NY Red Bulls' Luis Robles set for special night for in many ways

It will be an odd night for Luis Robles on Saturday when the Red Bulls host the Philadelphia Union.

The oddest part may be that he will be watching, rather than taking his place in goal.

A week ago Robles sat out after injuring his knee in the final moments of a win at Colorado, bringing to a conclusion the longest Ironman streak in MLS history - 183 consecutive games, dating back to September 2012. He never sat out a minute, not in the regular season or the playoffs.

“It’s tough to properly articulate what the streak meant only because it’s not something that I thought about much,” Robles said this week, perched on a training table receiving treatment for the injury. “It’s not something that you can really plan for. A lot of times when people don’t play it’s a poor run of form or an injury. Those things happen. It’s not as if you can imagine that you’re so invincible that you’re not prone to those sort of spells. Yet, for it to go that way that it did is pretty incredible and it leaves me feeling grateful that it did occur.

“At the same time it wasn’t what I prepared for each week. What I prepared for each week was to help this team win, to help this team win a championship. And for my perspective at least, none of that has changed.”

So Saturday might be a little tough for him to watch, but he won’t be completely idle. The Red Bulls will honor Robles and the streak in a pregame ceremony and in a nod to Memorial Day, will hold Military Appreciation Night with a ceremony at halftime. For Robles, that holds a special meaning, too.

While he has made his mark in net, his brother, Angel, has spent the last 13 years as a commissioned officer in the Army, a graduate of West Point, and is currently serving in Afghanistan.

Like many families, the military appreciation is a complicated matter for Robles and his family, one that took a long time to reach an understanding.

“I come from a military family. My dad served in Vietnam, he served in Korea,” Robles explained. “My brother is serving in Afghanistan right now. My dad has always been a proud military man. When he thinks about his life the period in which he served for the U.S. military is probably one of his happiest and there was a strong influence at least within our household to go in that direction.

“So when we were looking at colleges it was, ‘hey, you really should consider the academy.’ When my brother got the opportunity to go to West Point and we started to drink that Kool-Aid with all of the parent societies and the hoopla that comes with it, there was actually a sort of disdain that developed within me, like this is the only way that will make my dad happy, this is the only way he wants me to go about it.

"When I was going through the recruiting process I had all these schools recruiting me and yet my dad only wanted me to really consider West Point, the Naval Academy or the Air Force Academy,” he said. “And so even though early on I committed to a school he made me continue through the nomination process. I actually got the nomination and got into all three academies. Until the day I left for the University of Portland he said, ‘It’s not too late. You can go play at the academy.’ Even when I got to the University of Portland, the thing he noticed on freshman orientation weekend was there was an Air Force ROTC. I’m on a full ride and he’s saying, hey son, you could join Air Force ROTC. So that’s my dad and as stubborn as he is, a lot of those amazing qualities that either were already within him, which allowed him to be successful in the military, or he developed while being a military officer, he passed on to my brother and me. And we’ve been able to harbor and use those in a way, utilize them, so that we can be successful in the things that we pursue.”

Years pass and things change. The path that Luis Robles took brought him to his place in MLS history in ways that he could not have imagined. He passed on the military push, made his way in the game and got married. After college he went to Germany to play and returned home with his father and his father-in-law both struggling with their health. A deal with the Vancouver Whitecaps fell through and with his wife pregnant, he took a job working with a friend’s realtor office to have healthcare.

He and his wife put an end date on his soccer plans and just days ahead of that penciled in date he was selected by the Red Bulls in the allocation draft. He made his first start on Sept. 29, 2012 and never sat down again.

“What this period has allowed me is a time for reflection,” he said of the rare time on the sidelines. “During the time of reflection it just leaves me floored. And to be able to share the experience with other people and explain how it started, I think very few people even remember how it started and how there was an up and down period, how there was a period in which I was walking on eggshells and of uncertainty, just who knows what the next week is going to bring. Yet it’s found a way to find an equilibrium and almost, like, unassumingly reliable, and yet the emotions which I felt have been all over the spectrum.”

He wasn’t just an ironman, but was also accomplished. He was named MLS Goalkeeper of the Year in 2015 and holds nine franchise records. It all may have seemed unlikely the first time he got in goal for the Red Bulls.

A lot has changed since then for Robles and for his family. His brother is on his third tour of duty. His father is healthy and working for the military in a civilian capacity. His father-in-law is nearly five years removed from a stage four cancer diagnosis.

Robles has established deep roots here in New Jersey and become a spokesman in the Kids Tackle Cancer organization, hosting a fundraising dinner and visiting kids in the hospital, a form of service that he shrugs off as just what is the right thing to do. That is something that his brother might say, too.

“That disdain has absolutely dissipated and I would say is completely gone because when I think about the military and what my brother is doing and what my dad’s done I am very, very grateful in the same degree that I’m grateful for this organization that believes in me,” Robles said. "They hold themselves to a higher calling. No matter where you stand politically the fact is for us to be able to enjoy the civil liberties that we have in this country, for us to be able to go about our way of life, there is someone like my brother in the situation where he’s in a foreign land taking orders from someone that he may or may not necessarily have elected. And yet he understands the greater call, to serve our country and our way of life.

“So I know it’s a little more heightened, the sense of appreciation towards what he does because he is in Afghanistan and he is in real danger. Yet, I think the very first time he commissioned and he graduated West Point, all that feeling I had towards, ‘This is all my dad wants and he’s only going to be proud if I join the military and now he favors my brother because he went down that path,’ went away because I could see that what he was doing is really a truly noble cause.”

Email: popper@northjersey.com

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