Wells applauded his adaptability, even if it’s not resulting in a ton of match minutes. In a pinch, Rosenberry has played winger and even striker this season.
This period of life seems to be where he’s learning more than ever before. On the pitch, he’s learning yet another new style of play he’s never been a part of before. Off it, he’s navigated fatherhood to a now one-year-old Booker, where he seems to find purpose these days.
“I’m learning as a parent that the relationship with your parents develops in a way that I don’t think you could see beforehand (as a kid),” Rosenberry said. “That’s been a really fun maturation for me and my wife and my family. I would say any and every part of my family keeps me going, and hopefully they’re proud of me, too.”
Rosenberry is in tip top shape despite his age, so there’s no telling how long he can stretch his playing days, but he’s allowed thoughts of life afterward to creep into the foreground. Anyone who’s had a conversation with him knows how good he’d be at coaching. He’s the club’s representative at the MLS Players’ Association, leaving a natural pathway for something administrative. Either way, it’s hard to imagine football without Keegan Rosenberry, and vice versa.
“You want to use your title as a current professional athlete, but you also don’t want to have one foot in and one foot out,” Rosenberry said. “Part of me wants to stay in the sport I’ve created my entire career in. I’ve got no work experience in any other walk of life, so that would be a unique challenge in itself to take an empty resume — other than a college degree — to a different occupation or a different category.”
