Dieter Eiselen who was born in Pretoria and attended school in Stellenbosch at Paul Roos Gymnasium has just been signed for a fourth season of the Chicago Bears, a professional American football team. Even though he loves rugby and would love to see his former classmate, Herschel Jantjies back in the Bok team, Eiselen swapped rugby for weight-lifting at school and only started playing American football when he arrived in the US. Eiselen told BizNews how he came to love American football, about his selfless role in the offensive line of the Bears, how he loves to tackle and his 100% chance of picking up injuries in gridiron. He said he just hoped that if he trained hard enough, “you’re the hammer not the nail.” – Linda van Tilburg
Taking the leap to pursue American football after school
I was a rugby player like everybody was growing up and I dreamt of becoming a Springbok rugby player and went to a good school for rugby, Paul Roos Gymnasium. But I just felt as though I wasn’t progressing as much as I would have wanted to become a professional rugby player. I started watching American football casually when I was 16 and really just developed a passion for it, and when it came time to decide what to do after school, there wasn’t anything university-wise in South Africa that spurred my interest. Nothing that I really could see myself doing for the rest of my life. So, I decided to take the leap and pursue American football. You know, I would rather try and fail to do that than do something and settle for it.
My goal when I first came over to the U.S – I did a post-graduate year at a prep school in Connecticut – was to get recruited to play college football. But I never thought I would get recruited to go play at Yale University and when the opportunity was presented to me, I definitely grabbed it with both hands.
Juggling studying and playing football for Yale University
College football is a very strenuous time. It’s very hard depending on what university you go to. Yale is a very academically prestigious university, and it asks a lot from its students. So, it is really like a full-time job where you have to be extremely efficient with your time. Every hour of the day has to be utilised to ensure that you get everything that you need to get done. So, it was hard, and it definitely took a lot of discipline. But what’s nice about Yale is that it is this liberal arts university. So, you can ease into what you want to study and then you declare a major afterwards. There’s a little bit more room for experimentation compared to South African universities. I double majored in economics and political science and really enjoyed it a lot while playing football at the same time.
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Wearing a South African flag on his Chicago Bears helmet
The NFL has done a lot of things to try and expand the global footprint of football, which is great. So, there was a portion of the season last year where guys could have these little decals on the back of their helmets that either honoured where they came from or their heritage. Wearing the South African flag on the back of my helmet was really an honour. So, I just want to represent the country as best as I can and hopefully keep on doing that for a long time.
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Loving tackling, 100% chance of injury and hoping to be the hammer, not the nail.
Anybody can be big and strong, but you have to be able to utilise that speed and that strength and that size. You have to be able to be a great athlete. So, that’s the blend of athletes that make it to the NFL, the people that are very big and strong, but they’re athletic enough to get themselves to the positions that they need to be to compete against the best of the best.
It’s a very physically demanding sport, you know, especially the position that I play, front lines. I play on the offensive line and usually go against the defensive line. It’s a collision sport and the level of contact that you have with your opponent is high. So yeah, you definitely have to be physically and mentally tough to do it, but I relish the physicality of it. You know, I really enjoy it. It is quite selfless. You’re sacrificing everything to ensure that you do your job correctly so that your teammates can excel and move forward and score points and win games.
You’re definitely always worried about [injury], especially the head trauma things, but, it’s kind of you just accept that and you’re hoping that you’re not one of those people. The injury rate in American football is 100% and will get injured at some point. I’ve been lucky enough to not have too many big injuries. I tore my meniscus in my sophomore year in college and I had an operation on that. I have sprained ankles and knee ligaments and dislocated a few fingers but it’s just the price you pay for the physical nature of the sport. You just hope that you train hard enough and work hard enough so that you’re the hammer, not the nail.
Supporting the Boks and his favourite player
I’m very excited about the Rugby World Cup in France this year, so hopefully we can repeat it. That’ll be great. If we can hoist another World Cup, I would love to see that. So I’m excited for the new Springbok jersey to come out so I can order from the side. Going to Paul Roos I was in the same class as Herschel Jantjies, so I hope that he can make it back into the starting line-Up. I will watch just all the players. I love watching the forwards players and all our star players, so I’m just hoping that we can win again and hoist the Webb Ellis Trophy again.
