Keithen Shepard, Union High School Class of 2017, went on to excel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a student and a football player, and after he earned his master’s degree he accepted a job with the New England Patriots in the NFL

Paul Valencia
Clark County Today

Even as a football standout in high school in Vancouver, and in college in Massachusetts, Keithen Shepard never figured on a career in the NFL.

After all, beyond football, he was a whiz in mathematics, a young man who put the Scholar in Scholar-Athlete at Union High School last decade.

Later, he had a whole lot going for him as a student, then a graduate student, at the famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was ready for life after football.

Football, though, was not ready for life without Keithen Shepard.

While working on his Master’s degree at MIT, Shepard was also working as an intern at a Fortune 500 company. He was offered a job there, as well, as soon as his internship ended.

Seemed like the perfect plan.

Football had other plans.

While Shepard was working on his thesis, using the sports lab attached at MIT, he saw a job posting come across an email chain.

An NFL franchise needed a data engineer to reorganize the team’s data infrastructure, to benefit a number of missions associated with the team. That included helping scouts in their evaluations of players.

“Guess I got lucky. Right place, right time,” Shepard said. “Someone they wouldn’t need to coach up on the fundamentals of football. Someone who understood the game and could do the technical stuff.”

Keithen Shepard, football player and computer genius, joined not just any NFL franchise, but the six-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. That was in 2022, toward the end of legendary coach Bill Belichick run with the team.

The Patriots have had quite a ride in Shepard’s four seasons with the franchise. They went 8-9 in his first year, followed by a 4-13 record in Belichick’s final season. Another 4-13 season followed in 2024.

The Patriots expected improvement in 2025. They got a lot more than that. Everything the front office had been working on for years, with player scouting, draft analysis, and more, fit in perfectly with the new coaching staff and the players on the field. The Patriots won the AFC Championship and made it to the Super Bowl.

Shepard, meanwhile, has seen his role grow, as well. Recently, his title changed from data engineer to Football R&D Analyst. That would be Research and Development, and it is a sign that this football/mind/tech combo is working for Shepard.
“I’d love to keep pushing and climbing,” Shepard said. “I love being here with the Patriots and being in Boston. Part of this title change is wanting to grow more and be involved more.

“I don’t want to hit a ceiling. I want to keep learning.”

Guessing there are not too many people from Clark County who are working their way up the ranks of an NFL front office.

Shepard shined at Union High School, graduating in 2017. He played football at MIT, earning first-team all conference in 2019 after scoring 10 touchdowns as a wide receiver. The 2020 season was cancelled, so he came back as a graduate student for the 2021 season before an injury finally slowed him down on the field.

He knew football. He knew computers. Still, it was quite a transition from MIT to the NFL.

“Coming into the league, I didn’t know what to expect. Keep your head down and not get noticed for the wrong thing,” he said.

Hey, that advice sounds exactly like an undrafted free agent rookie on the field. In this case, it was for a rookie in the front office.

“You want to make a good impression. Any time they talk, you can be learning,” Shepard said.

In early meetings, he told himself: “Keep your mouth shut. Take notes. Try to pick something up.”

Eventually, he went from inputting data to giving his input.

Shepard’s day-to-day roles have changed through the years, as he has been given more responsibility.

“It freed me up to get more involved in scouting reports and building things for our weekly game plans and predraft prep,” he explained. “It started as a niche computer role and grew into a little bit more football-focused role.”

A typical football franchise employs between 100 and 200 people for football operations, not including the players.

“It’s pretty different from the corporate world,” Shepard said. “You feel like you can have a big impact. People want to hear your opinion. You feel you have a bigger impact than somewhere else. And obviously it’s easy to tell how things are going.”

That would be a team’s win-loss record. Yes, there is a business side of football. Making money matters. But for football operations, the number that matters most is wins.

Which made the 2025 season so incredible for the Patriots, going from 4-13 to 13-4 and making a run to the Super Bowl.

“It was amazing.… That was pretty awesome just seeing the confidence grow in the building. That was pretty fun,” Shepard said.

“The whole Super Bowl experience was unbelievable. All of it is for this one game. It was an awesome experience. Unfortunately, they were the better team.”

The Seahawks beat the Patriots 29-13.

“It’s not a failure of a season, though,” Shepard said. “It was disappointing, but we try not to forget all the good and the progress we made throughout the season.”

Those in the front office remind themselves of that big picture all of the time.

“We’re trying to build up something that is sustainable year in and year out,” Shepard said.

Remember, the Patriots went 4-13 in back-to-back years as they were trying to create this present-day team.

“You just have to try to have a long-term view on things,” Shepard said.

It is not always about winning this week.

“A lot is how we are going to accumulate picks and players to get better in the long term,” he said. “You just have to know you have a good process and believe in the work you are doing. Obviously you’d love to win every game. From my position, you can’t get too high or too low.”

NFL teams play their regular season and playoffs from September through February. The offseason work begins almost immediately with the predraft process, free agency, and then the draft. That is followed by organized team activities and mini camp in June.

Right now, before training camp starts later this month, is about the only true break in the calendar. Keithen and his fiance, Olivia Valle, planned to travel to Europe this summer.

His intelligence and football skills took him to the Boston area for college and now he remains in the game in his career. Wherever he goes, Keithen Shepard remembers where this journey started, right here in Vancouver.

His former football coach at Union said Shepard is a special talent.

“That guy. I was so sad I only got to work with him one year,” said Rory Rosenbach, who became Union’s head coach in 2016, Shepard’s final year of high school football.

Rosenbach has had three former players make it to an NFL camp as athletes. Now, he has a former player in an NFL front office.

“It was apparent from the beginning that his brain was different from anybody else’s. He processes things at a different level,” Rosenbach said. “His brain just saw things differently. He was that smart. He was seeing things faster than anyone else.”

Shepard loved attending Union High School and living in Clark County.

“Couldn’t have asked for a better place to grow up,” Shepard said. “It really helped me develop as the highly competitive person I am today, just being surrounded by so many high achievers throughout both school and sports.

“Union had so many great teachers, coaches, and athletes that I learned from. I definitely miss the school pride, spirit that you could feel at sporting events.”