Chartiers Valley senior linemen combines speed with smarts

Standing at 6-foot-1 and weighing 265 pounds, Chartiers Valley senior center and defensive tackle Joel Buerkle is surely a force that opposing teams have to reckon with on the football field.

And that’s before he gets moving.

“I can run up to 18 miles per hour,” said Buerkle. “Being 265 pounds, a lot of people don’t expect me to be that fast. It’s very surprising.”

Buerkle is very athletic for a lineman and that stems from his hard work at 2Tenths Speed and Agility training facility on the South Side as well as his role as a defenseman on the school’s lacrosse team.

“I noticed it immediately when I took the head coaching job last year,” said football coach Steve Spence. “It’s very eye opening. You see this guy, who you can tell is a football player, moving swiftly across the field. He’s very light on his feet and runs right alongside guys who play at the skill positions.”

It isn’t often that Buerkle gets to show off his top-end speed on the gridiron, but he does remember the fun he had barreling down on a defensive back in a game last year.

“We ran a screen play and I saw a safety downfield and I starting booking it towards him and I laid him out,” Buerkle recalled. “It was pretty funny.”

Although he likes being able to show off his spectacular wheels, Buerkle enjoys being a leader both on and off the field.

He is dedicated to football and is relentless in his work both during the season and in his training in the offseason. His hard work is what helped him be a four-year starter.

In those four years, Buerkle has become a vocal leader for the offensive line and the team.

“He’s been everything you could ask for from a coaching standpoint,” said Spence. “He made that impression on us almost immediately when we got here.

“He’s the first one to get on the group to pick it up when they need to hear it. But he’s a leader in the right way. He doesn’t constantly get on the guys. He knows exactly when to use his voice and to use his leadership.”

“I love being a leader, holding my teammate accountable,” said Buerkle.

It was Buerkle’s voice that helped the football team deal with the change at head coach two years ago when Spence took the job.

The Colts had just come off a string of losing seasons, and Buerkle wanted to assure his teammates that the new coaching staff would help facilitate change and get the team on the winning path.

“I sort of told everyone that we needed to believe in this coach, that he would get it right,” said Buerkle. “If we believe in him, we’ll be successful and everyone believed in what I had to say.”

He remained steadfast in his belief even when he was moved to guard last year in a move that helped put the strongest offensive line on the field.

The play of the line helped the Colts finish 7-3 in the regular season before falling in the opening round of the Class 4A playoffs in a loss to McKeesport.

“He can do it all, play any position on the offensive line,” said Spence. “He’s both athletic and smart enough to do it. Having a kid like that anchor your line is enormous.”

At the start of this season, Buerkle was back at center and he relished being back in a familiar role.

“I love the mental part of the position,” said Buerkle. “Memorizing everything — where everyone needs to be, what their assignments are, where to go — it’s very challenging.”

“He’s an extremely bright kid, which is why he’s able to do so much for us from his center position,” said Spence. “He makes calls at the line and he’s someone we rely on in between series if there’s something we missed from the press box. He’s very good at relaying information, what’s going on, what’s causing us problems and what’s really working for us.”

And that may be Buerkle’s most important attribute of all: his brain.

Last year he excelled in the classroom, finishing with a weighted GPA of 4.5 and is currently sporting a 4.1 while earning college credits through dual enrollment at CCAC where he is studying history and geography classes.

“The college courses are all online and I love the challenge,” said Buerkle. “I took an AP history class last year and did well on the final exam. I love history, especially the 1900s. That time period has always interested me. A lot of events during that time helped to shape the world as it is today.”

With his outstanding academic record, more doors have been opened for Buerkle on the recruitment front for football.

He has seen interest from Division II and top-level Division III schools. At the beginning of the month, he took a visit to Edinboro and has been talking with a lot of the PSAC schools in the area.

“Coach Spence has a lot of connections with those schools,” said Buerkle. “They’ve come up to visit me, and I’ve set up some game visits. I got offers from Allegheny and Bethany Colleges, but I’m really trying for a PSAC or D-II offer.”

“I think the thing we stress the most is finding the best fit for him, the place where he feels comfortable, where he has a good rapport with the coaching staff, he likes the campus and the surrounding area, where he has a chance to play and to get a great education,” said Spence.

Wherever he ends up, Buerkle knows he wants to study in the field of finance or engineering.

“If I go into engineering, I would want to be a civil engineer,” Buerkle said. “I like working on projects and working hands on. I don’t like sitting in an office.”

Buerkle appreciates that sports have taught him a lot of discipline and that he has to keep his head down and continue to work, even though he might not be motivated to do so.

It’s a message he wants to leave his fellow teammates before he leaves Chartiers Valley:

“Working hard takes you far,” said Buerkle.

But right now, the focus is on getting the Colts to the playoffs one last time before he graduates.

Buerkle has helped the Colts to a modest 3-4 overall record so far this season with a 1-1 record in the Class 4A Big Six Conference with three conference games left in the season and a chance at the playoffs.

“The message right now is to take it one day at a time,” Buerkle said. “We feel pretty confident in these upcoming conference games and we’re ready for any challenge.”