Nick Kaepercolin

Nick Kaepercolin

Nick Kaepercolin
No. 7 – Retired
Position:	Wide Receiver
Personal information
Born:	(2014-11-02)November 2, 2014 (aged 46) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Height:	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Weight:	185 lb (84 kg)
Career information
High school:	Turlock, California
College:	Nevada
ISFL Draft:	2037 / Round: 5 / Pick: 57
Career history
London Royals 2036 (S21) Baltimore Hawks 2037 (S22) - 2039 (S24)
Roster status:	Retired

Nick Kaepercolin (born November 2, 2014) was an American football wide receiver for the Berlin Fire Salamanders of the International Simulation Football League (ISFL).

Early years

Nick Kaepercolin was born in 2014 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Rick and Teresa Kaepercolin. While Teresa is an accountant, Rick earns his money as a professional baseball coach. His parents have two other children: son Kyle who is also playing baseball and daughter Devon, who is more into singing than into sports. At age four, the Kaepercolins moved to California, where Nick started playing soccer and baseball. At age eight he began to play football as a running back. Very soon, it became obvious, that Nick had lots of talent for football and that he could become a great player. Especially his speed and agility caused difficulties for all opponents. Kaepercolin was nominated for all-state selection in baseball and football his senior year, where he switched positions to play mainly as wide receiver. He was the most valuable player (MVP) of the Central California Conference in football and lead his team to the first Semifinals of the team´s history. Kaepercolin finished his senior year with 299 yards rushing with three touchdowns and 43 catches for 659 yards and six touchdowns while also throwing for a touchdown.

College career

Kaepercolin received many scholarship offers from prestigious universities for baseball, but only the University of Nevada offered him a football scholarship which Kaepercolin signed. The university wanted him first to play as running back and wide receiver with more focus on the running part of the game, but after injuries to their top wide receivers, he was only used as a wide receiver in his college years. In his first season Kaepercolin only played eight games for the Navada Wolf Packs. He had 25 receptions for 312 yards and two touchdowns. As a sophomore, he had 38 receptions for 512 yards and six touchdowns. As a junior, he had 50 receptions for 731 yards and eight touchdowns. As a senior, Kaepercolin had a fantastic year with 85 catches for 1255 yards and 13 touchdowns. His coaches are very optimistic that he can translate well into the NSFL and be a major factor in the years to come.

College career statistics

Nick Kaepercolin			Receiving
Year	Team	GP	Rec	Yards	TDs
2033	NWP	8	25	312	2
2034	NWP	11	38	512	6
2035	NWP	13	50	731	8
2036	NWP	12	85	1255	13

Professional career

DSFL

2036 (S21)

Season Summary

After finishing college in Nevada, Kaepercolin decided very late to declare for the 2036 DSFL draft. With his late decision to do so and concerns from the teams that he could switch to baseball again, he wasn't picked in the draft. After the beginning of the season, the expansion team London Royals finally signed him from waivers to strengthen their offense. In retrospective it turned out as a great addition to the team as Kaepercolin helped to end the season with a better record than most people expected from the Royals. Kaepercolin made his debut for London in week 3 against the Norfolk SeaWolves. He caught 3 passes for 17 yards in that game. Especially noteworthy is that his first catch in his DSFL career was a 3 yard reception resulting in a touchdown. In the next week he had 3 catches for 41 yards and it already showed that the combination with QB Colby Jack really seems to work. Kaepercolin instantly became number two wide receiver behind Susan Cash Jr. After three losses, Kaepercolin could win his first game with the Royals in week 6 against division rival Minnesota, where he caught 2 passes for 28 yards. In week 9, Kaepercolin played a major part in the win against the Tijuana Luchadores in overtime. He was the receving leader for his team with 4 catches for 67 yards. The 43 yard completion from Jack to Kaepercolin was also the longest reception in the young franchise history of London. It was also the second longest reception in the whole DSFL year this season. A week later, Kaepercolin scored his second Touchdown in the loss against the SeaWolves. His third and last TD in the season was against Minnesota in week 13. He caught 4 passes in this game for 55 yards. With his third touchdown, he also overtook Susan Cash Jr. and ended the season with the most receiving touchdowns in the team. As this was the first season for the Royals, this also means he holds the current franchise record for most receiving touchdowns.

2037 (S22)

NSFL Draft

After having a big impact and becoming quickly WR2 for the London Royals, Kaepercolin was confident for the NSFL draft. He didn't have a favorite team in the NSFL so far, but he hoped being selected in the first 6 rounds as he stated in a presser a week before the draft. In the fifth round of the draft with pick 57, the Baltimore Hawks decided to pick him, which also meant that he was chosen before Royals' WR1 Cash Jr., which was quite the surprise. The Hawks seem to see a lot of potential in Kaepercolin. The team and the player quickly negotiated a two-year-deal for Kaepercolin, but also decided to send him down for one more season to play for London with the plan of replacing Hawks legend Erol Maddox in the season after.

