Edwin Kolenge commits to Boston College football after playing for one season in the U.S
WINDSOR, Conn. (BVM) — In 2020, Edwin Wilson Tara Kolenge left his hometown of Montréal, Québec and traveled to Clearwater Academy International in Florida to play American football. After playing just one season in the U.S. as a junior, Kolenge received over a dozen DI offers. On June 19, the Canadian linebacker gave his verbal commitment to play for Boston College.
“I came to America because I wanted exposure since, in Canada, college coaches don’t look at us,” Kolenge said. “I remember my first offer ever was from Syracuse and I was in tears. Then the offers kept coming in. I left my family for all this and the hard work paid off. Knowing my mom won’t be paying for college is incredible.”
Kolenge is currently ranked No. 210 among ESPN’s top 300 for the Class of 2022. He also has a four-star ranking and is the No. 5 overall prospect at his position in the country. This past season, Kolenge had 89 tackles, including 19 tackles for loss, four sacks, two forced fumbles, two passes defended and one fumble recovery in an eight-game season that was shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was my first year in the States and I played against some really good competition,” Kolenge said. “I got faster and increased my football IQ. I knew going in that Florida football is something serious and it really was competitive.”
Next season, the incoming high school senior will switch up schools and instead attend The Loomis Chaffee School. Kolenge said he’s switching teams because he wants to attend a postgraduate school.
“I’m not nervous about switching teams again because I know what kind of competition I should expect,” Kolenge said. “It’s my last season so I want to enjoy it. The pressure is off me now that I’m verbally committed. When I was a junior, I felt a lot of pressure since all the teams offering me were watching me. Now, I’m going to be chilling.”
The journey to get into his position was definitely filled with a lot of pressure. Kolenge’s first language is French and he actually knew very little English before coming to America.
“Language didn’t impact my ability to play the game, since in football all the terms are in English back home anyways,” Kolenge said. “But, the problem was with school. The first couple of months was a struggle in the U.S., but now I’m all good. I watched a bunch of movies and took serious classes to learn the language so that I could get closer to getting a college offer.”
Eventually, Kolenge received more than just one offer. Other schools that tried to recruit him included Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Cincinnati, Indiana and West Virginia. But the 6-foot-3, 215-pound inside linebacker ultimately chose BC.
“I chose to commit to Boston College because of my relationship with all the coaches, especially the defensive coordinator,” Kolenge said. “They made me and my family feel comfortable. I felt like I was not only wanted, but needed there.”
Due to the pandemic, Kolenge hasn’t been able to do an official visit, but mentioned he’ll do so six months from now in December. There was one main reason why he didn’t hold off his verbal commitment to the school any longer.
“I just felt comfortable and I wanted to go into my senior year not worrying about making a decision,” Kolenge said. “I didn’t want to be all stressed and nervous, but now I can just focus on my season.”
Kolenge should be able to focus a lot more once he has stability with just one team. He’ll have plenty of consistency when he plays for BC for four years.
“I just want to win the [Atlantic Coast Conference] ACC championships, win a bunch of games and bring back Boston College football like it was in the past,” Kolenge said.
He is one of two linebackers committed to BC in the Class of 2022. Daveon Crouch from Tampa, Fla., also gave his verbal commitment earlier this month. The recruiting class is currently ranked No. 1 in the ACC and ninth nationally by 247Sports.
In terms of the distant future, Kolenge said he has only conquered a small part of his journey in the U.S. thus far. He wants to be in the NFL and mentioned that he admires Benjamin St-Juste, also from Montréal, who was a 2021 third-round draft pick by the Washington Football Team.
“There are such few guys from where I’m from that made it,” Kolenge said. “I had a lot of people in Canada put me down and tell me I’d end up coming back to Canada. But, you just have to keep your mind right and don’t listen to the negative.”
