Colvin commits to the Bison

There’s no way around it. Superior High School is predominantly a hockey school.

With 32 WIAA State Boys’ High School Hockey Tournament appearances in 39 years, the Spartans expect to compete with any team in the state each time they set foot on the ice. That being said, when 26 current and former Spartans gathered at the SAHA Ice Arena in Superior yesterday, hockey was believed to be the one sport on everyone’s mind.

Being one of those players, I expected much of the focus for that day to be on the skilled (and a few not so skilled, myself included) hockey players in this intense pickup game. Future Junior Hockey players and SHS graduates Pat Dalbec and Dan Kolenda mixed it up with some of the key returning players such as Kellen McCoshen and Chris Bishop.

However, the big story of the day on the hockey rink actually came from someone who hasn‘t spent a lot of time on the rink in recent months. Rather, he has been preparing for a senior season that already has a lot of people in Superior looking forward to the Spartan football season. Following his scholarship offer from North Dakota State University, RB/DB Zach Colvin had been receiving a lot of buzz about his skills on the football gridiron.

The big news yesterday from Colvin was that he had called the coaches at North Dakota State and verbally committed to the Bison. That makes Colvin the first BRC football player of the class of 2010 to verbally commit to any school.

“I’ve had a long time to make a decision but this week nothing was going on with sports or lifting and that’s when I weighed my options,” Colvin said.

Colvin had been keeping in contact with the coaches at NDSU weekly since June 19 when he was offered the scholarship.

“I called Coach Dickert [Safeties coach at NDSU] because it was my weekly call, but when I announced it to him it sounded like he lit up to say the least,” Colvin said.

Since making the move to Division I-FCS, NDSU has seemed to pick up their recruiting interest in Wisconsin players. Colvin actually becomes the second Wisconsin player to commit to the Bison after Colten Heagle, a defensive back from Kimberly, committed in early July. In addition to their recent move up in divisions, Colvin sees a strong academic school where he plans to study either physical therapy or sports medicine.

“I chose NDSU because they didn’t want me just for football, they emphasized grades first,” Colvin said.

Colvin hadn’t known that he was the first player in the BRC to commit to a school.

“That makes me surprised, I didn’t know that,” Colvin said. “But its good that the BRC is developing as a conference with some outstanding athletes now.”

Now that his collegiate decision is made, Colvin is ready to focus on his senior season when practices begin next week.

“It [the commitment to NDSU] is going to give me a lot more drive to play not just because I love the game but because of the decision to go to a Division I program,” Colvin said.

Profile:
Name: Zach Colvin
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 156 lbs.
High School Positions: RB/DB/KR/PR
Potential College Positions: DB
Football Honors/Awards: All-BRC Honorable Mention Specialist as a junior
40 Yard Dash: 4.35 (Hand-held)
Bench Press Max: 200 lbs.
Parallel Squat Max: 230 lbs.

Dan Tracy
BRCFootball.com