HANOVER — All it took was one game for Konstantin Spörk to be hooked on a different kind of football.
A native of Pulheim, Germany — just outside of Cologne — Spörk grew up playing the more popular version of football in his home country as a goalkeeper. But after watching Super Bowl 50 with his father in 2016 between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers, he became fascinated with American football and looked for opportunities to play.
Six years later, Spörk is pushing back opposing edge rushers and opening holes for his ball carriers as Dartmouth College’s sophomore starting left tackle.
“He’s been a wonderful addition,” Big Green coach Buddy Teevens said. “(He was) kind of raw, because the level of football that he did play was not real high. Picking up the skill set as quickly as he has is very impressive.
“I call him ‘the Terminator’ after Arnold Schwarzenegger. He doesn’t say much, but he takes care of his business on the field, and he’s learning some of the nuances. Every practice day and every game, we see an improvement.”
Spörk joined the Cologne Crocodiles, a club team near his hometown, and played with them for four years while in high school, helping their U19 team to an undefeated season and a national championship in 2019. But in order to play football at the level he wanted, Spörk knew he would have to come stateside, and he found an opportunity to play a postgraduate season at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia for the fall of 2020.
Originally a wide receiver, Spörk kept gaining weight and transitioned to tight end before becoming a two-way lineman. At Fork Union, Spörk and his teammates had to give up their cell phones — a tall ask for an international student in the middle of a pandemic. But his team finished 5-1 in the COVID-shortened season, and that November, Spörk received his first and only Division I offer from Dartmouth. New Mexico Military Institute, a two-year junior college, was the only other school to offer him an opportunity.
The Big Green learned about Spörk via Chris Adamson, a former Dartmouth offensive lineman (class of 1997) who co-founded Gridiron Imports, a nonprofit organization that helps football players from around the world find opportunities to play at high schools and colleges in the U.S.
“(Adamson) is kind of a conduit for us for approaching and evaluating kids overseas,” said Dartmouth offensive line coach Keith Clark, who coached for two years in Italy. “He let us know about this kid playing down at Fork Union, and we knew he wasn’t a refined football player, but what we were looking for was the raw tools that we can help develop. We recruited him a lot by Zoom overseas. He’s still raw at times, but his work ethic is remarkable.”
After three months at Fork Union, Spörk returned to Germany and committed to Dartmouth in December. The Big Green were coming off an Ivy League championship in 2019, and Spörk was attracted by the winning culture in Hanover, the strong academics and the rural setting.
Spörk (pronounced SHPAIRK) arrived at Dartmouth on his own — COVID-19 restrictions prevented his family from accompanying him — and played in just two games as a freshman last fall before a thumb injury required season-ending surgery. But with four starters on the offensive line departing, Spörk watched film on John Paul Flores, the Big Green’s left tackle in 2021 who had transferred to Virginia. He won the job this preseason at arguably the most important spot on the line.
“I knew I had to step up because we’re such a young offensive line,” Spörk said. “(Flores) was a really great player. It was definitely difficult over the offseason, but we made a ton of progress.”
This year, Spörk has started all seven games on a line that, despite Dartmouth’s 2-5 record, has shown steady improvement. Against the Ivy League’s best defensive front last week in Harvard, Dartmouth did not allow a sack.
Spörk also has a countryman on the team this year in freshman linebacker Niko Schwikal, who hails from Schönfeld, Germany, which is north of the former East German city of Dresden. Schwikal played at high schools in Texas and Connecticut and chose the Big Green over UConn, UMass and four other Ivy League schools, though he has yet to appear in a game. He and Spörk played together at a camp with Gridiron Imports in 2019.
“There was still a little language barrier when I came here, and there still sometimes is. I sometimes have difficulty expressing exactly what I want to say,” Spörk said. “But it’s been pretty funny with my teammates. There were a lot of great jokes that came out of it as well. They actively are trying to learn about (my culture) and really made it easy for me to feel at home in the U.S. and at Dartmouth.”
As an offensive lineman, Spörk won’t hear his name called over the public address system the way his skill-position teammates do, but the marketing and promotions team has helped him find his way onto the video board during every home game. During a timeout, a pre-recorded Spörk will read the German word of the day — usually something football-related — and a fan contestant has to guess the English translation.
Spörk was granted a redshirt year due to his injury last season, so he is eligible to play three more years with the Big Green. An energy engineering major, Spörk said he hopes to work with sustainable energy sources after graduating. But for now, he’s one of the rapidly improving anchors of a work-in-progress offensive line, and while he may be a man of few words, Clark said he is quickly becoming a favorite among his teammates.
“What you’re probably going to find in the not-too-distant future is some of our guys wanting to make a trip over (to Germany) and spend some time with him and family,” Clark said.
“It’s fantastic to experience another culture and have somebody that is a part of that culture who you can befriend and use as a guide of sorts.”
Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.