WAHPETON, N.D. — The big man in the middle of about 250 elementary kids didn’t rubber stamp this youth football camp just because his name, Cody Mauch, was on the front of the T-shirt. Before it started, he was instructing a group of high school players from Wahpeton, Breckenridge (Minn.) and Hankinson on their roles for the day.
Mauch was constantly looking at his watch and never went anywhere without his itinerary, like an offensive coordinator trying to figure out a two-minute touchdown drive. This was work. Herding cats took on another meaning.
ADVERTISEMENT
The horn blew promptly at 10 a.m., but all was calm with Mauch in the middle of the herd at a practice field at Wahpeton High School. Once dispersed to different stations, with fellow former North Dakota State offensive linemen Grey Zabel and Mason Miller helping, there’s something inspiring about small kids amongst a combined 19 feet, 7 inches and 917 pounds of NFL player at a camp that cost kids nothing.
For Mauch, it’s the offseason and not much has changed with the exception of his long red hair trimmed a bit and a ring on his left finger. That’s a result of his marriage to Carley Fredericksen from Breckenridge last weekend.
062525.S.FF.mauchcamp
Young campers run drills during the Cody Mauch football camp on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, at Wahpeton High School.
David Samson / The Forum
Now entering his third year, he’s using the NFL thing once again as an excuse not to work on the family farm. That and multiple weddings this summer. There are still four Mauch kids helping their father, Joe Mauch, at the farm, which suffered some hail damage in last week’s storm but could have been worse.
“Ever since I started in the NFL, they haven’t asked me to come back so I don’t even know if I have a job when I’m done with this,” said Cody, jokingly.
When he was the age of the kids at his camp, Mauch attended the Phil Hansen camp, an event the former Bison and Buffalo Bills standout put on.
“To me, I was star-struck to see a guy like Phil Hansen,” Mauch said. “I think it’s cool to be able to do something like that. There’s something about kids like this who just want to come here and whether or not they want to be here doing football stuff, they want to be outside enjoying the day.”
062525.S.FF.mauchcamp
Cody Mauch chats with youngsters at during the his football camp on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, at Wahpeton High School.
David Samson / The Forum
It’s a long day. The morning elementary session went from 10-a.m.-1 p.m. There was still an afternoon junior high session of another 250 kids to go.
ADVERTISEMENT
“It’s just neat seeing the kids look up to him,” Joe Mauch said. “I really believe he’s a really good role model for them so it’s pretty special just to know that many kids are interested.”
He’s Hankinson’s native NFL son after all. There is a billboard in town proclaiming Cody Mauch as their NFL guy, although he admits to being a little embarrassed at the attention.
“I remember I was going into Oakes and seeing the Phil Hansen billboard,” Mauch said. “I always thought that was the coolest thing ever but when it’s yourself up there, it’s like, this is a little bit weird. Three years ago if you would have told me any of this stuff is going on, I’d be like, you’re lying. It’s been a crazy couple of years.”
062525.S.FF.mauchcamp
Grey Zabel and Mason Miller help wiyh drills during the Cody Mauch football camp on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, at Wahpeton High School.
David Samson / The Forum
It was a crazy post-college process for Zabel, who is fresh off being a first-round draft pick of the Seattle Seahawks. It was a journey that Mauch paid close attention to.
“We talked all the time through that process just because I had just been through it,” Mauch said. “The whole process, the Senior Bowl, the Combine, all the visits he took to different teams, I had gone through the same thing two years before. We had the same kind of anxiety I think in how weird it is that in a week who knows where you’re going to live for the next ‘X’ amount of years. Just talking to him, he just crushed it.”
Mauch was leaving a Tampa Bay Lightning NHL playoff game when he watched Zabel being taken by the Seahawks on his phone.
“There is nothing cooler than seeing one of your best friends get drafted, especially as high as he did,” Mauch said.
ADVERTISEMENT
062525.S.FF.mauchcamp
Grey Zabel watches drills during the Cody Mauch football camp on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, at Wahpeton High School.
David Samson / The Forum
Miller signed a free-agent contract with the Detroit Lions. The Buccaneers travel to Detroit two weeks after playing at Seattle.
Mauch is coming off a highly successful year where he was flagged for just two penalties in almost 1,200 snaps. Just as important, he remained relatively healthy all season and gave up only two quarterback sacks.
“I had a good step up from the year before,” Mauch said. “I had kind of a tough rookie year, it’s just you’re learning so much but I learned a lot in the offseason going into year two and hoping I can do the same thing going into year three.”
[ Jeff Kolpack](https://www.inforum.com/Jeff Kolpack)
By [Jeff Kolpack](https://www.inforum.com/Jeff Kolpack)
Jeff would like to dispel the notion he was around when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, but he is on his third decade of reporting with Forum Communications. The son of a reporter and an English teacher, and the brother of a reporter, Jeff has worked at the Jamestown Sun, Bismarck Tribune and since 1990 The Forum, where he's covered North Dakota State athletics since 1995.
Jeff has covered all nine of NDSU's Division I FCS national football titles and has written three books: "Horns Up," "North Dakota Tough" and "Covid Kids." He is the radio host of "The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack" April through August.