Real Salt Lake legend Kyle Beckerman is closer to the end than the beginning of his career — and he intends to make it count

Herriman • On the 11th anniversary of the trade that sent him one state west, eternally altering the timeline of his life, Kyle Beckerman looks onto a sprawl of grass fields at the southern most tip of the Salt Lake Valley. On the field below teammates are wrapping up the day’s training session, some who grew up in Real Salt Lake’s established culture he helped cultivate, some who’ve been around for a bit, others still relatively new.

In the last knockings of this muggy morning at RSL’s training complex, Beckerman wipes the sweat from his brow, as he’s asked how he’d describe this phase of his storied career. He’s 36 now, a professional in his 19th season, having started at FIFA World Cup, having hoisted an MLS Cup crown, determined to stave off Father Time and push for one last sliver of glory.

“I grew up in this league,” he said Monday. “I’ve been doing the exact same thing since I was 18. My job’s been the same. That kind of keeps you young when your job description doesn’t change.”

The job is pretty much the same, but it’s also evolved, as everything does.

Beckerman remains the club’s captain, the voice that radiates throughout pregame huddles and daily training sessions. He’s the guy who can still make the game look pretty when necessary, and who can muck it up when it’s called for, too. He’s the owner of some of the most time-tested records in Major League Soccer history; no field player has ever started more matches (420) or played more minutes (37,582) than Beckerman.

Add up his regular-season and postseason minutes (40,596) and Beckerman has played 28 full days of MLS over the past two decades. Since 2011, he’s started a minimum of 26 regular-season games each of the past seven years.

For any player, no matter the age, it’s a lot. Even for a captain, even for the soul of the team.

When RSL coach Mike Petke approached Beckerman about finding games to rest, Beckerman predictably said he didn’t need to sit. There’s basically this unwritten rule as a player: You don’t go to the coach and request time off, and when approached, say you’re good to go.

Petke knows it, because he’s lived through it himself during his playing days. And Petke’s made it clear: He’s not talking about Beckerman’s age at 36, he’s talking about September and October and beyond instead of the short game, where in the sweltering heat of the summer, the MLS schedule is as cramped as ever.

“Kyle is somebody that’s invaluable to me,” Petke said, “because not only does he work the hardest, he’s the hardest worker on a daily basis — he leads us. But he knows what’s best for the team, and he’s going to be the extension of me on the field.”

During his years with the U.S. men’s national team, Beckerman learned a lesson he draws on still: If you’re not starting, how can you still make an impact? It could be a tidbit of information to a teammate, or being a rally cry in the locker room at halftime. After all, former World Cup teammate Jermaine Jones once said of Beckerman: “He just loves to make s--t work for the team.”

There are 30 players on RSL’s roster, and only 11 start per game. As Beckerman puts it, are you going to do something about it, or are you going to pout? It’s natural to go with the latter. So far, he’s started 17 of RSL’s first 20 outings.

“It’s all about ‘What are we going to do to win?’ That’s all I care about,” he said. “I’m not like, ‘I need a break,’ but [the rest] doesn’t hurt.”

In one of his two substitute cameos this year, Beckerman drilled in a late game-winner against Houston on May 30. It’s really all that matters to him, ensuring RSL have a spot in the limelight both now and in the future.

So, what’s driving him still? Don’t be shocked by the answer.

“Just to win,” said Beckerman, who signed a multi-year contract this offseason. “At this point, of course we want to get to another trophy, but I think the biggest thing is to getting us being talked about with the elite. If when I do leave, I can leave with the team being in a place similar to where we began here. I want to leave it in a good spot.”

This isn’t like the RSL rosters of the glory years. This team is replete with players in their early 20s, academy products or international rising stars trying to establish themselves in MLS and perhaps beyond. Beckerman’s watched the five academy players he’s starting alongside since they were at the old RSL Arizona-based academy — the kids RSL would train against in preseason. Now, he’s with them on a daily basis.

It’s not a cliché either, he vows. Being around youngsters eager to test the veterans is a motivating factor. It makes him feel younger. Beckerman says if RSL is to find consistency on the road to balance out its stellar home record thus far in 2018, it will be because of the development of the younger guys.

“Win,” he tells them, “and people will know your name.”

It will also be because of a maintained Beckerman, Petke hopes. RSL will need its captain as charged up as possible if the club wants to make noise in the postseason again. It’s been a while since that’s happened, too.

“He’s a guy that if both his arms get chopped off, he’s going to play catch with someone,” RSL’s coach said of Beckerman.

Because he refuses to forget the path he’s marched for two decades. When he arrived in MLS as a rookie in 2001, he was playing in empty football stadiums. When he was traded from the Colorado Rapids to Real Salt Lake in July 2007, training days were a 30-minute drive north from RSL’s state-of-the-art complex on the steaming hot turf inside Rice-Eccles Stadium. In the 11 years since the trade, he’s become part of the fabric of this state as much as RSL has.

Think RSL, you think Beckerman. When he sliced off the dreads, the reveal went viral.

“I think we’re all pioneers [of MLS] to this point, and it’s something to be proud of,” Beckerman said.

And he wants RSL to become a regular talking point again — in Utah and MLS — as it was when the franchise was a perennial contender. When RSL is winning and threatening for a top spot in the Western Conference, it’s unlike anything else, he said. Beckerman pointed to the extensive coverage the recent Utah Jazz playoff run got in the weeks after being eliminated.

“That’s our responsibility to get back to that," he said. "It’s just trying to get back to where we want to be — that’s to be a part of every conversation.”

Of course, Beckerman will have a huge say whether or not that happens. Because he knows there’s only one way to guarantee it: That message he tries to hammer into RSL’s next generation, the one he never misses an opportunity to deliver.