Roger Levesque, the 31-year-old Seattle Sounders forward whose time with the club dates back to its days in the USL First Division, played his last game onWednesday. He retired after the friendly against Chelsea to pursue a master’s degree in business at the University of Washington.
As Seattle Times columnist Steve Kelley noted in a recent column on Levesque, it’s been a fun ride for Levesque, known for his unusual goal celebrations. After scoring a goal in a 2009 Open Cup match inPortland Levesque stood like a fir tree as Nate Jaqua chopped him down. “The Scuba Dive” against the New York Red Bulls made ESPN’s highlights last season,
Levesque, who played his college ball at Stanford, arrived in Seattle in 2003 on loan from the San Jose Earthquakes and ended up staying.
“Coming out of Stanford, I thoughtmaybe I’d play a couple of years, just sort of see how it goes,” Levesque said. “Now here I am, 11 years later. I never thought I’d end up in Seattle, but BrianSchmetzer [the USL Sounders head coach now an assistant with the MLS Sounders] comes to mind when I think about how I ended up here. I was coming off ACL surgery in 2003 in San Jose and Briancalled and said, ‘Hey, you want to come up here and play some games?’ He was a big reason why I came up here initially and a big reason why I kept coming back.”