Tristen Koller plays a lot of sports, but out of all of them, his true passion lies in football. The senior student at H.J. Cody School and runningback on the Lakers will be playing on Team North, in the upcoming Senior Bowl, on May 22.
Koller said he is excited for the event which will take place in McMahon Stadium, in Calgary, which pits the best high school players in Alberta’s north against their counterparts from the southern regions of the province.
Koller, who also hopes to play for the Edmonton Huskies after he finishes high school, has come a long way from when he started playing football in his sophomore year. He attributes the intense growth he’s undergone as a running back to the mentality he cultivated in the sport, through which he continuously wishes to always keep improving.
Another component of his steady growth as a player has been the intense training he has partaken in, attending Huskies winter training camps in Edmonton.
“It gave me a chance to see what the next level is going to be like,” said Koller in an interview with the Sylvan Lake News. “I definitely had to play to at a higher level than I was before, during my high school career.”
Koller acknowledged the faster tempo of the Huskies workouts, combined with the expectation that players know plays and not mess around, as factors that helped him significantly grow as player, and most importantly, challenge himself and push the limits of his skills.
“It was not easy, at first, to adjust to,” Koller admitted. “There was no huddle; they were doing hand motions to symbolize what kind of play call it would be. If you didn’t pick it up, someone else would go in and get it.
“One guy was a fifth year running back, and was huge, compared to me. I knew I would have to step it up even more and improve. It was overwhelming at first, and I wasn’t ready for the play calls.”
But with his sports background in hockey and soccer, Koller was quickly able to adapt to playing at a higher level. Two practices in, at the Huskies workouts, Koller said he started to catch on, keeping pace with the others and interpreting the necessary plays.
Going into the Senior Bowl in a month, Koller has a reputation that precedes him, for his relentless and aggressive style of play.
“When they get into games, and Tristen is on the sidelines, there’s a sigh of relief from the defense,” said Koller’s father, Kyle Koller. “He doesn’t go outside or the middle — he always goes in the danger zone. Jeremy [Braitenbach], the Lakers coach, calls him the wrecking ball.”
Koller admits that he developed his style of play, through a need to learn how to get hit, adding that “when I was small, I got knocked down a lot. Finally I said ‘No, that’s enough,’ bulked up and gained some weight.”
Koller’s father noted that his son has played competitive hockey and soccer since the ages of four and five, respectively, adding that “Tristen was even in the Summer Games for soccer. He was at a football practice, with his friend, and coaches asked him to play, and he refused them.”
Koller eventually changed his mind, and came back the next year, and from that point it became clear that, “Tristen has a love of hockey, but a passion for football,” his father added.
Koller noted that what he likes about football is how it allows him to leave the other concerns of life at the sidelines, when he walks onto the gridiron.
“In everyday life, you have to do what you do, but when I get on the field, I zone out and do my thing. As a running back, I run through holes. When I run through them, I love what I’m doing,” he said. “It’s a team game, and I love being on the winning team, and playing with a team I developed a brotherhood with.”
In preparation for the Senior Bowl, Koller is maintaining his rigorous training regimen, “tying to be as ready as I can for that.”
Koller tries to push himself to maintain intensity, and avoid hitting a pleateau, after his time spent training with the Huskies in Edmonton. A significant moment for Koller occurred for him when he encountered a former teammate from high school, Landon Rosene, at the same Huskies camp.
“I used to back up Landon, and he was an unreal running back — really fast. I knew I had some big shoes to fill when he left,” said Koller. “But then, I competed against Landon in the Huskies workouts. It was crazy that I was competing with him, instead of being in his shadow. It felt good to be at his level.”
Koller added that seeing someone as talented as his former teammate growing as much as Rosene did, helped solidify in his own mind, the reality of needing to improve and “get into that top one per cent,” to be ready for the higher expectations of the kind of football that awaits him after graduating from H.J. Cody.
He hopes his improvement will help in the upcoming Senior Bowl against Team South, and eventually, his goal of playing with the Edmonton Huskies in university. Koller was accepted to MacEwan University, and the next horizon in his sports career, even before the Senior Bowl, is the tryouts for the Huskies from May 4-8.
Koller is also part of the Next College Student Athlete (NCSA) recruiting service, and has been contacted by several colleges, who have his game footage, and want him to move to the United States to play for their teams.
“We got a call from the coach of the Huskies,” said Koller’s father. “He said Tristen is ‘old-school,’ because while some kids like to showboat and play for themselves, Tristan always is about the team. He’s always about playing better, beyond the day he was before.”