Nick Volk, a 2014 Frankenmuth High School graduate, is shown at Michigan Stadium after the April 4 intrasquad spring game there. Volk, son of Joe and Margie Volk, is a fullback for Michigan. (Photo by John Cook)
By Tom Gilchrist
Sports Editor
ANN ARBOR — Nick Volk, a 2014 Frankenmuth High graduate, is off at college, away from home and getting pushed around now and then.
He relieves stress by strapping on the winged helmet of the University of Michigan — as a fullback for new coach Jim Harbaugh.
“It’s still crazy. I still wake up and have to pinch myself every morning,” said Volk, 19, asked what it’s like to play football at Michigan.
“My dad reminds me all the time,” Volk said. “He says ‘Just go out there and have fun, because you’re not supposed to be here.’ And it’s true. That’s a great quote, and very true.”
Volk, a 5-foot-11-inch, 238-pound redshirt freshman, is the son of Joe and Margie Volk of Saginaw County’s Birch Run Township. He played for the “blue” team in the April 4 Michigan intrasquad spring game at Michigan Stadium.
Volk is a preferred walk-on player — asked to try out for the squad last year by then-coach Brady Hoke’s staff — who made the team as a linebacker but switched to fullback after Harbaugh arrived as head coach this year.
Nick’s dad, Joe Volk, a 1979 Akron-Fairgrove High School graduate, played fullback, too — for Akron-Fairgrove coach Jim Volk.
“I told Nicholas that ‘You give kids from small programs hope,’” Joe Volk said.
Nick Volk said fellow Michigan students laugh when they learn he hails from the small town of Frankenmuth, one of Michigan’s top tourist attractions. His hometown, however, made an impression after Volk initiated a meeting with Harbaugh, a former Michigan quarterback and NFL player who coached the San Francisco 49ers in the 2013 Super Bowl.
On March 4, Harbaugh sent a tweet on Twitter, saying “Happy 19th Birthday to UofM Fullback Nick Volk from The Great Michigan town of Frankenmuth, also known for the Best Chicken you’ll ever eat”.
Following the April 4 spring game, a Tuscola County Advertiser reporter asked Volk whether Harbaugh prefers chicken dinners from the Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn or from Zehnder’s of Frankenmuth, the two venerable eateries in the middle of Frankenmuth.
“He said ‘Zehnder’s,’” Volk said. “The first thing he said when he met me and I said where I was from, he said ‘Zehnder’s, man, they’ve got the best chicken in the world.’ I said ‘Of course. Yeah.’”
Volk said he forced the meeting with Harbaugh, hired after Michigan dismissed Hoke.
“I stalked (Harbaugh’s) office for a week, honestly, trying to find the time when he was in the office,” Volk said. “Every time I was at the building, I showed up an hour early to go check his office, and I would go right there after I was done with my workout, and he was never in there. Finally, after a week of staring it down, I caught him and grabbed him and sat him down and talked to him.”
Volk had been listed as a linebacker for Hoke, but Volk wanted to switch to fullback.
“He was a new coach,” Volk said. “I wanted him to know who I am and to get my name in his head.”
Volk, who hopes to apply next spring to the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, said his conference with Harbaugh went well.
“I walked in and introduced myself and he sat back and said ‘What’s your story?’” Volk said. “I went in there to propose the idea (of becoming a fullback). As soon as I said it, he kind of looked up and down and said ‘Of course, why not? You look like a fullback. We’ll play you at fullback.’”
Volk was an all-conference quarterback his senior year at Frankenmuth in the Tri-Valley Conference East Division for coach Phil Martin, and recalls doing battle with players such as Doug Stikeleather of North Branch, Derrick Nash of Carrollton and Alex Neering of Essexville Garber.
“Millington always played us hard,” Volk said. “Their whole defense always swarmed us on the ball.”
As a junior in high school, Volk was an all-conference linebacker for head coach Tim VanWormer. These days, Volk duels bigger players regularly at Michigan. During the spring game, he locked horns after a play with Joe Bolden, a 6-foot-3-inch, 232-pound linebacker. Harbaugh, who was on the field behind the offensive line the whole game, was looking on.
“He’s intense, he’s an awesome guy,” Volk said of his coach. “I’ve known him for three months but he is a great guy. He’s an outstanding coach, he’s involved in everything. He’s everywhere on the field. I swear there’s three of him running around at practice. Every time I turn around and look, he’s popped up again, doing something.”
Volk hopes to bring intensity, too, as a fullback this fall. As a redshirt freshman, he has four remaining seasons of athletic eligibility.
“You don’t come here and hope to not play,” Volk said. “Anytime any walk-on plays, we all celebrate. We call it ‘Walk-on Nation.’ Every walk-on that gets on the field, we all celebrate for him. We’re all rallied around him. Even the idea of (playing football at Michigan), honestly, is so far off, but I mean I certainly would hope to.
“I intend to. I’m preparing to play.”
He’s also hitting the books and the weights. When asked why Michigan asked him to try out for the team as a walk-on, Volk said “Mostly, honestly, it’s my grades and my strength.”
Volk said Kyle Bierlein, an assistant football coach at Frankenmuth and also a former walk-on football player at Michigan, helped get Volk to Ann Arbor. Bierlein has worked as strength-and-conditioning coach at Michigan and the University of Utah.
“He came up to me after practice (at Frankenmuth) one day and asked where I wanted to go to college, and I said I was going to Michigan and that was the only place I wanted to apply to,’” Volk said. “He said ‘You ever think about playing there?’ and I just kind of laughed at him.”
Volk, however, said Bierlein made the calls to the Michigan coaching staff that landed Volk a trip to Ann Arbor as a recruit. Volk accepted then-assistant coach Mark Smith’s invitation to join the squad last summer.
“I owe Bierlein everything I can possibly give that man,” Volk said.
Volk aims to keep improving in the coming months in the weight room and classroom before Michigan’s opening game Sept. 3 at Utah. He said he has very good pass-catching ability, a skill he figures will benefit him under Harbaugh.
“In this offense,” Volk said, “a fullback is much more likely to catch a pass than to run the ball.”