THE COLE FILE
Great Midwest Athletic Conference Track Athlete of the Year, 2014.
Kentucky Wesleyan’s Most Valuable Player, 2014
Associated Press Little College All-American third team, 2015
Associated Press Little College All-American, first team, 2016.
By Lenn Robbins
Keelan Cole shouldn’t be in the NFL. The Raiders wide receiver was 5-foot-5, 125-pound high school freshman. He played his college ball at Kentucky Wesleyan, not exactly a Southeastern Conference power.
So how and why did he make it? From the time he was about five years old, Cole was focused on making his NFL dream come true. He attacked the weight room with the enthusiasm of a vacationer hitting the poolside bar at Happy Hour.
He was so focused that when he arrived at the Jaguars training camp in 2018, he didn’t have cable, Netflix or Hulu, according to published reports. He watched YouTube mostly to study other wide receivers.
Now the 6-foot-1, 194-pound Cole begins his sixth NFL season in arguably his best chance to exceed. Cole will be the third wide receiver behind Davante Adams and Hunter Renfrow. Tight end Darren Waller figures to draw more attention from opposing defenses than Cole.
This doesn’t faze Cole. After all, he’s been overlooked his entire football life.