Recently, Sterling High School’s Kaedon Phillips committed to University of Dubuque to extend his football career to the collegiate level. The multi-sport athlete has been looking for his future home, picking up nine offers over his senior year, and finally has announced where he will be going.
Phillips is a well-rounded athlete who participates and excels in football, basketball, and track. Although Phillips is capable of playing at the collegiate level for any of these three sports, he made the decision to continue only his football career for many reasons.
“I chose football because of how much I love the sport. It has changed my life in many ways,” says Phillips.
Through Phillips’ senior season of football, he racked up eight total offers from a variety of division two and division three schools. With a lot of thinking and comparing schools, Phillips found a few things that stood out that made Dubuque his number one choice.
“The deciding factor was that the coaches and players all felt like family from the first moment I stepped on campus. They were all welcoming on all my visits to Dubuque,” said Phillips.
With Phillips working hard to get recruited, this led him to have an outstanding senior football season, performing very well and being a key player for the Golden Warriors this year.
“My senior season of football really helped boost my exposure to college coaches and really helped me get to the point where I am today” says Phillips.
With many standout games with Sterling, college coaches were noticing his talent and looking into him from his senior season.
On top of his outstanding senior football season, Phillips was also balancing other life factors such as school work and club basketball.
“A way I balance both sports and school is to set time aside during the day to get my schoolwork done in order to stay on top of my grades and homework. This has helped me a lot throughout high school,” says Phillips.
Although Phillips gained many offers, the process of getting recruited and making decisions is never easy.
“A lot of challenges I faced were competition from multiple coaches, coaches offered me multiple different scholarships and packages to come to their school,” shared Phillips.
Phillips looked at many different schools for football that all have different traits, but there’s some specific components that he sought in schools and football programs to help narrow his decision making. Phillips mentioned, “I looked for a team who has a family built structure and good connections. Also, a team who all has the same goal to push for during the season.”
Along with looking for many different factors in schools, Phillips also looks for certain traits when connecting with coaches.
“I look for a coach who communicates, who pushes their players to be the best version of themselves, and will support you no matter what,” said Phillips.
Along with Dubuque having a family like environment, Phillips found these traits in his coaches which stood out to him, making his decision to commit to Dubuque even easier.
