DeForest alum Keegan Harder builds sports video career

DeForest High School graduate Keegan Harder has turned his work filming local sports into a career through KHarder Media.

Whether it’s during Friday night lights at DeForest, a lacrosse game in Waunakee, or any other sporting event in the Madison area, the 2017 DeForest High School graduate has quickly become a familiar face behind the lens and on the sidelines.

But for Harder, it’s turned into a career he never expected to have.

After graduating from DeForest, he attended UW-Eau Claire from 2017-2021 before entering the workforce for a couple of years after graduation.

He then reached a pivotal moment in his professional career, where he asked himself one simple but soon-to-be life-changing question: What do I want to do with my life?

From hobby to work

Looking to change directions, his first idea wasn’t to do what he’s best known for today. His first idea was to actually make a movie.

As a regular movie connoisseur, it felt like a logical step in the right direction. He was halfway through writing the movie before he hit a little speed bump.

“Maybe I should learn how to use a camera first,” Harder said.

And so he switched gears, saving up just enough money to buy a camera. Naturally, that purchase started the snowball effect that grew KHarder Media into what it is today.

Equipped with a camera, Harder began scouring the local high school sports scene, filming local games and practices, particularly those involving Waunakee and DeForest.

Starting out, Harder’s goal wasn’t to make money. His goal was to simply highlight all the teams in the local high school sports scene.

“I would do a lot of stuff for free,” Harder said. “I would just try and do every school, every sport as much as I could. And eventually, when I kind of realized that this could actually be something, that is when it started switching it more into a job.”

As time went on, more eyes began to notice Harder’s filmmaking finesse. Not long after, people started messaging him if they could pay him for highlights.

Then came a lightbulb moment last summer. Harder realized what he’s doing could actually blossom into a full-time career.

While high school sports coverage tends to take a back seat during the dog days of summer, the AAU basketball circuit only heats up. When he was covering a four-day AAU event, Harder said he was in the gym for 10 hours each day. That’s 40 hours. That’s a standard full-time job.

But still, it was never about the money for him.

“I’ve always said, if I could pay my rent, I’m happy,” Harder said.

This last sports season, Harder began to hit the road as a self-employed full-time employee, notably doing so while continuing to make a positive impact with his hometown school, DeForest.

Harder has experience with DeForest sports. In 2016, he was the starting quarterback on the football team. He threw for over 1,200 yards on the year, per wissports.net.

Keegan Harder was the starting quarterback for DeForest's football team in 2016, throwing for over 1,200 yards.

Growing up, sports have always played a role in Harder’s life. He loved sports so much he used to wake up at 5 a.m. just to watch the NFL Network. He said his mother can attest to that.

Now, a decade later, Harder has continued to funnel his passion for sports into his filmmaking, while also giving back to the community that helped shape him when he was a high schooler.

Fall, winter or spring, Harder is a prominent presence inside DeForest’s fieldhouse or on the turf sidelines at DMB Community Bank Stadium. Filming DeForest sports has become a full-circle moment for him, further illustrating his deep-rooted connection with DeForest.

“It means the world,” Harder said. “It’s the entire reason why I do it.”

Harder jokes with people that he doesn’t want the athlete’s highlights to look like his highlights 10 years ago — grainy press box footage where one couldn’t even point out where the ball is, let alone where the person on the field actually is.

Instead, Harder wants his audience to feel like they’re the ones on the sideline by not only capturing key moments of the game, but also the emotion and the atmosphere surrounding them.

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“I just love putting myself in their shoes,” Harder said. “Having 4K crystal-clear footage on the sidelines, not just for the great plays and the big catches and everything, but the celebrations afterwards…To see and hear what it sounds like after an interception on the sidelines.”

More than anything, however, Harder wants his videos to best serve as “time capsules.”

“When these kids are in my shoes in 10 years, they can pull up a video and say, ‘Hey, look, this is me, this is me playing.’ It’s not all about going pro or getting scholarships. It’s just so they have something that they can show.”

As Harder still move upward and onward in his ventures, he said the most rewarding part of his job isn’t the increase of social media followers and media attention that’s come with his success.

Particularly, there’s an interaction that was among the notable performers to him. This summer, he was filming a new athlete for the very first time. Later, he learned that the athlete had spent his summer mowing yards to save up enough money to purchase one of his highlight videos.

“He’s busting his butt mowing yards so that he can get a video for me,” Harder said. “Like that’s awesome.”

Moments like these have served as the most rewarding part of his work. As he soon enters the hustle and bustle of the 2026-2027 high school sports season, many of the athletes he filmed as a freshman are now heading into their senior seasons.

“As specific and special as these moments are, I think the whole entirety of it and watching them grow up is really just kind of what makes it worth it,” Harder said.

Harder said he wants to continue to grow, but keep his local touch to highlight the many student-athletes who fly under the radar.

Looking ahead, Harder wants to continue to grow KHarder Media, but not too much.

Rather than chasing professional highlight reels, Harder wants to continue to focus on his bread and butter: local area teams.

He likes doing smaller stuff, he said. He likes doing it for the people who wouldn’t necessarily get recognized. He likes doing it for the people who fly under the radar — the ones who don’t steal the headlines on the front page of the sports section.

“I hope to continue to grow, but at the same time, I want to stay around here,” Harder said. “ I want to keep providing content for the community I grew up in and the people around here. There’s no place like home.”