Paul Rothrock is having a year.
He’s gone from the anonymity of the fringes to center-stage with MLS’ Seattle Sounders, the team he’s supported since boyhood. So that wide megawatt smile of his must be born of contentment – a 25-year-old reaching the top and basking in the glory of the moment.
Right? Not quite.
“I don’t feel like I’ve made it,” said the midfielder who forced his way into the first team midway through a 2024 where he started “low down on the depth chart and not getting much playing time.”
“I’ve earned opportunities that can be taken away just as quickly,” he said, oozing the kind of foresight it takes to go from “not the most exciting prospect” to a near-automatic selection for long-time Sounders boss Brian Schmetzer. “You can’t rest on success like that.”
Rothrock describes himself as a “kinetic” player, all energy on the left side and adding himself to the attack. Off the field, he’s analytical. This is a young man who plans. “I have a perfect example right in front of me every day in Jordan Morris,” Rothrock said, pointing to the striker he first idolized from the stands and who he now calls a teammate – a fellow Seattle-area local, who’s “consistently scored and produced every year. That’s what it takes to stay at a club like this for that long.”
The story of young Rothrock’s journey from Sounders fan to Sounder began in 2009. “I don’t remember too much about it, but I remember being there,” he said of attending the Sounders first game of the MLS era as a ten-year-old.
In the years that followed, Rothrock shined in various local clubs affiliated with the Sounders academy, reaching youth national finals and even appearing once for the U.S. U-18 National Team.
“I’m not the fastest. Not the tallest [he’s listed generously at 5foot9],” Rothrock admitted candidly, a few minutes late for a phone interview because he stayed out to put in extra work after mid-week training. If hard work is his secret, betting on himself has become this player’s superpower.
Not heavily recruited out of the city’s exclusive Lakeside School, where he earned all-state honors and flexed his brain muscles in the classroom, Rothrock landed at Notre Dame. It wasn’t the right place. When the coach who “saw something special” in him retired, the youngster tapped into his superpower for the first time. “I learned the value of betting on myself a bit then.”
Rothrock dropped his full scholarship and made a bold move to Georgetown, with no guarantees of a spot in a talented side. “I knew from the first second I stepped on campus that it was the right move,” he said. Eleven months later, having broken into the team, he lifted a D1 NCAA National Championship trophy.
It was a similar circumstance when he was drafted in the third round by MLS’ Toronto FC in 2021.
Loaned out to the Canadian Club’s second-team, Rothrock was running out of time. And he knew it. Not one to sit still and take what came, he reached out to the folks in Seattle. “It’s a credit to the club [Sounders] because they told me that they didn’t have a plan for me – but they figured I was a smart guy and a good guy in the locker room and gave me a shot.”
During a 2023 spent with Tacoma Defiance, the Sounders’ MLS NEXT Pro affiliate, he got some first-team minutes in that year’s Open Cup. He scored a stunner in a 5-4 Third Round thriller against San Diego Loyal at Starfire Sports Complex, tucked away in the piney forests of Tukwila, Washington.
Starfire is the Sounders home-away-from-home for early round Open Cup games – and for the club’s various youth and reserve teams. Rothrock knows the small stadium well. He starred there in early round games in this year’s Open Cup, scoring against Louisville City and impressing against Phoenix Rising too. It’s where the Sounders will meet MLS powerhouses LAFC in the Semifinal on August 28th (LIVE and FREE on Apple TV) due to Metallica playing their main home of Lumen Field.
“It means a lot playing there, especially for the hometown kids,” Rothrock said of the Starfire, a field where he estimates he’s played over 200 games since his days as an academy kid. “It’s like a European field – a smaller stadium where the fans are right down your neck.
“You can hear the game, the touches of the ball, what players are saying,” added Rothrock, who Coach Schmetzer recently called “clearly more than just a cool local-kid story” in his squad. “The intimacy of the place is real.”
It was his combination of humility, patience, hard-work – and his performances in the Open Cup – that saw Rothrock steadily climb the team’s depth chart. “Early in the season, when I wasn’t playing, I worked on the small things,” he said. “I waited for some lucky breaks, which will come your way if you keep knocking on the door.
“I like to play off my teammates. You have to learn their tendencies and the kinds of runs they make,” said Rothrock, a tireless worker with the kind of guts and technique to nutmeg veteran opponents or take on whoever might square him up the flank. “For a prospect like me, a late bloomer, there’s only a few options to fit into a roster – so you have to know why you bring value and to show it.
“You have to circle the months of the calendar when there’s fixture congestion and a lot of Cup games,” added Rothrock. “That’s when your chances will come and you have to be ready.”
Rothrock has proven himself to be a man for the big occasion this year, though it’s taken a long road and a lot of twists to get the chance to prove it. The Open Cup, where everything is on the line every time, seems to suit him right down to the ground.
“I love the Open Cup and I would love to have this year topped off with a trophy. We haven’t had one here in a little while,” he said of the club that started life with four Open Cup titles between 2009 and 2014 – and who now aim to become the first MLS side to make it five. “It’s about time and the way we look at it we’re two wins away from lifting that trophy again.”
“I also love playing in the big games,” said this unique player who’s never shied away from putting it all on the line. “Those pressurized moments can bring out the best in you. Semifinals and Finals are when you really get tested. I’ve had some success so far in moments like that.”
Fontela is editor-in-chief of usopencup.com. Follow him at@jonahfontela on X/Twitter.