Who Is Behind The Long Snapping Lifestyle?

The Basics

Hello Snappers, my name is Joe Friedrich. I am a walk-on long snapper at the University of Northern Iowa. Currently, I have three years of experience as the starting long snapper at UNI and am entering in my final year this fall.

My football story really begins in a small town in Iowa, about 800 people, called Janesville. I lived on a small farm with my family. I have one brother and two sisters, all younger. None of them long snap, yet, so they are irrelevant and disappointing. I am triple majoring in Accounting, Business Management, and Marketing.

In high school, at Janesville CSD, we played 8-man football, no offensive tackles and one less eligible receiver, the purest form of the game. I played center and defensive end and I had no idea being the "long snapper" was even a position in football. I always assumed that was just the job of the center. How disgustingly ignorant of me.

High School Long Snapping

I earned the starting center spot my sophomore year, and without even knowing it, my long snapping career had started. A guy a few years older than me had been handling the long snapping for a few seasons, so he taught me everything I needed to know and handed me the position. My guy, Montana Meyer, might not have been a guru, but he was the person who really let me begin living the long snapping lifestyle and taught me everything I know.

I learned that long snapping wasn't an easy job, it wasn't like playing center at all. To be the long snapper I had to be precise, I had to be perfect, and at a small school, I had to do it after playing both ways for four quarters. I needed to take my game to the next level, at least a level where I could be confident in my snaps even after being dog tired. One of my high school coaches, Shane Hoff, would open up the weight room at 5:45 every other morning, fifteen minutes before anyone else would show up, and we'd long snap.

I was never interested in going to long snapping camps in high school. To me, it seemed like a waste to bother my parents with that sort of cost. I never thought it would take me anywhere. All that I was as an athlete was an undersized center who took the job of being a long snapper seriously. I didn't even want to play college football, I always wanted to play basketball. My dream was to be the hometown hero wearing purple and gold on the court, not on the field. I was incredibly undersized as a 200 lb center and I didn't think there was any room for me on a college football team. Shane, the coach from earlier, encouraged me to look into trying to walk-on as a long snapper. It wasn't something that I had ever thought about, but I've never looked back.

A little pregame warm up with the boys. Sam Drysdale (K) and Sam Kuhter (P), the two biggest influences of my college career.

College Career

Obviously, at this point in my life I have grown out of my silly high-school ignorance and discovered an amazing community of snappers who love throwing the ball between their legs. This idea of a long snapping lifestyle is something that I embraced as soon as I got onto campus.

I went through walk-on tryouts and jumped through hoops just to get my opportunity at getting to snap at the D1 level. In fact, a man in charge of the tryouts told to "pick a real position" when I tried out. Some even laughed at when I told people I was going to try and walk-on without ever having an official visit. There was no one looking at me or wanting me on their team, but I continued on because I knew I had people back home who believed in me. I knew that my little brother would look up to me whether I had failed or succeeded, but not if I had just given up.

Eventually, I had made it on to the team and got to suit up behind a great group of guys. I had a great group of specialists to learn from when I arrived at Northern Iowa. The guys that I had to learn from gave me the tools to go from a wanna-be walk-on to a legitimate D1 long snapper.

The environment of college football is simply an amazing thing. A hundred or so guys all trying to craft their games and their skills to the highest level they see possible, its incredible. It pushed me to match that level of intensity in training. Being here has taught me to stop taking myself so seriously, but take what I do with the utmost of seriousness. My main dude, CT Fletcher, says it best, long snapping is "MY MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION!"

Don't take who you are too seriously, take what you do seriously.

That's enough about me, I'm tired of typing things about myself. I'm sure I'll talk more about myself in future blogs, so make sure to keep checking in for new blog posts.

Thank you for reading this week's post!

Make sure to connect with me on Twitter, DM or tweet at me! Hit me up with any questions or long snapping content, I appreciate it all!