Colorado
Sam Vines close to finalizing return to Colorado Rapids, club sources say
After two-and-a-half seasons with Belgian Pro League side Royal Antwerp F.C., Colorado Springs native Sam Vines is nearing a deal to return to the Colorado Rapids, club sources told The Denver Post.
Over the next 48-72 hours, Vines is expected to fly back to Colorado and complete a medical exam before finalizing the deal, sources said. Upon completion of the deal, Vines will be the third U.S. Men’s National Team player the Rapids have signed in the January transfer window.
The 24-year old left back joined the Rapids Academy at age 13 before signing a Homegrown deal with the club at age 18. Since his MLS debut on Oct. 21, 2018, he’s never looked back.
In MLS, he started 49 of his 53 matches played, tallying two goals and four assists before being transferred to Antwerp early in 2021. His best year in Colorado was 2020, where he scored a goal and assisted three others. That season, he was the only Rapids player to play every single minute.
In February of 2020, Vines became the first Rapids Academy product to start a match for the USMNT in a friendly against Costa Rica, which the U.S. won 1-0. A year later, he became the first Rapids Academy product to be named to the USMNT for a senior international tournament (CONCACAF Gold Cup).
In total, he has nine caps for the national team and has recorded one goal and one assist.
During the 2021 Gold Cup, which the U.S. won, Vines was transferred to Antwerp of the Belgian Pro League. During his tenure there, he appeared in 38 matches, starting 34 of them. He tallied two goals and an assist.
In the 2022-23 season, Vines started all 15 of the matches he played on the way to helping Antwerp win the Belgian Pro League championship. The club’s third-place finish in the regular season earned it a spot in the UEFA Champions League this year.
Due to a clerical error that could not be fixed, Vines was mistakenly left off Antwerp’s Champions League roster, meaning he would miss out on the group stage of the competition. Antwerp’s group included Spanish La Liga’s FC Barcelona, Portuguese Primiera Liga’s FC Porto and Ukrainian Premier League’s Shakhtar Donetsk.
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A sculpture that currently sits inside a now-closed Aurora recreation center may get a new lease on life if the Aurora City Council approves a move.
The Beck Recreation Center closed last summer, and part of the building is scheduled for demolition. The remaining portion will serve as a golf shop for the nearby SpringHill Golf Course. That means a huge glass and metal sculpture installed in 2014 needs to be moved.
On Monday, Aurora’s city council will vote on a proposal to move it to Tallyn’s Reach Library. The artist, Reven Marie Swanson, has art installations across the country, and even some overseas.
“Without sounding like I’m bragging, my artwork is in 26 states, 38 municipalities in Colorado and in three countries, ” said Swanson.
She’s a sculptor who combines metalwork and glasswork to create unique pieces, like the one that currently sits inside the shuttered Beck Recreation Center.
“It’s called ‘Under the Swimming Pool,’ and it’s the idea about when you walk into the vestibule. It felt like I could create something that you could actually be under the water and looking up through the surface of the water as if you’re walking on the bottom of the pool,” said Swanson.
In the summer of 2025, structural issues shut the doors at Beck for good, and since then, Swanson’s sculpture has been stuck there.
“I was a little nervous because city governments are very quick to do what they call ‘de-access’ artwork. And I was really hoping that this piece wouldn’t get de-accessed,” said Swanson.
Luckily, the City of Aurora has other plans. They want to move the piece from Beck to Tallyn’s Reach Library.
Swanson says it should be a simple move, but the sculpture, which hangs from the ceiling, will have to be attached to the library’s ceiling in a new way, using new materials. But Swanson says she likes the new location.
“It’s a really beautiful building. It’s got wonderful light, which is going to interact really nicely with the glass,” said Swanson.
And she is glad it will live on, continuing to inspire and enchant Aurorans.
“When I walked into the library, the librarian, she was like, ‘I am so excited to get this art!’ And it makes an artist feel good. Like you accomplished something,” said Swanson.
The proposal, which will be heard at Monday’s city council meeting, is estimated by the city to cost between $15,000 and $25,000, primarily because of the cost of materials needed to suspend it at the new location. The initial cost to install it at Beck Recreation Center in 2014 was nearly $35,000 dollars.
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