Northfield’s Elian Oliva wins 2025 Gold Helmet Award with physicality, speed and glizty 5.02 GPA

Elian Oliva s rise to high school football stardom started with getting kicked off the field It was the summer before his sophomore season and the Northfield linebacker was at the CSU Pueblo camp with his band He was playing on a side field in a junior varsity scrimmage until camp directors promptly quashed that His physicality and level of play was so intense that the camp staff literally removed him from the field Northfield football head coach Ben Startzer recalled with a laugh They disclosed it just wasn t safe for the other teams for him to be at that level That moment kind of raised all our coaches eyebrows like Wow maybe we ve got something here ' Northfield High School linebacker Elian Oliva runs back an interception against Skyline High School during a Colorado State A playoff meeting on Friday Nov at All City Stadium in Denver Photo by Timothy Hurst The Denver Post What Northfield had was a Gold Helmet Award winner in the making Oliva is the winner of the award presented annually by The Denver Post to the state s top senior football performer scholar and citizen since In addition to being the Nighthawks nightmare for opposing offenses the Air Force pledge is exceptional in the classroom GPA and in the region That package made Oliva the first Gold Helmet Award winner in Northfield s brief history and also the first winner from Denver Citizens Schools since Thomas Jefferson tailback Marcus Houston won in Since coming into a starting role for Northfield midway through his sophomore year a couple months after getting banned from the JV field that day at camp Oliva s emerged as one of the majority of dynamic defenders in all of Colorado The combination of his speed -yard dash physicality and football I Q had Startzer kicking himself that he didn t put Oliva into the lineup sooner It was one of those things where once he started playing consistently we as coaches looked at each other and reported Are we the dumb ones Because this maybe should ve happened a while ago ' Startzer mentioned Since that moment on every play it s like he s two attempts ahead of everyone Oliva had tackles including for loss six sacks two forced fumbles three interceptions a rushing TD and a defensive TD in In his career he had tackles for loss and sacks He was selected as the Gold Helmet Award winner by the Gold Helmet Award Corporation voting committee which consists of past award winners Denver Post staff and other Colorado media Of the ballots cast Oliva was named in voters top-five ranking of candidates on of them While his football and academic prowess stood out among the six finalists so too did his work outside the lines and the classroom The -year-old co-founded Northfield s UNICEF chapter was a math tutor for peers struggling in the subject is a youth flag football coach and spent the last four years as a summer-camp counselor As the -foot- -pound brawny brainiac explains he finds well-roundedness captivating I ve never desired to be too focused on one area of my life because I think expanding myself and applying myself to multiple things allows for both more personal fulfillment as well as allows me to help other people in other solutions Oliva commented Oliva s eye-popping GPA is because he s spent the majority of high school stacking his schedule with and acing weighted Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses Northfield social studies educator Dr Sia Anderson who had Oliva in her AP Human Geography class describes the football athlete as the kind of aspirant who makes everyone around him better He listens deeply asks thoughtful questions and finds the why behind whatever we re studying Anderson noted I still use several of his projects as examples because they weren t just done well they established real insight When we studied population and migration he pushed beyond the basics and connected it to residents robustness and medicine which was the first time I saw how strongly he tied his academic interests to his future goals He has a way of taking big global ideas and making them feel personal and relevant Oliva the son of two doctors wants to pursue combat medicine in the Air Force Also a track athlete who placed second at the Class A state meet last spring in the -meter hurdles Oliva took a step up in leadership for the Northfield football campaign as a senior Northfield High School linebacker Elian Oliva celebrates a fumble recovery against Skyline High School during a Colorado State A playoff contest on Friday Nov at All City Stadium in Denver Photo by Timothy Hurst The Denver Post That started at the group s summer camp back at CSU Pueblo where he first turned Startzer s head This time Oliva needed to rally the company the night before the camp s King of the Hill competition after a group of Nighthawks got in trouble including a couple starters who had to leave camp The gang was rattled and our capacity was off because of the players who had gotten sent home Oliva disclosed At that point I realized that I have to be a leader and a main voice on this organization I sent text messages to the band chat just reminding us to come back to a space of level-headedness and reminding the band what we came here to do I reminded the guys that we have all the tools to win the camp competition and have a great season that gets us to the playoffs Nighthawks QB Cash Lacy declared that was the start of Oliva setting a new standard across the board for the undertaking in as a guy who would help other players do homework in the locker room but also be a lifestyle enforcer when necessary Northfield won the King of the Hill competition the day after the internal drama at CSU Pueblo beating Mullen in the finals en path to setting a campaign record with nine wins and making the Class A Sweet In the Nighthawks playoff opener Oliva was a tour de force with seven tackles an interception and a fumble recovery He also caught a pair of two-point conversions that helped put Northfield on pace to the blowout win over Skyline After watching that performance in person at All-City Stadium Pueblo West head coach Clint Buderus knew what his offensive challenge plan was going to be for the Sweet encounter We re going to stay away from It was the same strategy that teams employed throughout the season against Oliva We ran away from him the entire meeting stated Buderus whose Cyclones won - He was the field outside linebacker and we ran into the boundary about of the event just to stay away from him When Northfield would move him to the boundary side we audibled at the line flipped the play and ran away from him again We felt like he was that good He s a game-changer and he was going to make a play to beat us at particular point if we allowed him to We saw that happen against Skyline and also he just was different on film He s almost unblockable at the high school level Denver Post Gold Helmet award winner Elian Oliva a Northfield High School senior nickleback and wingback poses for a photo at the Northfield practice field on Friday Dec in Denver Photo by Timothy Hurst The Denver Post Those physical attributes in addition to his mental acuity are why the Northfield coaches believe in his promising to be an impact contestant at Air Force He studies the encounter like he studies global issues with his work through UNICEF diligently and through a different lens than the greater part I have to make sure I have my act together when we go into review film and do our tournament plan install Northfield defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Mike Haskins explained Because he s going to ask me all the questions he s going to go through bit by bit he s going to say What about this and this He s going to say Okay let s walk through it backwards It s that level of detail and scrutiny that you get from someone that smart I can t say it enough He made us all better He made me better He made this initiative better and beyond football and he left an unforgettable mark on Northfield High School Gold Helmet Winners from DPS Northfield s Elian Oliva became the first Denver Inhabitants Schools winner of the award in years Thomas Jefferson High School football standout Marcus Houston in his room with The Denver Post Gold Helmet award high school jerseys and his favorite football pictures taped up on the wall in Denver Post File Elian Oliva LB Northfield Marcus Houston RB Thomas Jefferson Ryan Haywood OL DL Thomas Jefferson Greg Jones DE Kennedy Maurice Frilot OG Montbello Mike Edwards DE Kennedy Paul Arendt RB Thomas Jefferson Jim Blaschke RB Denver East Kent Hutcheson RB Denver South Bob Erickson OG LB Denver East Charles Inagaki OG Denver North Ray Carlsen RB Denver East