Bernhard Raimann's former national team coach surprises Colts left tackle in Germany
FRANKFURT, Germany — The final question of Bernhard Raimann’s press conference on Friday night. didn’t come from one of the 50-plus international journalists assembled at Stadion am Bornheimer Hang to greet the Colts in Europe.
One of the coaches who played a part in Raimann’s journey from Austria to the NFL was there to see him.
Max Sommer, the head coach of Austria’s national team, wanted to tell Raimann that his country is proud of him, then asked what the big Colts left tackle would say to the next generation of Austrian football players who want to become the “next Bernhard Raimann.”
“Well, they’re going to write their own stories; they’re not just going to be like me,” Raimann told Sommer. “But the biggest thing is to believe in your dreams and to work hard on them. It’s not going to be easy. You’re going to have challenges. You’re going to have to gain some weight, which happened in my case. … Just keep working. That’s all you can do. It’s going to be worth it.”
Sommer knew better than anybody else in the room — other than Raimann — how far the Colts left tackle had come.
The Raimann he remembers only looked a little bit like the 6-foot-6, 303-pound powerhouse Raimann has become. Sommer and the rest of the Austrian football federation spent the early portion of Friday’s practice in the stands with the media, watching Raimann warm up with the rest of the Colts.
“I wanted to see him, I wanted to see it with my own eyes,” Sommer said. “When I was watching him during the warmups out there, I couldn’t believe it. The memories of him being a skinny, long 16-year-old receiver, warming up for my team, basically, and now he’s down there. It’s an unbelievable story.”
Back in 2014 and 2015, Sommer was the head coach of the junior national team, and in 2014, Raimann was a young player on the Austrian team that went to the 2014 IFAF World Championships in Kuwait.
“He tore it up as a 16-year-old on a 19-year-old level,” Sommer said.
Sommer has followed Raimann’s career ever since, from his time with his club team, the Vienna Vikings, to Central Michigan and finally to the Colts.
“The Vienna Vikings, they did the work,” Sommer said. “I just had him at the Austrian All-Star team, basically, as an (offensive coordinator).”
The question Sommer asked Friday was directed at Raimann.
But it was also directed at young Austrians coming up in the game right now. Raimann, the first Austrian ever drafted into the NFL, has proven something possible that seemed far out of reach a decade ago.
“If you grow up being an Austrian football player right now and you’ve got some physical tools to go with it, you know you can reach it now,” Sommer said. “We didn’t know that before.”
Raimann’s the proof.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Bernhard Raimann's national team coach surprises Colts LT in Germany
