Former Lobo standout helps OL/DL players improve

RIO RANCHO — If you’d like for your “guys in the trenches” — namely offensive and defensive linemen — to get better before next season, you might consider the Sportsmanship Academy workouts going on at Cabezon Park.

That’s where former University of New Mexico All-Mountain West defensive lineman Daniel Kegler works with teens, not only to make them better “grunts,” but to make them better people.

Kegler’s college career began at Hutchinson Community College; after graduation from UNM, he played briefly for the Austin Wranglers in the Arena Football League. He was raised in Frostfree, Florida, and attended the same college as NFL running back Travis Henry.

His Sportsmanship Academy offers three programs to improve football players’ skills: speed and agility; position specific; and skills and drills. The cost is $30 per session or $300 per month; Kegler, raised by a single mom, is familiar with financial hardships and can make participation easier.

Kegler says his academy is dedicated to the growth and development of youth athletes on and off the field, basically developing the next generation of athletes — among them, his son Psalmon, a two-time All-State defensive end at Cleveland High — and essential life skills in a Christian atmosphere.

“The biggest thing is I’ve got a lot of faith in God; our whole thing is to present God to the best of our capabilities while we’re out here, so we’re working on just really trying to build good character and giving our kids the opportunity to train in a safe and constructive environment.”

Like so much that has happened in the 21st century, the pandemic came into the conversation.

“Coaching YAFL football for eight or nine years, when we got in that COVID situation, quarantining everybody and make everybody stay at home, where they couldn’t train,” Kegler began, “So many of the guys I was coaching at the time in YAFL, for that particular group, I said, ‘We just can’t stay at home and wait for them to give us the green light to go train again,’ so I called some of the coaches, some of the parents, and I got a local gym (in Renaissance Center) that allowed us to train in their gym.

“So ever since then, I just have a love for training my kids, helping the kids as much as I can,” he said.

Now, he explained, “I’m doing a lot of personal training. … What I train is defensive linemen and linebackers in pass rush and inside runs, release stuff.” Most of the kids that he trains and mentors are students in Rio Rancho attending Cleveland and Rio Rancho high schools as well as some middle schools here.

The academy, says training partner Justin Cole, “was founded to develop our young athletes both on and off the field. He has been driven to create this organization through his strong faith, but also saw an opportunity in one of the poorest states in the country to pass down everything he has learned through his entire athletic career.

“In meeting him for the first time, he struck me as deeply humble, thoughtful, but most importantly as a servant leader in that everything he does, both in training and outside of it, is with the end goal,” Cole said.

Cole, a native Texan whose favorite sport is soccer, kind of fell into coaching football.

“I have been a youth coach for over nine years now. While I have taken opportunities to engage with some of our young men, the level at which he is providing it is profoundly different and meaningful. His relationships with the boys, his enthusiasm for his craft, and his mentorship are game changers here in New Mexico. I think New Mexico needs more Daniel Keglers.”

For more information, email Kegler at sportsmanship.NM@gmail.com.or visit sportsmanship-academy.org.