Pair of German foreign exchange students are living the life in American football

Linus Pelka took the snap, faked the handoff to his running back and was off.

He strode for the pylon from 3 yards out and collided with a Salina South defender but crashed into the end zone. It was his first U.S. touchdown, and it sent Panther Stadium into one of the biggest cheers of the night.

Pelka was confused.

Pelka is a senior. He isn’t the starter or even the second or third string. He also isn’t from Derby. He is from Bonn, Germany, and is in Kansas as a foreign exchange student.

Football in Germany is a lot different from what he is experiencing in Derby, America.

“We go crazy when we make touchdowns in Germany, we do, but it was really everybody freaked out,” he said. “I only came on the field because the coaches said, ‘Let’s make Linus a touchdown.’ “

Pelka’s touchdown capped a 60-7 win to keep Derby undefeated on the 2018 season, but that score and more important this opportunity meant a lot more for him and another football player about 30 minutes north.

Sedgwick senior linebacker Eric Koehncke is another German foreign exchange student. But unlike Pelka, Koehncke is a starter and one of the top tacklers in Kansas.

Through five weeks, he has 66 tackles, including 11 for losses for the 4-1 Cardinals. His tackle number is good enough for eighth in the state among 11-man schools, according to Sports in Kansas.

But even this is so different for the kid who came from Hamburg, Germany.

“I’ve never played linebacker before,” Koehncke said. “This is my first time every doing that, and I’ve never thought about doing that good. Right now I’m just tracking everyone down.”

Pelka and Koehncke played football for a couple of years before they came to the U.S., so they aren’t starting from scratch. Koehncke even trained with former professional players while he was across the pond.

But for Pelka, getting to football was an unorthodox path.

Growing up, he wasn’t a big soccer fan like most of his friends. He found football on YouTube and started watching highlights “with epic music.”

Except he wasn’t drawn to the big hits or shifty moves. It was throwing the ball.

“To see the ball fly before the person and then the person runs into the ball,” Pelka said. “At first you throw and see nothing and then a person catches the ball. That’s really nice to see. And when I say, ‘Go,’ everybody moves.”

And only one player did it best.

“Tom Brady,” he said.

Brady got Pelka hooked on football, and that was one of the biggest reasons he wanted to come to the U.S. outside of learning more about the language and culture.

Pelka said he had no idea what he was getting himself into at Derby though. He obviously didn’t know the history and the prestige Panther football brings.

“It took the players to say, ‘We’re really good,’ ” he said. “It’s good to play with such good players and to learn. It’s good that they’re good, so I’m not the player who comes on the field much.”

Koehncke said he isn’t much of a soccer fan either. His family grew up supporting Hamburg, a team in the top German league. But he only followed them because his family did.

In contrast to Pelka, catching the quarterback’s passes and bringing them back the other way was what brought Koehncke to football.

In Germany, he plays defensive back. He is one of the smaller, quicker players and likes to tackle. But at 1A Sedgwick, he is one of the Cardinals’ strongest at his weight.

That transition has been one of a few jarring things about moving to Kansas.

Koehncke was at a football camp and performing well when an agent approached him and asked if he would like to play high school ball. He said absolutely.

Koehncke said he was supposed to go to South Dakota but asked his exchange agency not to because he didn’t want to go to a place so cold.

He was connected with a family in Valley Center, but the high school already had its limit of exchange students, Koehncke said. So he was sent to Sedgwick.

The difference between the population of Hamburg and Sedgwick is only about 1.76 million.

“I didn’t think they would call it a ‘city,’ ” Koehncke said. “I don’t know how to describe it, but I thought I would go to a bigger school and that it would be really hard to get on the team.

“My first impression was kind of crazy. We only have 200 students. In my school in Germany, we have thousands.”

But even with so many fewer citizens, students and players, everything is amplified for Pelka and Koehncke.

They will have a couple of more years of high school when they get back to Germany, but they said they wouldn’t trade this opportunity for anything.

“Many things are different,” Pelka said. “People are different. Food is different. School is different. It was hard time in the first few weeks. But now it is great. I get two proms now.”

“I love it,” Koehncke said. “One year ago, I wouldn’t believe that I would be in America playing football every day. I’ve never practiced that hard or tried that hard to be successful.

“Everybody here is really proud of what they do and who they are and what their history is.”

This story was originally published October 4, 2018 at 8:57 PM.