Kloo 'Couldn't Say No' To Chance In Germany

HARRISONBURG — Football is the reason Jonathan Kloosterman is moving overseas.

The thought of an adventure didn’t hurt either.

“As long as I can order some wienerschnitzel and some beer, I guess I’ll be good, right?” the former James Madison tight end said with a chuckle. “All you got to do is eat the brats and drink the beer with them, and you’ll fit right in.

“I like those two things.”

Kloosterman said he leaves for Landsberg am Lech, Germany, on March 11 and will stay for six months as his pro career begins with the Landsberg X-Press — a team in the southern division of the Regionalliga.

“The big thing is I told myself that if I ever got another opportunity to go play football, even if it’s just for one season, I’d take advantage of it,” Kloosterman said. “I didn’t go out the way I wanted to at JMU.

“First off, we lost the national championship game in my last game ever and that hurts a little bit, and I want to have a way better year than my senior year with all the injuries and suspension and that stuff. It took a toll, and so if I ever got that opportunity, it was going to be for me and for me to show myself that I still got it.”

At JMU, Kloosterman earned first-team All-Colonial Athletic Association honors in 2016 when he hauled in 24 catches for 322 yards and seven touchdowns during the Dukes’ run to a national title. He had a 14-yard touchdown catch for the first score of Madison’s FCS championship game win over Youngstown State.

But as he said, he couldn’t replicate the same level of success as a senior in 2017 when he was in and out the lineup finishing with only eight grabs, 81 yards and two touchdowns.

“I kind of had accepted that I wasn’t going to play anymore,” Kloosterman said. “But then this popped up, so I was like, ‘Shoot, I’ll play again.’”

Kloosterman, a Strasburg High School product, said he was on his way to work — he’s a strength coach at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington and personal trainer at True Athletic Performance in Chantilly — when he received an out-of-nowhere Facebook message from the Landsberg X-Press coach to gauge his interest in playing.

“I couldn’t say no to it,” Kloosterman said. “It’s not like I was actively searching for it, but he needed a tight end and I think because I signed up on Podyum (an online scouting service) like a year ago, that’s probably where he saw my name and then looked at my highlights on YouTube a little bit, and I was just like, ‘OK.’”

Ahead of making the choice to move to Germany, he said he chatted with former JMU receiver Brandon Ravenel, who plays professionally in Spain for the Barcelona Dracs, about living away from the United States and playing football in Europe.

Kloosterman said Ravenel’s advice was valued.

“He said it was one of the greatest experiences he’s ever had,” Kloosterman said.

The bruising tight end with good hands said, because of his job, he’s in shape to play.

Additionally, he regularly catches passes from former Dukes quarterback Bryan Schor, who is preparing for his first season with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League, so it’s not like Kloosterman’s football skills have diminished from not putting the pads on over the last year.

“I’m not going in cold turkey and I feel 10 times better than I did in my senior year, so might as well go,” Kloosterman said.

He said his mom was worried about not seeing him for six months, but that her and the rest of his family and his girlfriend have all encouraged him to make the most of his time with the X-Press.

“I get to go to Germany for six months and the coach was like, ‘it’s a paid vacation,’” Kloosterman said. “So I talked to him a bit and he gave me the ins and outs of it over the next week and now is the time to do it. I’ve never been over to Europe. I’m young, so I kind of just said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Landsberg am Lech is located in the southern part of the country, so Kloosterman said he’s planning to visit Austria and Switzerland, too. And because the team practices only two or three times a week, he’ll have the time to do it.

“When you can go explore the world while playing football, you have to take it,” he said.