Numbers don’t lie and Coltin Rezabek didn’t like the numbers he saw. On the scoreboard. Against Sutton.
In the second week of the 2018 season Rezabek’s young and mostly untested Wilber-Clatonia got clocked by one of the best teams in Class C-2. The numbers on the scoreboard didn’t lie, though Coltin and Co. sorta wished they did: Sutton 38, Wilber-Clatonia 0.
Wilber-Clatonia has been a consistent football winner for more than a decade and is only two seasons removed from a state championship. Coltin ought to know, he was a starter on that team. So a loss like the Sutton loss was bad but not a season killer, not according to Coltin’s way of thinking.
“We have a lot of young, athletic kids playing for us this year but they don’t have a lot of experience. After watching the film of that game we saw we just weren’t getting lined up correctly and they burned us every time that happened,” says Coltin. “It was disappointing to lose like that but we saw we could fix some things, we just needed to get lined right and have some improved communications.”
That’s where the influence of a senior leader like Coltin Rezabek would become crucial. A naturally quiet kid, being a vocal leader doesn’t necessarily come easily to Coltin but he knew it was now or never if he wanted to impact his team during his senior season.
“Me and my friend Hunter (Cerveny) have the most experience on the team so we knew people were looking to us. I knew I had to increase my vocal leadership and we both have done that in these past few weeks,” says Coltin.
Funny how that works, the Wilber-Clatonia wins have also been increasing in these past few weeks. Maybe the most crucial was the week following the Sutton Situation, when the Wolverines handed Archbishop Bergan its only loss of the season’s first six weeks. “That was a game we had to win, we had to bounce back and we did,” says Coltin.
Don’t confuse Coltin’s leadership style with inaction. He’s a player who is respected by is teammates and he is always pushing his teammates to improve.
“Coltin is a quiet lead by example, a no-nonsense type of kid who always gives 100% effort and plays extremely hard,” says Wilber-Clatonia head coach Lynn Jurgens. “He will never make an excuse for something and refuses to let his teammates make an excuse either.”
Good as that Bergan game felt it was two weeks later when the Wolverines romped to a 37-0 district victory over Freeman that Coltin believed his team had found its groove.
“Our biggest improvement was the week of the Freeman game. They have a good team but we played a great game and kept it going.”
They sure have. Wilber-Clatonia has won five games in a row and will be heavy favorites to win their final two regular season games. Currently fourth in the Class C-2 wild card standings the Wolverines seem a lock for a district title and home playoff berth.
Rezabek knows a little bit about what a good team looks like, given his experience as a starter on the dominant 2016 state champion team. He found special inspiration through his connection with his neighbor, senior all-stater Zach Keller. “I was always around him and the other great players on that team. Our team that year was loaded with people who loved football and took it seriously day-after-day. It was like showing up for work, you always wanted to be at your best. Our team this year is getting there as we gain experience.”
Born in Lincoln, Coltin and his family live on an acreage located about a mile north of tiny Western (pop. 237), or about an hour’s drive southwest of Lincoln. He enjoys hunting, fishing and “blowing up stuff” and a lot of those fishing trips are with his buddy Zach Keller when Zach’s home from college.
A good student with a 3.4 GPA he is also point guard on the W-C basketball team, catcher for the baseball team and a hurdler and pole vaulter in track. He will visit Northwest Missouri State where a football future is a possibility but he also wants to study electrical engineering and that may mean he attends Doane or UN-Lincoln.
Having cleared its throat with that Sutton loss Wilber-Clatonia looks like a tough out in the playoffs. And you can bet if that’s the case Coltin Rezabek will be right in the middle of things.
“The biggest thing about Coltin is that he is always around the football,” says Coach Jurgens. “When he gets a chance to make a big play, he almost always comes through and provides us with the spark that we need to get us going. He is a momentum changer in games that every team loves to have on their roster.”
