Choate products making an impact with Bulldogs
NEW HAVEN — The Yale football coaching staff certainly racks up the frequent flier miles on the recruiting trail year in and year out.
Players from 19 different states as well as one each from Canada and South Africa are part of the Bulldogs’ twodeep chart heading into Saturday’s game at Brown (12:30 p.m., ESPN+). Texas, California, Florida and Ohio are the states represented the most on the most recent update to drive home just how much of a national recruiting base the Yale coaching staff can pull from.
Yet, a mere 15 miles away there is a bit of a recruiting gold mine for the Bulldogs. Six current members of the 61 Bulldogs spent at least one year at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford and another player who has starred for Wild Boars’ coach LJ Spinnato is on the way when defensive lineman Nathan Puletasi joins the Bulldogs as a freshman in 2020.
“Choate has been a great place, we know their coach very well and know how he is going to treat the kids,” Yale coach Tony Reno said. “It is very important to me if a kid is going to go to a prep school and wants to have an opportunity to apply to Yale that they are getting treated really well, they are going to help them on their way.”
It also doesn’t hurt that Choate’s football program was 480 from 20142018 with an average margin of victory of 32 points.
“For us, we are going to try to hold the kids to a high standard and try to build hopefully an incredible bond, a family within our program,” Spinnato said. “With Yale doing it at that level it is completely different. They are trying to run a Division I football program within an institution like Yale which can not be easy. In terms of the general philosophy, I am sure it is to improve every day, challenge the kids and have a lot of fun, build great relation
ships in the process.”
The players who have played at both Choate and Yale will tell you that many of the core values that the two coaching staffs believe in are rather similar.
“I would say both programs, they expect a lot on and off the field,” Yale junior linebacker John Dean said. “Both coaches, Coach Spinnato at Choate and Coach Reno here they don’t tolerate any nonsense, they want you to go full speed all the time and I feel like it is a really good transition to go from there to here.”
The reasons why the players land at Choate can be as diverse as the players themselves. Some are what Spinnato terms “Yale referrals” meaning that the players understand that using a postgraduate year to get physically stronger, work on improving their academic qualifications while playing at a high level on the football field will help their chances of getting accepted at Yale as well as excelling on the football field. That is what happened with Dean, who suffered seasonending knee injuries twice in high school.
“I went to Choate to get healthy and I tore it up a third time but in terms of preparing me for academics, it was big because it was definitely a step up from high school,” Dean said. “It was good to get the boarding school in, living away from home, it was definitely good to work out and get bigger for college football.”
Half of the Choate products on the roster are linebackers as Noah Pope, a sophomore from Memphis, Tenn., had four tackles in the season opener against Holy Cross and Alexander Abelite is a senior from Norwell, Mass. who has nine tackles, including two tackles for a loss this season.
“It is pretty awesome. We have a pretty familiar group in there, we have a lot of Choate guys, a lot of Mass (achusetts) guys so there is a lot of camaraderie in there,” said Dean, who was part of back to back undefeated state championships teams as a junior and senior at Xaverian Brothers in Westwood, Mass. “We all hold each other to a really high standard in that room so it definitely helps knowing people from Choate.”
It’s not only the defensive players who are part of the Choate to Yale caravan. Sophomore receiver Jaylen Sandifer has four catches for 102 yards. Tight end JJ Howland was third on the Bulldogs with 18 catches and 326 receiving yards during the 2018 season but an injury suffered early against Holy Cross ended his junior season. Then there is the player who took the longest road to both Choate and Yale.
Senior offensive guard Dieter Eiselen is considered to not only be the best NFL prospect among the seniors on the Yale team but one of the Ivy League players drawing the most attention from the pro scouts.
The South African native admits that without his Choate experience, he wouldn’t be playing football and likely would not be closing in on graduating from one of the world’s most prestigious academic institutions.
“For me it was pivotal because it was the first time that I actually played the sport of football,” Eiselen said. “I really dove in head first and tried to make the most of it and I really enjoyed it a lot, it was probably one of the best years of my life.
“I owe a lot to Spinnato, he is probably one of the reasons I am here lucky enough to be here. As I have been here as a player, I think I have grown a lot as a person and I think that growth started at Choate.”
Spinnato can’t help but chuckle when he recalls the first time he “met” Eiselen.
“Dieter reached out to me the day before my wedding,” Spinnato said. “It was a couple of hours before my rehearsal dinner, we were on Skype and talking to him. Meeting him for the first time through video chat, the impressions were that he was incredibly diligent, very purposeful in his decision making, very goal orientated, driven young man, articulate and just really, really bright and obviously pretty massive. When he came to Choate, he ended up moving up early and living with a family for a little while so he can learn the game, American culture and also attend some (football) camps.
“Almost every coach who met him said, ‘I am not too sure about him but who knows, he might be on ESPN one day and there might be a 30 for 30 (documentary) based about this kid.’ Whether all of that comes true, I don’t know but it is pretty neat how things did pan out. He is a pretty special kid who had a great experience at Choate. He was able to learn and was able to be introduced to the game of football.”