Central Bucks West Senior Flourishes On Field

His “oma” couldn’t take it. Her crash course in American culture was greeted with cupped hands to shield her eyes from this foreign sport, because only God knows what was happening on that field with each piercing crunch of shoulder pads.

Dan Sergeyev’s grandmother, his oma, was staying with his family from Germany. She thought she was going to watch him play soccer. It wasn't until after her first quarter of American football that she was able to watch.

For Dan Sergeyev, a 6-foot-2, 235-pound senior two-way lineman for , football was an instant love. It was just an odd, jagged path that led him from Germany, to Mexico, to Michigan, to Chalfont, Bucks County.

Sergeyev’s roots actually go back to Tajikistan, a province of the old Soviet Union. From there, his father Alexander moved to Germany, where he met his mother, an American originally from Bucks County who was a nurse working in France at the time.

Sergeyev’s unique background has enabled him to absorb three different languages, English, German and Russian.

“I guess I have seen the world,” said Sergeyev, who was born in Germany and has dual citizenship. “I lived in Germany until I was eight, then we moved to Mexico for a year, and I didn’t really play a sport until I was introduced to baseball when we moved to Michigan. I started football late, considering most kids begin playing the sport in this country when they’re around six or seven years old.”

Sergeyev’s first experience with organized football began when he was in seventh grade. He adjusted quickly to the various stances and plays. He enjoyed the physical nature of the game.

“Nothing else lets you do the things that you do in football, except wrestling, which is my off-season sport to keep me in shape for football,” Sergeyev said. “But my father, being from Russia and Germany, was never big on football. He really didn’t understand the sport until last year. Now he’ll watch Eagles games with me, but he’s a big hockey guy, that’s what he likes to watch. His sports are soccer and cycling. Call it a cultural thing.”

It wasn’t a difficult transition when he moved to the United States, except for the weather (“It’s much hotter in America than Germany,” he says. “Their summers might get as high as 85 degrees.”). He didn’t speak with an accent. He’s much more fluent in German than Russian.

“We speak mostly German in the house, and I can write and speak German, but the German culture is different,” Sergeyev said. “We lived in a small apartment and would ride bikes as a family everywhere when we lived in Germany. I was riding a bike when I was four. Here, we drive cars all of the time. Every summer, we go to Germany to visit my father’s family, except this past summer. We went on college visits.”

Sergeyev carries a 4.1 GPA out of a weighted 4.0 GPA at Central Bucks West, and he’s scored 1,950 on the 2,400 SAT. He’s an exceptional football player who mixes a high amount of intelligence on the field with boundless energy. He intends to play football at a high-academic school.

“Dan is about as high a character kid as you’ll find,” Bucks’ coach Brian Hensel said. “He’s completely selfless in everything he does. He’s been a two-way starter since his sophomore year and he’s helped us through some rough times. He’s Ivy League bound, in my opinion. He’s much more mature than other kids his age, and I think that comes from his cultural background, which is far beyond the average kid. That sets him apart from others. He’s a disciplined kid.”

A kid whose oma, which is German for grandmother, can watch his games now. She doesn’t completely understand American football, but she doesn’t hide her eyes anymore, either.