Full steam ahead: Quad City Steamwheelers' Keyvan Rudd leads on the turf, in the community

Sports always kept the Davenport native busy. He started playing basketball and football when he was young. That only escalated during his four years at Davenport Central High School, where he added on track to his resume.

"All three, no breaks. Fall, winter, spring. All four years," he said.

Basketball was tough, but a challenge he embraced. High-jump came naturally, considering he's 6'3". But nothing spoke to him like the feeling of being on the turf and under the lights.

"Football's been my thing my entire life," he said.

Growing up, Rudd and his friend group stayed active in the community, and he even found a job as a ball boy with the Quad City Steamwheelers in 2008. That job would come full circle about a decade later.

But before that could happen, he had to graduate high school.

At 18 years old and with a clear vision of his future, Rudd had two goals: earn a scholarship and make it into the NCAA Football video game by EA Sports. In the end, he doubled down on his first goal and earned two scholarships to Minnesota State University, Mankato where he played football and was an All-American high jumper for the Mavericks.

With success in sports carrying him through his young adult life, Rudd decided to dream big and find a way to make sports his full-time career.

"The goal was to get to the NFL. That's been my goal for as long as I can remember, but I always made sure I had a backup plan," he said. "I had two things in line: I was either going to work for Nike or I was going to play in the NFL."

With football being his first love, Rudd decided to give pro sports a shot. In college, he tried out for the American National Combine in Chicago. The combine is a single-day tryout that supplements the NFL National Scouting Combine, allowing athletes to show off their skills to recruiters for the NFL, XFL, USFL, and CFL.

With the rest of the hopefuls, Rudd made it to the field, but a hamstring injury prevented him from performing at his best.

"(It was) my one chance of actually getting in front of them fresh out of college when the scouts are really on you," he said. "(After), that dream kind of faded away."

Refusing to admit defeat, Rudd returned to school and finished his track season by winning his third all-American trophy. At that time, his personal best in high jump was the standard for the Olympic trials.

"I kind of had a choice to make. I could either pursue track, or I could pursue football," he said. "My heart was always in football. I loved track dearly, but football was always on my mind. So that's what I did."

Rudd followed his dreams to the West Coast and bounced around various jobs until ultimately landing in Washington state. But, as quickly as the dream came together, another opportunity he'd had his eyes on came up.

"I finally landed my dream job with Nike in Seattle. But two weeks after I started, the Steamwheelers announced they were coming back," he said.

The Steamwheelers started in 2000 as a member of the Arena Football League's AF2. That year the Steamwheelers won the inaugural season championship with a perfect record of 10-0.

On the team then was Shon King, who later went on to be the sixth coach in the franchise's history. His jersey was retired in 2009 and joined the championship banners hanging from the rafters of the arena.

That same year, the league went belly-up, and the team went dormant. It wasn't until 2018 that the team was purchased and revived as a member of the Champions Indoor Football (CIF) league. The following year, the Steamwheelers made the transition to the Indoor Football League.

With this in mind, Rudd had to weigh his options and decide if he was ready for yet another transition.

"The NFL didn't work but Nike is working," he said. "Now football is coming back, so I'm going to have to choose again."

In the end, the decision to go back to his first love of football was essentially a no-brainer.

In 2018, Rudd flew back to Davenport to try out for the newly revived Quad-City Steamwheelers. After earning his contract, he signed with the team as a wide receiver.

For Rudd, going from a ball boy in high school to a ball carrier 10 years later was the full-circle moment he didn't know he was looking for. He always thought he was meant to go out in the world and do big things; it wasn't until he signed he realized the difference could be made at home.

"It felt great ... being surrounded by the community that raised me. People who got to see me play in high school came back and watched my play at a professional level," he said. "Most importantly, I get to impact the youth in my community. We've had some big names come out of here, but being local and being able to play in front of the youth in the community has been super important to me."

In the NFL or NBA, the fan interaction is limited, he said. With the Steamwheelers, the fans, especially the younger ones, are up close and the first ones to receive a high-five after a touchdown or to play catch with the players before the game.

"Those are the things I like to do because they're going to remember that for life," he said.

For the first couple of years, things were smooth sailing. In 2020, the pandemic hit and the IFL ended up canceling its season. The Steamwheelers were among a handful of teams that filed for a year of dormancy when the league resumed play in 2021.

Two years with no football meant Rudd had time to work on another project: his own brand. Armed with 13 years of experience in sports retail, he started working on logos and designs for his brand in November 2019, not knowing how perfect his timing was.

"Once COVID hit, sports was taken away from us, so that heightened my awareness because a lot of the people in the community know me as an athlete. I don't have that right now, so what else can they know me for?" he said. "Boom. Key Connect was born."

Rudd's retail business, Key Connect, is more than a play on his name. The message behind it is to unlock the best version of yourself and help others along the way.

"It means utilizing your own specialized key to connect with growing opportunities," he said. "The biggest message with my brand is that everyone has a key, but how are you using that to connect?"

Rudd said his own key is being a role model. And he uses that to open doors in the community, by mentoring youth.

One of his favorite collaborations is working with students at Rock Island High School in the iJAG (Iowa Jobs for American Graduates) program. Rudd started working with iJAG in 2019, when he was asked when he was asked to be the guest speaker at the graduation ceremony. The following year, he kept the same commitment and upped his game by gifting students merchandise from his brand.

Because students were attending class via Zoom, Rudd made as many personal deliveries as he could. His commitment to iJAG continued into 2021 where he designed a project where each student had to figure out how they used their key to connect and unlock their own potential by writing an essay.

One student was able to express themselves in a way they never had before, moving the teacher to tears, he said. The other part of the assignment was to design a shirt they wanted Key Connect to make for the program.

In the end, Rudd again surprised the students by gifting them shirts from his The World Is Yours collection, "which symbolizes no matter their dreams and aspirations are that the world is theirs to accomplish it," according to his website.

Outside of the classroom, Rudd has been lending his leadership to the community in other ways. In 2019, he worked with the football team at Davenport Central and in 2020 joined the staff for the season.

To reach those not yet in high school, Rudd also started the Key Connect Kids Football Camp. This year, nearly 80 kids turned out for the annual event.

Most people would find managing football, a brand and philanthropy a monumental task, but not Rudd. The opportunity to mentor and set a positive example was always locked inside him. He just had to find the key.

"Anyway I am able to give back to the community and the youth, to give them a bigger message on what they want to do in life and how they can accomplish that, is pretty much the dream," he said. "I think it was always in me. I pride myself on my journey and how I overcame a lot of obstacles and how I was able to transform my character into the person I am today."