Senior Austin Rismiller (middle) celebrates his college signing with his mom Amy Funkhouser (left) and dad Brian Rismiller (right) and the rest of his family.
Drew Terhall | The Daily Advocate
By Drew Terhall
DailyAdvocate.com
NEW MADISON — Tri-Village senior Austin Rismiller is heading to Trine University in the fall to play for their football program.
Rismiller said Trine had the right engineering program for him while the football program has the type of competition he wants to compete against.
“They play in a northern conference with a lot of Michigan teams and I think it’s a good conference. They win a lot of football games, they usually finish top three in the conference and they’ve got a lot of rings. The campus was a good fit for me,” Rismiller said.
Rismiller was on the All-WOAC First Team and Southwest Division VI First Team as a linebacker last season. He led the WOAC with 192 tackles and was fourth in tackles for loss with 13.5.
Head coach Matt Hopkins said Rismiller was one of the only captains on the team to be unanimously voted on by the team. He also said Rismiller has all the tools to be successful at the next level, on and off the field.
“Number one, he’s super smart in the classroom. He’s going to one of the better engineering schools in the midwest, if not the best,” Hopkins said. “He’s going to get it done in the classroom. His football IQ is really high up there as well. It has to be. If you make 180-200 tackles, you have to know something about the game and what people are trying to do,” Hopkins said.
Boys basketball head coach and superintendent Josh Sagester said Trine is getting a great kid and a hard worker in Rismiller.
“Austin is a tremendous kid on the floor, on the field and in the classroom. Another great representation of our school district, comes from a terrific family and is a blue-collar kid that works really, really hard,” Sagester said.
Rismiller is thankful for his family, friends, coaches, teammates and the community for helping him get to this point. He is ready to head to Trine and compete for playing time right away.
“I’m going to work hard and see where I get. There’s a good chance of me playing first year, but there’s nothing set in stone. We’ll see how it goes,” Rismiller said.
Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]
