Like most kids growing up in Sweden, Sam Vretman aspired to be a professional hockey player.
These days, the Rutgers offensive lineman aspires to be a professional football player.
A distant cousin of former NHL player Kenneth Kennholt, Vretman was a member of Sweden’s under-14 club that won a World Junior Ice Hockey Championship cup in 2012.
“I was pretty good (at hockey),” Vretman said. “I was on a very good youth team. But I kind of lost interest in it after a while, and football gave me a new start to sports in general.”
Recapping Rutgers football’s national signing day haul and moving forward
After a nomadic three years that took him to Idaho as a foreign exchange student and to a Connecticut prep school, Vretman has found a home at Rutgers, where he enrolled early in his quest to play as a true freshman in 2017.
“He’s actually almost 19, so he’s a year older than most of the freshman. But he is one nasty dude,” Rutgers offensive line coach A.J. Blazek said last week at a Signing Day event. “And I’m telling you right now, just from the two weeks we’ve had in (winter) camp, he’s a guy you might see a little bit out there. He’s very focused, he’s very strong. Physically he might be a little advanced from the others just from a strength standpoint. So we’re going to be very excited to have Sam Vretman on the field for us.”
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Considering he’s played less than five years of organized football, Vretman understands his chances for early playing time are dependent on how quickly he adapts to his first taste of college life.
“Definitely they push you a lot harder here,” Vretman said. “The difference is the resources they have here. But I think the work that I did before really has prepared me for the workouts here, and I’m doing pretty good for being an incoming freshman. As time goes on I think I’ll be a physically developed player.
“It’s totally different than high school but I think I’m adapting and getting used to everything, especially the academic transition and especially the workouts in the morning and I think everything is going fine.”
Listed a 6-foot-6 and 300 pounds, Vretman was born in Sweden and lived in Upplands Vasby, a suburb of the country’s capital city, Stockholm, until he moved to the United States when he was 17.
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After initially attending a high school in Meridian, Idaho, Vretman competed at Cheshire Academy in Connecticut last fall.
“The sport (football) is not big in Sweden but it’s definitely there,” said Vretman, a consensus three-star recruit who was recruited to Rutgers by tight ends coach Vince Okruch after attracting interest as a result of a standout performance at a Nike northeast regional combine two years ago.
“My dad played football in the 80s and when I quit hockey he wanted me to play football. So I tried out, and gave it a shot and was pretty good at it. I played there for about two seasons. And then I went to a camp, and after that I went as an exchange student to Idaho and after that I went for 1 1/2 years to a private school in Connecticut. And then from there I came here.”
According to Databasefootball.com, seven Swedish-born players have played in the NFL.
“The sport is definitely growing,” Vretman said. “There are a lot of kids like me. This year I would say there have been about 10 people from Europe — Germans, people from Denmark, Sweden — signing with Division I schools.”
Vretman points to a childhood friend, Jordan Genmark-Heath, a three-star defensive back who signed with Notre Dame last week, as a prime example of the Scandinavian nation’s growing crop of football recruits.
“(Genmark-Heath) is a guy I grew up playing football with in Sweden — we played two years together — then he moved over to the U.S. and he played in California,” Vretman said. “Just like me, he’s a successful story.”
Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.
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