Athlete Spotlight: RJ Chakolis Shows Discipline On and Off the Field
Kaia Anderson, online publishing coordinator
On Oct. 13, I had the opportunity to sit down with RJ Chakolis, the linebacker for Augsburg’s football team. We talked about how he started playing football, his journey from New Mexico State to Augsburg, and what he is looking forward to this year, both academically and athletically.
Football has always been a part of Chakolis’ life. He grew up watching the Vikings and the Buffalo Bills with his father and started playing football at about four years old. He first played for the Brooklyn Center Youth Football Giants. There, he made his first touchdown. “My favorite moments? Probably when I was a little kid on the Giants football team, I had a kick return touchdown. It was my first touchdown. I remember it was a big ol’ pile and you can just see me running out of the pile.”
He attended high school at Hopkins, where he played both linebacker and running back, became a three-time All-State player, was All-Conference all four years and was District Player of the Year twice. Since starting college, he has only played the linebacker position. After he graduated, he went on to play at New Mexico State for two years before transferring to Tarleton State for a year, when the coach left. There, he played linebacker before finally making his way back to Minneapolis. He is now a senior at Augsburg and has had to adjust to a different kind of football game and “going from a small fish in a big pond to a smaller pond and being a big fish.” This change is largely due to his switch from playing Division I to Division III.
“He attended high school at Hopkins, where he played both linebacker and running back, became a three-time All-State player, was All-Conference all four years and was District Player of the Year twice.”
kaia anderson
Pre-game prep includes a Fast Friday, which is a walkthrough the team does during practice for the upcoming game. This allows the team to prepare and mentally get ready for the game. After practice, later in the day, there is also a team meeting where they go through everyone’s roles. Chakolis has his own sort of prep. “Sometimes I can be kind of superstitious and believe I have to wake up at this time and do that, and then other times I can kind of just be lenient […] listen to some music, make sure I have some good food.”
Playing football has also had a large impact on his life outside of the sport. “Discipline, mental toughness and effort, those are probably the three biggest things […] outside of [football. When] putting in enough effort to accomplish your dream, you’ve got to be disciplined to get your job done and just [know] that there are going to be times when there is adversity.” Chakolis is disciplined when it comes to managing both schoolwork and athletics. He is a pre-law major and has maintained high grades throughout his entire college career.
His goals for this season include making All-Conference, earning Defensive Player of the Year, making at least 100 tackles and finishing the year strong. “This year at Augsburg, the football team has a good culture with the guys […] I hope we can pull it together at the end of the year and get some more wins because right now 1-4 does not describe us as a team. We are a better team than that.”