A 6-foot-5, 266-pound tight end with a distinct ginger beard tried to sneak into the Gophers football team’s spring practice soon after it began on March 28.
But Super Bowl champion Nick Kallerup didn’t remain anonymous for long.
Once his former position coach, Eric Koehler, located him on the sideline, Koehler paused individual drills for him and the current crop of U tight ends to dap him up. Pausing their work was an indication of the level of respect and the type of legacy Kallerup left at the U.
The former walk-on from Wayzata High School developed into a valuable, do-the-dirty-work player at Minnesota over his final thee seasons from 2022-24. He signed with the Seattle Seahawks as an undrafted free agent last spring, made the 53-man roster and played in 11 total games in 2025, including two playoff wins, before lifting the Lombardi Trophy after Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, Calif.
“It was incredible,” Kallerup told the Pioneer Press. “It’s hard to believe that after the game we’re standing on a field as Super Bowl champions, getting to hold the trophy and celebrating with teammates in the locker room. Then the after party was great. I had all the family there. Really couldn’t have thought of anything better.”
Kallerup’s underdog story isn’t surprising to those who watched him grow inside the U’s Larson Football Performance Center. What they do remain astonished by is what Kallerup did to stay in a Big Ten game against fourth-ranked Penn State at Huntington Bank Stadium in November 2024.
“The story has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger,” head coach P.J. Fleck said. “It’s like Bigfoot.”
During a first-half play, Kallerup shattered the tip of his left pinky finger. In the locker room at halftime, the athletic training staff cut off the finger portion of the white Nike glove he was wearing to assess the damage.
What they saw was brutal. They used pliers to rip out pieces of his shattered fingernail and stretched skin from the bottom of his finger to the top and stitched it shut.
“Ended up making my finger about a quarter inch shorter,” Kallerup said in text messages. “… They also didn’t have time to let the numbing shot take any effect and just went right at it, so they could get me out by the second half.”
Koehler has been coaching college football for 29 years and has never seen that extreme level of toughness, especially without anesthetic.
“The tip of his finger literally exploded,” he marveled.
Koehler also gave credit to head athletic trainer Mike Sypniak and his staff for their care. “It was like Frankenstein,” he said.
Minnesota led Penn State 19-16 at the half and Kallerup returned to the game with a club over his left hand. He even caught a pass in the second half — one of nine grabs he had during his senior season — but the U fell just short in a 26-25 defeat.
“That toughness is derived by, one, his commitment to his teammates,” Koehler said. “Two, his commitment to the University of Minnesota and the state of Minnesota. He knew that we had to have him in that game.”
Before the Duke’s Mayo Bowl that December, the tight ends gathered for one of their monthly dinners and Kallerup gifted Koehler that cut-open glove in a shadow box that he signed and dated. It’s now on display in Koehler’s office, and visitors can’t help but ask questions about it.
Minnesota Gophers tight end Nick Kallerup gifted this football glove to his position coach Eric Koehler after the pinky finger portion needed to be cut off for a gruesome injury during the 26-25 loss to No. 4 Penn State at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Nov. 23, 2024. The glove is displayed in Koehler's office at the Larson Football Performance Center in Minneapolis. (Courtesy of Eric Koehler)
“It’s pretty neat. Will never forget that,” Koehler said. “That’ll be in my retirement home at some point.”
Kallerup’s career arch included overcoming long odds well before making it in the NFL. At Wazata, he was a 200-pound backup tight end when they moved him to right tackle for his junior year. He went back to tight end for his senior season and caught 34 passes for 647 yards and seven touchdowns.
His recruiting interest to play tight end came from Division II schools and a bunch of walk-on opportunities. He took his long shot with the Gophers.
Kallerup redshirted in 2019 and played mostly on special teams in five games in 2020. Then he played in 36 straight games in the final three years of his collegiate career in 2022-24, including after the gruesome pinky injury his senior year. His snap count went up each season from 19 to 284 to 347 before playing 431 snaps as a senior, according to Pro Football Focus.
“Nick wasn’t a huge vocal leader in the tight end room, but his example of how he did things were an incredible guiding force for the room,” Koehler said. “We are young in our room right now and a couple older guys are going to his (April) wedding to his high school sweetheart.”
Gophers’ tight ends are a close-knit group — whether it’s the tough-love bond between Ko Kieft, who just re-signed with Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Brevyn Spann-Ford, who has found a home with the Dallas Cowboys, or how the current TEs rallied around outgoing seniors Jameson Geers and Drew Bieber during the U Pro Day in mid-March. Then there was their greeting of Kallerup at the late-March practice.
“That was fairly good example of just the camaraderie and how they felt about Nick when he saw him at practice that day,” Koehler said.
Minnesota Gophers tight end Nick Kallerup (87) pulls down a Minnesota Gophers quarterback Max Brosmer (16) pass for a first down against the Maryland Terrapins in the fourth quarter of an NCAA football game at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. The Gophers beat Maryland, 48-23. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Kallerup’s opportunity in the NFL came primarily via ability to run block; he ended his U career with a strong 81.7 grade in that category from PFF.
“For him to be an undrafted free agent, quite frankly, with the number of tight ends most NFL teams keep, they probably shouldn’t even have kept him,” Koehler said. “But he played so well in training camp and in the preseason that they knew if they if they cut him and put him on the practice squad, he would get signed by another team.”
In Seattle, Kallerup joined former Gopher defensive end Boye Mafe, who was drafted by the Seahawks in the second round in 2022.
“(Mafe) wasn’t really paying attention to the the draft last year, so I showed up in the locker room and saw him,” Kallerup said. “He was like, ‘Oh, Nick, what are you doing here?’ I was like, “Dude, I just signed undrafted.’ He’s like, ‘Let’s go!”
Kallerup didn’t play in the opening eight weeks last season, but totaled 204 total snaps down the stretch. He played in the divisional round and the conference championship games, but didn’t make it on the field in the Super Bowl.
In Seattle, he said he had to bring the same mindset he had as a walk-on in Dinkytown, where he thrived because of success within the program’s pillars: accountability, hard work and toughness.
“It’s just built into me; that’s how I got in here,” Kallerup said during the Gophers’ practice in March. “I knew nothing was given. I knew I had to earn it. Any day (in the NFL), they can cut you at any point. It’s really crazy, knowing that you’re going to come in with the intent and the attitude to either take someone’s job or earn your own spot. Starting here as a walk-on really prepared me for that and kind of engrained that into my mind.”
Kallerup’s against-the-odds tale centers around a pinky and no promises.