Watching Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker take on Chinese mobsters on the streets of Los Angeles in “Rush Hour” did little to prepare Geraldo Boldewijn for life in Boise, Idaho.
Yet America became synonymous with action to the Falcons’ wide receiver while he grew up in Amsterdam.
Action movies and TV shows depicting life in the United States were the hyperbolic representations to which Boldewijn compared his initial impressions when he and a handful of his best friends embarked on an ambitious trip to try out football in the states.
Inspired by Cedric Febis, a Dutch safety at Boise State whom they did not know at the time, Boldewijn and his buddies enrolled in a summer football camp at the university.
The scenic foothills of Idaho were not in Boldewijn’s favorite action flicks, but that mattered not. The 17-year-old was wholly enamored of football and he would not, could not leave it.
“We loved it so much that we were willing to leave our home country, leave our families,” Boldewijn said. “I was a momma’s boy. It was hard for me to leave my mom and my sisters back home.”
Shortly after that camp in the summer of 2008, Boldewijn met the McMartins. They graciously put him up in their home, where English was now the language du jour. No Dutch, no Surinamese, no German. He enrolled at Capital High School and joined its football team. American high school was exactly how TV shows had helped him picture it.
“It was supposed to be a one-year plan, but it ended up being a six-year plan,” Boldewijn said.
One year of high school football, a scholarship offer and five years at Boise State later, and the plan’s duration still seems rather infinite.
Boldewijn stands alongside his fellow Falcons receivers, his 6-foot-4 frame casting shadows taller than the likes of Bernard Reedy and Tramaine Thompson. The undrafted free agent’s strides are long, much like his arms. Whereas the 5-foot-9 Reedy and 5-foot-8 Thompson see the ball soar over their heads and out of reach during one deep-ball drill, Boldewijn finds himself slowing down near the end of his route, his legs carrying him more quickly than the quarterback anticipated.
“He’s the one guy that I will say has been impressive for us,” receivers coach Terry Robiskie said of Boldewijn.
Because Roddy White and Julio Jones were limited in their activity early on during the offseason, Boldewijn had the chance to show Robiskie the potential he has.
“For the first couple of practices and weeks, and again I’m talking about in the OTAs, he thought he was still playing at Boise,” Robiskie said. “Then over the summer, he went home and ran and trained and got in shape. … He’s a guy that every day when I put him in, I really stop to focus and watch him because he’s got a chance to do something.”
Boldewijn’s attentiveness in the meeting room and his focus on the field have left Harry Douglas equally impressed.
“That’s what’s good about the game, well any sport really, when you get the opportunity to go in there and shine and make plays, you make them. (Boldewijn and Reedy) have been doing that, and it’s a good thing to see.”
Hearing Douglas’ words of praise just about made Boldewijn’s day. When he’s not getting in extra reps long after practice has concluded, Boldewijn sometimes reflects on how he ended up in Flowery Branch in the first place.
“Sometimes I’m still looking at (White, Jones, Douglas and Devin Hester) in the meetings and they joke around and I’m like, ‘Man, I can’t believe I’m just in the same meeting room with those guys,’” Boldewijn said.
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