Businesses tend to boast about cutting out the middleman to benefit customers.
In other areas of life, however, an intermediary can be most beneficial. Austin Wilmer could tell you that.
Somewhat unbeknownst to the now-graduated Bayfield senior, BHS football assistant coach Emmitt Dorsey had been talking earlier this spring to a collegiate coach about attending a summertime camp, and the chat eventually touched on that school’s potential gridiron needs for the upcoming 2025 season.
“One day – it would have been in early March, I believe – (Dorsey) texted me and I guess he’d got in touch with this coach to let him know that he wasn’t going to a football camp,” Wilmer explained. “Someway, somehow, the conversation ended up getting about me. I guess they needed a long snapper or something … and the coach ended up reaching out to me!”
Wilmer got a scholarship offer to play football at Doane University and declared his intent on Monday to play for the Tigers at Bayfield High School.
As it turned out, THAT gent eventually started talking with another fellow …. Wilmer now finds himself with the shot to not only be a scholarship football player for the Crete, Nebraska, NAIA school, but also a preferred Tiger Baseball walk-on.
“I’ve always wanted to play baseball in college. Actually, the head coach for the football team, Jonathan Johnson, helped a ton,” said Wilmer. “He had a meeting with the baseball coach, and they ended up deciding they could get me a walk-on spot. No guaranteed scholarship money, but I believe I can work hard enough and, you know, hopefully have the talent and skills. But, I’ve got the opportunity to dual-sport in college – something I thought would never come around.”
Most recently, Doane Baseball’s ’25 campaign came to an end on May 1, with a 6-5 loss in Yankton, South Dakota, to Morningside (Sioux City, Iowa) University.
Success, however, was the theme of DU’s season; 18-10 in GPAC play, the Tigers finished a strong 32-15 overall under Josh Oltmans, the Great Plains’ Coach of the Year from 2021-23.
DU football, meanwhile, went 3-8 overall last fall, but sewed up its 2024 slate with a 22-21 road win in Yankton over Mount Marty University.
“So it sounds like at first I’m going to be a long snapper out there, but we’ll see,” Wilmer said. “That may come with starting time, it may not – it’ll be something I have to earn, just like everything else. It sounds like, as I put – hopefully – some muscle, some height and some weight on, I might transition to tight end and get a little more time. That’d be an awesome opportunity; I played wide receiver my first two years at Bayfield, so I have parts of all the skills – and they’re kind of hoping they can put it all together with me.”
Academically, Wilmer already has his sights set on majoring in economics and minoring in finance. He wants to get a job in wealth management, get his pilot’s license and become a pilot.
