Philly high school football player is an all-star on the field and in the dance studio

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Steven Tetkowski, 17, has high confidence in the Philadelphia Eagles this Sunday. He will be watching the Super Bowl wearing his Saquon Barkley jersey and cheering on his heroes.

“Jalen Carter’s been a beast. Cooper DeJean, he’s been great. Blankenship, he’s been great. CJ Gardner — you can name every position, and I think they’re one of the top at their position,” he said. “I’m very, very hopeful.”

Tetkowski has a keen perspective for what happens on the gridiron as a kicker for the varsity team at George Washington High School.

He is also dancing ballet at the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush school through the Philadelphia Ballet’s High School Choreographic Mentorship Program. Tetkowski is one of those rare teenagers who can straddle both football and dance at the same time.

“Dancing is a very time-consuming and competitive art and sport. I say to my dancers all the time: Dancers are athletes,” said Jourdan Howland-Townsend, manager of community education for the Philadelphia Ballet.

“I don’t know how Steven does it,” she said. “I’ve been dancing since I was 3 years old. I danced in a performing arts high school as well, and I didn’t have any other time.”

Tetkowski, a Philly native, said he also started dancing at 3 years old, informally whenever the mood struck him. Which was always.

“You know how when you go into malls they play music in the stores. I would grab a fedora hat and put it on and break dance in the middle of the store,” he recalled. “People would come up to my parents and be like, ‘Oh my god, your kid should start dancing.’ My dad was skeptical first, but then he realized that’s something I love to do.”

Formal dance classes started when he was 5, mostly hip hop, which led to a two-year gig dancing in Los Angeles for the children’s music content platform Kidz Bop when he was 12.

Sport was also a constant factor in his upbringing. He has played soccer, football, volleyball and ran track. Sports and dance were never in competition with each other. For Tetkowski, they are two sides of the same coin.

“Both have become second nature and an outlet for me, in different ways,” he said. “Ballet and dance let the emotions that aren’t as touched on in sports. Like, my anger and all of that can be let out in sports. If I’m a kicker, if I get mad I’m just going to crush a ball. In soccer if I get mad, do a hard tackle. There are sides to each that balance. I need both.”

Not just emotionally, but physically the two disciplines complement each other. Tetkowski watches other players on the field and notes how dance exercises could help them excel.

“For punting, the higher I can get my leg the more power I get behind it,” he said. “In ballet, we’re doing kicks down the run the entire day. I’m learning how to get force behind my leg and really get up there to get power to kick a ball.”

“For place kicking, the more I rotate out on my hip, the more I can get the side of my foot, the more power it has. In ballet we work on turnout the entire class. It’s built my hips up and my groin up to where it’s a lot easier for me to turn out my leg,” he said.

Tetkowski’s kicking prowess landed him on the public school all-star team, playing in the Philadelphia City All-Star game in May.

He has to play for the nearby George Washington Eagles because the Arts Academy does not have a sports program, with the exception of a bowling team, for which it ranks second in the city.

And, yes, Tetkowski is on that team, too.

Tetkowski’s life of dance and sports is unusual, but not unique. The MVP of Super Bowl X in 1975 was Pittsburgh Steeler wide receiver Lynn Swann, a trained ballet dancer who credited his dance background for his skills on the field. Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker once performed on stage with a professional ballet company, the Fort Worth Ballet, as did wide receiver Willie Gault in Chicago.

The TV competition show “Dancing with the Stars” boasts two dozen contestants from the NFL, including six Super Bowl MVP winners. The first was San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jerry Rice in 2006, when judge Len Goodman criticized his jive as “Jerry-atric.” The next season Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing yards, was so good he walked away with the show’s Mirrorball Trophy.

Championship MVP players on DWTS also include Buffalo Bills’ Von Miller, St. Louis Rams’ Kurt Warner, Baltimore Ravens’ Ray Lewis, and Pittsburgh Steelers’ Hines Ward.

The conflation of dance and sports has become increasingly normalized for kids like Tetkowski.

“If we were having this interview 30 years ago, this would have been an entirely different experience for him,” Howland-Townsend said. “I don’t know if he would have gotten the same kind of support from his sports team that he gets for being a dancer. And vice versa: I don’t know if he would have gotten the same support from his dance studio for also choosing to play sports.”

Tetkowski is now designing his own choreography through the Philadelphia Ballet’s High School Choreographic Mentorship Program, which has been teaching students how to create original dance in a half dozen schools around the city. The 2024-2025 school year is the program’s first time at the Arts Academy.

The program spends several months guiding students to create movements based on prompts: this cohort is responding to three questions: What is your personal dream, your professional dream, and your dream for your community?

Tetkowski is basing his dance on football.

“It’s tapping into emotions and putting that into movement, instead of just making movement in general,” he said. “We’re tapping into what I want to see for myself in my profession and what I want to see in my community.”

All of the participants in the city-wide Choreographic Mentorship Program will gather for a collective dance recital to be scheduled for late April or early May. Which will be close to a double-header for Tetkowski’s: His all-city football game is scheduled for May 18.