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VOLUME 43 • NUMBER 23 • MAY 1, 2025 $2 per print copy Since 1982 Or read online at www.villagerpublishing.com
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Cherry Creek High School’s Gunnar Helm is going to the NFL BY FREDA MIKLIN STAFF WRITER
021 Cherry Creek High School graduate and Texas Longhorn tight end Gunnar Helm is going to the NFL. He was selected as the 120th pick by the Tennessee Titans in the fourth round of the draft in Green Bay on April 26. According to NFL.com, in any given year, there are 300 openings in the National Football League and one million high school football players. That calculates out to a 0.0003 chance of any individual high school player getting that cherished call a few years later on draft day. In January 2021, we wrote about Gunnar Helm receiving full-ride-plus-stipend offers from 29 different colleges during his senior year at Creek. His dad, Blake Helm, told us four years ago that Gunnar chose the University of Texas at Austin after meeting with Coach Tom Herman, because, Blake said, Gunnar “knew it was the right place for him.” Gunnar Helm comes from a distinguished football family. His paternal grandfather, Roger Helm, played at Cherry Creek, then was an all-state tight end in Iowa. Roger’s two sons, Blake and Corey, also played football at Creek.
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Corey went on to play outside linebacker all four years at CSU, where he was captain of the defense as a senior. In 1979, when his sons were at Creek, Roger organized the Cherry Creek Touchdown Club, the official football booster club that still exists today. Football genes are on both sides of Gunnar’s family. His maternal grandfather, Bernie Elsner, was a starting lineman for the University of Illinois and played on a team that won the Rose Bowl. The Tennessee Titans reported on their website that Gunnar appeared in 54 games at UT Austin, with 25 starts. The Titans also reported that he made 79 catches for 1,022 yards and nine touchdowns in his college career. If anything could be more exciting for Gunnar Helm and his family than just getting the opportunity to play in the NFL, it would be to catch passes and block for the NFL’s 2025 number-one draft pick, quarterback Cam Ward, who it so happens is also going to be a Titan. And it has been widely reported that Ward reached out to his future tight end as soon as he was announced as a Titans’ pick. Dave Logan was Gunnar’s coach at Cherry Creek. The Villager reached out to Coach Logan and asked him to describe his former player. Coach told us, “I would say Gunnar loves to compete, is a big talented athlete and has a high football IQ.”
Gunnar Helm playing for the University of Texas Longhorns
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Photo courtesy of Tennessee Titans