How Jaeger ’27 Found a Second Home Far from Home on Football, Faith, and Belonging
February 12, 2026By: Kaede Takaishi '26
When Noel Jaeger ’27 talks about his life, one theme comes up again and again: athletics have always been at the center. From chasing a soccer ball as a child in Germany to lining up on the field as an American football player at the University of Mount Union, his story is about following opportunity, embracing change, and choosing courage over comfort.
“I started playing soccer when I was three or four years old,” he says. “Athletics has always been a part of my life.” That early love of sports didn’t just give him something to do after school—it shaped how he understood discipline, teamwork, and personal growth.
But the turning point came in an unexpected way, through a family tradition and a shift in German television programming.
Discovering American Football
Noel grew up watching the NFL with his father. For a while, football disappeared from free TV in Germany, and with it, part of his dad’s weekly routine.
“They started broadcasting the NFL games in 2015 on free TV channels,” Noel explains. “My dad, he watched the games when he was younger and then they stopped broadcasting it. When they started it again, my dad was like, ‘Let’s watch it.’ And I joined him.”
What started as something he simply watched with his father slowly became a passion of his own. The speed, strategy, and physicality of American football captured his attention in a way that felt different from anything else.
The Summer That Changed Everything
In the summer of 2020, in the middle of the disruptions and uncertainty brought on by COVID-19, Noel made a decision that would change his life.
“After COVID, I decided I wanted to try football out, play it myself, and that’s when I started,” he says.
At first, football was just something new, a challenge to test himself physically and mentally. But once he began playing, he realized how complex and demanding the sport really is.
“With football, there are so many techniques and stuff I can learn,” Noel explains. “I have to be on spot on every single time I do something.”
That sense of endless growth potential is what pulled him in. Soccer was familiar; football was full of unexplored possibilities.
“Mount Union answered me within one or two hours. They helped me with the VISA process, the admission process, and everything. They made me feel like they would love to have me as a student and that this was the right place for me.”
Choosing a New Path
For a time, Noel tried to balance both sports, soccer and football. In Germany’s club system that meant juggling practices and games for two different teams in two different cities.
“The soccer team I played for was in my hometown,” he says. “The football club I went to was like a 30-minute car drive from my hometown. So I did both for a while, but then I realized I missed a lot of soccer practices to go to football practices and football games.”
He reached a crossroads. Doing both at a high level simply wasn’t sustainable.
“I sat down and told myself ‘You can’t do both at the same time. You have to choose,’” Noel says. “I felt like because I played soccer for so long, I knew a lot about the game already. But with football, because I had only played it for like a year then, there was still a lot of room to grow for me as a player and as an athlete.”
That growth mindset has become a defining part of who he is. “It was a hard decision to quit my childhood sport, but I said to myself, ‘I want to spend my time on football,’ because I think there’s more I can improve on,” Noel said.
Looking back, he’s grateful for that choice. “It was a good decision, I guess, because otherwise I probably wouldn’t be at Mount Union.”
A Dream Across the Ocean
Like many international football players, Noel dreamed of taking his game to the United States, where the sport is not just popular—it’s part of the culture.
“When you start playing football and watching it, it’s the dream for every player overseas to be able to go to the U.S. and play football in the motherland of the game.”
For Noel, the appeal wasn’t just the level of competition. It was also the opportunity to grow under highly experienced coaches.
“In Germany, coaches have a normal job, and they coach a team in their free time because of the love of the game,” he explains. “Here we have coaches who do it full-time. They all have played on a high-level field, and some have NFL experience, and they can bring that to a player like me.”
That combination of high-level coaching, intense competition, and structured development made the U.S. the ideal destination for his next chapter.
Why Mount Union?
Noel’s path to Mount Union began with national recognition in Germany. He played for his state’s all-star team in one of the biggest youth football events in Europe in 2022, an experience that put his name on the radar of national coaches and scouting organizations.
“I was a team captain for my state,” he says. “The tournament itself wasn’t what I hoped for. Because I didn’t play my best games. But it got my name out there.”
Later, an organization that connects European players with U.S. colleges invited him on a week-long tour of America college football camps in the summer of 2023.
“At one of the camps, one coach from Mount Union was there and sent me a message over X (Twitter) after the camp,” Noel recalls. “He asked if I would be interested in coming to Mount Union. We got in contact, I sent him my highlight tape and things went from there.”
What ultimately convinced him to choose Mount Union was the responsiveness, warmth, and support he received during the admission process.
“Mount Union answered me within one or two hours,” he says. “They helped me with the VISA process, the admission process, and everything. They made me feel like they would love to have me as a student and that this was the right place for me.”
Finding a Second Home
Today, Noel is thriving as a student-athlete majoring in sport business, marketing, and management. The boy who once watched NFL games beside his father in Germany now competes on an American field and studies the industry behind the sport he loves.
“Mount Union is a great place,” he says. “Even though you’re thousands of miles away, you feel like people care about you. You feel like you belong to something.”
For Noel, that’s the real victory—not just crossing the goal line, but finding a community that feels like home.