Chasing Aufderheide: Local teams look to stop him, colleges are pursuing him

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- Since his freshman year, senior Travis Aufderheide has turned into one of the finest defensive football players for the Eagles thanks to hard work, a strong work ethic and a desire to be the best.

When you ask New Ulm High School football coach Rick VanRoekel to describe Aufderheide, the Eagles' noseguard, the game against St. James -- a 41-0 win by New Ulm -- is the game that comes to his mind.

Aufderheide raised havoc with the St. James center and six times pushed him into Saints' quarterback causing tackles, fumbles and a lot of scrambling.

"That game really stands out," VanRoekel said. "I have seen kids that have dominated or been able to hold their ground, but he just completely annihilated that center."

And dominating a game is not something that is new to the 6-foot-2, 245 pound noseguard who was timed in the 40-yard dash in 4.8 seconds.

"He is the best noseguard that I have had here in my 16 years as head coach," VanRoekel said about Aufderheide, who has started at that spot since his sophomore season. "And even at that time he held his own as a sophomore."

While anyone who has seen Aufderheide is nothing but excited, Aufderheide himself is low key about it all.

"I think that I have power from the inside and decent penetration," he said. "And I think that I have pretty good lateral movement. And I try to be intense on the field."

In fact, he has run down quarterbacks on numerous occasions this season.

"The senior players on the team are going hard -- this is our last year so we have to play our heart out," Aufderheide said.

And while the majority of the seniors on the Eagles' football team are a product of the strong youth football program in New Ulm, Aufderheide is not.

"I did not play in the Pop Warner League (now New Ulm Youth Football) because my parents were afraid that I would get hurt. But I played flag football until the ninth grade."

While there are a lot of skills that Aufderheide has acquired since that freshman year, perhaps the biggest according to VanRoekel is his work ethic.

"He never takes a shortcut. It doesn't matter if it is Monday or Thursday; he is always working hard," he said. "He is a great role model to show as far as what happens when you work hard. He is always in good shape (he is a wrestler in the winter months for the Eagles). He is always pushing himself all the time. When we are running, he runs the sprints as hard as he can. He does not take a sprint off. In the weightroom and on the field, he works hard and that sticks out the most to me."

"I work lifting with Spencer Dickinson (who also has colleges looking at him) and work on our sprints for short distances," he said.

Perhaps the one thing that has aided Aufderheide the most is his involvement in wrestling.

"It is the mindset that wrestling brings -- wrestling teaches you to dig deep," he said. "It makes you mentally tough. It keeps you intense."

That work ethic both on and off the field has attracted interest from colleges such as the University of Nebraska and to all of the North Central Conference colleges. The University of Nebraska gave the Eagles a tape to use on Aufderheide and return to them.

That reputation that Aufderheide has earned was evident even last year when South Central Conference coaches met.

"They were all concerned about how to stop (Aufderheide) in the line -- do we double-team him," VanRoekel said. "Instead of just looking at our defense, they were more concerned about an individual that they have to stop."

In fact, the University of Nebraska told Aufderheide that if he can put on another 30-40 pounds, they think he can play Division I football anywhere in the country.

College football has a place in it for Aufderheide; it is just a matter of where. But for the immediate future, Aufderheide has that on the back burner.

"I am worrying about this season. We want to earn a share of the South Central Conference outright," he said. That can happen Wednesday if the Eagles beat St. Peter.

Then the Eagles will begin the most important part of their season when they host a playoff game; the time, date and opponent have not yet been determined.

"We want to go a long way in the playoffs," he said.