World Traveler

Koehler to continue football career at Graceland University; selected to play on US Elite team in Italy

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — Alex Koehler is going places.

Or he has been going places.

Until a couple of weeks ago, the Charles City senior had never been out of the Continental United States. Now he just came back from the mother of all school field trips that explored Costa Rica.

“It was awesome,” Koehler said of traveling abroad with a group of more than 30 Charles City tourists to a place that’s famous for having the best weather year-round in the world.

In a couple more weeks, Koehler is going to travel to Italy as part of the Americas Football Worldwide USA Elite team to tour the country and play against Italian Federation U19 team.

“The coach sent me an email asking me if I was interested in playing,” Koehler said. “So I decided to go.”

The linebacker was a Class 3A All-District selection for the Comets this past season. Koehler followed that up with an outstanding wrestling season where he qualified for state for the first time in his career and won his first bout in the Class 2A 182-pound bracket.

But even after qualifying to state and leading the Comets in takedowns this past season, Koehler had already decided that football was going to be the vehicle to continue his athletic career in college.

Last Wednesday, Koehler confirmed that choice of path when he signed on to play football for Graceland University.

“I just like the feel … the vibe down there when I visited,” Koehler said of the NAIA program located in Lamoni in southern Iowa.

“I made the decision about three weeks ago,” Koehler said. “It was a relief to be done with the recruiting process.”

Now Koehler can relax and see the world … at least a larger span of it.