Season Summary

Before the DSFL season started, London was projected to be the worst or second worst team in the league with almost all of their defensive guys getting called up in the NSFL. However, the Royals had a pretty strong offense from the get go, mainly QB Jack, WRs Cash and Kaepercolin and TE Arrabiata. And this offense was ready to produce some big numbers this season. Especially the first few games went really well for both the Royals as a team and for Kaepercolin personally. London began with a 4-1 start and Kaepercolin became number one option for Jack and had the most receiving yards in the whole league. After that, the Royals lost 5 games in a row with Kaepercolin underperfoming, mainly due to playing with an injury. In the final weeks London could win 2 more important games against division rival Portland and the other latest expansion team Dallas and they reached the playoffs for the first time in their young history. Kaepercolin ended the regular season with a total of 62 receptions for 797 yards and 5 TDs. They played the NFC championship game in Minnesota and caused a big upset defeating the Grey Ducks 13-10 in OT. Kaepercolin had 5 receptions for 40 yards in this game. In the final and most important game in the history of the London Royals, the Ultimini in Tijuana, the defense showed up, but the offense unfortunately underperformed not scoring a single Touchdown. London therefore lost the game 10-6 and Kaepercolin only got 28 receiving yards with 4 receptions.

2038 (S23)

Season Summary

After finishing the season with a record of 3-10 as the second worst team in the NSFL, the Baltimore Hawks decided to call up some players including young talent Nick Kaepercolin, who had a solid performance in his second DSFL year. The Hawks still considered themselves in the rebuild phase, so they didn't had high expectations for the season, but wanted to finish at least better than in the last one. Lots of eyes were on young QB Chika Fujiwara and NSFL rookie Kaepercolin, who started the preseason as WR3 after Asher Quinn and Chris Kross, after future hall of famer Erol Maddox retired. Baltimore awaited one of the favourites to win the Ultimus with the Yellowknife Wraiths for the season opener at home. In a hard fought game, the Hawks secured a surprising 24-23 victory with Kaepercolin being invisible for most part of the game. But in the final minutes, he caught his first pass from Fujiwara resulting in a touchdown that got them this important victory to start the season. After already having his first catch in the DSFL being a touchdown, Kaepercolin repeated that in the NSFL, an achievement that not many players get. In his second game in the NSFL Kaepercolin also scored a touchdown, getting 4 catches for 59 yards this time. He quickly showed what he's capable of and earned the WR2 sport after those first games. In the following games he also had quite the impact for a rookie helping the Hawks finishing the season with a 8-8 record and just barely missing the playoffs. Kaepercolin had a total of 46 catches for 696 yards and 7 touchdowns which got him voted as third best offensive rookie of the year.

2039 (S24)

Season Summary

Going into the 2039 season, the Hawks hoped to reach the playoffs this time after greatly improving in the last season. After losing all 4 games in the preseason, the Hawks started the regular season with a tough loss at Sarasota. However, they were able to bounce right back with big home wins against the division rivals Chicago Butchers and Philadelphia Liberty with Kaepercolin scoring a TD in both games. The next two road games in Colorado and Yellowknife saw the Hawks losing, which put them at 2-3 after finishing the first round of conference games. In the sixth game, Baltimore convincingly beat Honolulu Hahalua 38-14 with Kaepercolin having a solid game with 87 receiving yards, but no TD. The Hawks being at .500 looked like a team competing for the third playoff spot behind Colorado and Sarasota at this time. But in the next game, after their best performance of the year, they had their worst game losing to Austin 7-40, which changed their season completely. Players started to talk about leaving the team next season and the Hawks lost all of their 9 remaining games as well with painful losses at home against Sarasota (10-35) and Colorado (20-48). This led to Baltimore finishing the season at 3-13 at the worst record, tied with Philadelphia. Speaking of Philadeplhia, in Baltimore's away game there, despite losing 28-32, Kaepercolin had his best game in his ISFL career so far with 5 receptions for 109 yards and a TD. At the end, Kaepercolin finished the season as the best Hawks receiver with a total of 60 receptions for 1014 yards. While the team had an awful season, the young WR can be happy about his personal stats, which clearly went up compared to last year.

Professional career statistics

Career statistics			Receiving					Kick Returns					Punt Returns
Season	Team	Games	Rec	Yards	Avg	Lg	TD	KR	KR Yds	KR Avg	KR Lg	KR TD	PR	PR Yds	PR Avg	PR Lg	PR TD
2036 (S21)	Royals	12	30	368	12.3	43	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2037 (S22)	Royals	14	62	797	12.9	51	5	31	474	15.3	38	0	23	236	10.3	65	1
2038 (S23)	Hawks	16	46	696	15.1	40	7	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2039 (S24)	Hawks	16	60	1014	16.9	56	8	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Achievements and records

• Signed from Waivers by London Royals in S36
  
• Scored a TD with his first catch in the DSFL
  
• Longest reception in London Royals`Franchise History (43 yds)
  
• Most receiving TDs in London Royals' Franchise History (3)