Coach: "Sky is the limit" for QB Danny Vanden Boom

Danny Vanden Boom is known best for his work on the football field in leading Kimberly to its third straight state championship last fall.

But the 6-foot-4, 200-pound senior is also an integral part of Papermakers' baseball and basketball programs. And in today's world of high school sports, that's not always the norm.

"You look at a lot of quarterbacks in high school and some of those kids are year-round quarterbacks and focus on just that for 12 months out of the year," Steve Jones, head football coach at Kimberly, told BadgerBlitz.com. "Danny has been starting at shortstop since his freshman year on the baseball team and was co-MVP of the basketball team this past year.

"He loves football and that’s where his passion is, but he’s a competitor and I give him a lot of credit for being able to compete at a high level in three different sports."

With Vanden Boom now committed to Wisconsin as a preferred walk-on, Jones is excited to see what his star pupil can accomplish with his attention focused on the quarterback position.

"I think he's a great quarterback right now and he’s fundamentally sound," Jones said. "He’s obviously got the stats to back it up, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him grow an inch or two and when he can focus on one sport and hit the weight room hard, I think the sky is the limit for him. I think the coaching staff saw that as well.

"Danny is absolutely a perfect fit for a pro-style offense. His accuracy is off the charts and his decision making and poise is phenomenal. His frame – I wouldn’t be surprised if he got to Madison and within a year he packed on 15 or 20 pounds. He’s a three-sport athlete and he never really had an off-season. I think his best football is still in front of him."

During his recruitment, Vanden Boom, who passed for close to 2,500 yards with 25 touchdowns as a junior, racked up offers from Eastern Michigan, Illinois State, North Dakota State, Northern Iowa, South Dakota, South Dakota State, Wyoming and Western Illinois. But a chance to play for the Badgers, the program his father, Matt, was a standout for in the early 1980s, was too much to pass up.

"I think deep down inside that’s where Danny always wanted to go," Jones said. "With his dad playing there, he grew up going to a lot of games and I think he always wanted to be a Badger.

"He went down there two Sundays ago and worked out. They essentially offered him a 4.5-year scholarship and Danny weighed that against a lot of other good offers. That’s really where he wanted to go the whole time. But we also had a conversation and I asked him where did you want to go to school and get your degree if you didn’t play football, and the answer was Wisconsin. That was a big point for him with the education that he’ll receive there.

"He’s top-notch and a high-character kid. He’s got integrity and he’s a great role model for our kids. They’ll never have to worry about his decision making or anything off the field. He does a great job of balancing the demand of AP classes and three sports and doing that all at a very high level. I’ve never met a kid who was so poised in my life. He never gets too high and he never gets too low. You can see it on the field and you can see it in the classroom."

In Vanden Boom, Chryst was able to get his second preferred walk-on (along with Matt Henningsen) in the 2017 class who turned down multiple full scholarship offers from other programs. According to Jones, that has a lot to do with Chryst and his connection to high school coaches and players in the state.

"The program has a historic tradition of having extremely successful walk-on players," Jones said. "So you have that and you have coach Chryst and his staff coming in over the last few years and they really reasserted themselves in our state. Going back to the (Barry) Alvarez philosophy of building a wall around, I think they've done that. The kids want to play for the Badgers."