Personal Statement
My name is James Keller and I’m a 17 year old junior attending Winneconne High School located in Winneconne, Wisconsin. My midwestern roots have taught me to have a strong work ethic and to never give up. Athleticism is in my blood. In the past decade I’ve had 3 cousins play football for Big Ten schools with strong ties to UW Madison’s Wisconsin Badgers football program.
“If you want something, you’ve got to take it”, a quote from my cousin Christian Yelich, professional baseball outfielder for the Milwaukee Brewers. This is the mindset I’ve had in regards to being the best I can be on and off the field since I was 12 years old training 3 days a week before school to achieve my goals athletically.
This year, our football team offered an optional eight-week lift/agility training program five days a week which I took full advantage of in addition to my one-on-one personal training sessions 3 days a week to improve my daily morning and evening workouts I pursue on my own outside of my team practices and maintaining my honor-roll status academically.
As a freshman, I started as middle linebacker and led our junior varsity team with 32 tackles in 7 games. When I returned to the football field as a sophomore, I played both junior varsity and varsity football, and was one of three sophomores to letter in varsity. As middle linebacker, I finished the season with 48 solo tackles and 65 assisted tackles in five games. During my time on the field as fullback, I attained 6 touchdowns and 427 yards in 45 carries, averaging 9.4 yards per carry. My team recognized my natural ability to lead when our quarterback went down and I was asked to step into that position. Having never played it before, we were able to score two touchdown passing, two rushing touchdowns, for a total of 70 yards passing in five attempts to finish out the game.
This year as a junior I started on varsity on all special teams and on the defense. I started at many different spots as my team needed me there. The first being defensive end, middle linebacker, nose tackle, defensive tackle, and outside linebacker. I also played some guard and tackle when needed.