It’s not a snap

NEWARK, Del. — Your bruised thighs and cramping fingers shriek as your body convulses and you launch another wobbly spiral between your legs toward Joe Spadafino, an instructor with the Ray Guy Kicking and Long Snapping Academy.

Fifteen yards hasn’t seemed so far since you graduated from college keg queues.

Both you and Spadafino turn to look at the newspaper photographer, who has been pressed into stopwatch duty.

“1.06 seconds,” she announces, barely muffling a snicker. “But that one kind of looked right.”

After 45 minutes of gradual improvement under the tutelage of the indulgent Spadafino, a man who would make Job look anxious, your punt snap times (from hike to punter’s hands) have hit a performance wall just above the 1.0-second barrier.

“That would make you an almost passable high school long snapper,” says Spadafino, who works approximately a dozen Ray Guy clinics across the country each year. “Most high school coaches look for snaps in the .9-[second] range, but many would take an extremely accurate guy at one [second] flat. That said, we haven’t got you in pads, put a 260-pound tackle in front of you and asked you to block or cover. Obviously, there’s a little more to it than just the exchange. But you’ll probably make a flag football coach back in Washington very happy.”

How’s that for the Rose Bowl of backhanded compliments?

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The moment that brought you to such a career nadir, hunched over with your head, hands and metaphorical tail between your legs on a muddy field in Delaware, occurred during the final seconds of a game between Clemson and Georgia Tech early last month. Needing little more than a pedestrian punt to salt away the remaining 18 seconds of the game, Clemson’s long snapper, Geoff Miller, dribbled a weak bouncer back to his punter. The Yellow Jackets snowed him under, taking over deep in Clemson territory. And an 11-yard touchdown pass later, Georgia Tech celebrated a miraculous 28-24 victory over the Tigers.

In an early season marred with special teams gaffes, most notably a spate of missed extra points, Miller’s inexcusable grounder provided the impetus for a little angst-driven research on the subject of long snappers.

The average NFL long snapper is 6-foot-3, weighs 255 pounds and doubles as a backup tight end or linebacker.

“You don’t see too many 280-pound guys, because you have to be able to get down the field in coverage,” says Spadafino, a former long snapper at Eastern Kentucky who recommends one or two snappers a camp to a talent-base (ProKicker.com) used by many college coaches. “In high school, you can pretty much get by on technique alone. But at the higher levels, you’ve got to be a pretty good athlete. You’ve got to be able to execute the snap and immediately get yourself in position to block. And on punts, you have to be able to get down the field and make a play. Coaches aren’t going to put themselves in a position where the return team is playing 11 on nine. You’ve already got a punter back there who isn’t likely to be a very proficient defender, so your snapper better be able to run and tackle.”

That said, few coaches risk playing their long snappers anywhere else on the field. Though the motion is similar to an inverted overhead pass (even your grip is the same), few players can master the combination of perfectly timed hip rock, thigh-bruising arm drive and thumbs-up release that produces a perfect snap. Trust us on this point.

“Once you find a guy that can do it, you don’t clown around and get him hurt doing something else,” Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops says. “I think that’s in one of the first chapters of Coaching 101. Long snappers are just too important to the continuity of your kicking game to risk them moonlighting as tight ends or linebackers or whatever.”

Despite that limited playing time, long snapping can be quite lucrative. Last season, the average NFL long snapper made $590,000. Before your laughable display in Delaware, that number seemed excessive for a group of guys asked to do nothing but fling the ball through their legs a dozen times a game. After all, nobody grows up with a poster of a long snapper adorning a bedroom wall. And most fans can’t even name the long snapper on their favorite team. Do you know who snaps for the Redskins (Ethan Albright) or the Terps (Jon Condo)?

Probably not. And they hope it stays that way.

“Chances are if your name is getting called on the radio or on TV it’s for the wrong reason,” says Condo, a senior at Maryland who also happens to be the highest-ranked long snapper in college by both of the NFL’s top scouting services (BLESTO and National). “Probably nine times out of 10, you’re being recognized because there’s been a bad snap. It’s like the old adage about good waiters; the best long snappers never get noticed.”

To that end, the best known long snapper in history likely is Trey Junkin. Equal parts snapper’s patron saint and cautionary tale, Junkin spent 19 NFL seasons successfully plying his trade in blissful obscurity before botching two field goal snaps in the Giants’ playoff loss to the 49ers two years ago.

“The guy was 41 years old, the Giants beg him to come out of retirement for the playoffs, and after thousands of perfect snaps, he has the surreal misfortune of having that game be his worst as a professional,” says Kevin Gold, an attorney who represents several NFL snappers, most notably Green Bay’s Rob Davis. “He was the most respected guy in the business. He had six bad snaps in his entire career, but all people remember is that playoff game.”

Junkin’s story typifies the long snapper’s tenuous existence, an existence in which anonymity and infamy are the only options, and explains why many of the game’s best long snappers are such a silent and superstitious breed.

Chicago’s Patrick Mannelly, the top-rated NFL snapper, declined numerous interview requests for this story. It’s not that Mannelly doesn’t want to provide insights on the position; in fact, he runs a Web site (longsnapper.com) devoted entirely to sharing his techniques, drills and experiences with aspiring long snappers. He simply doesn’t want to discuss himself.

“You have to understand that we’re a very superstitious bunch,” Kansas City veteran long snapper Kendall Gammon says. “Publicity is our ultimate nightmare. You just want to do your job and stay under the radar. You don’t want to jinx it by talking about it, because your next bad snap could be your last.”

Even Condo, the only snapper listed among the 64 college seniors NFL scouts identified in the preseason as possessing serious draft potential, is somewhat uncomfortable discussing his talents. Condo, a blue-chip linebacking recruit out of Philipsburg, Pa., found himself standing on the sidelines in College Park as a step-slow redshirt freshman. When Maryland’s incumbent long snapper flunked out in spring 2001, Condo saw an opportunity to earn playing time and taught himself to snap. Four years later, Maryland has never had a punt blocked on Condo’s watch (198 straight punts without a muff or a block).

NFL scouts laud Condo’s velocity (approximately 0.70 seconds) and consistency. And coach Ralph Friedgen describes him as “invaluable.” But the 6-3, 230-pounder tries not to think beyond his next snap.

“I know there’s a possibility I could snap at the next level, but that’s way in the back of my mind right now,” says Condo, who teaches anatomy and physiology once a week at Montgomery Blair High School while he completes his degree in biology and education. “I just want to enjoy the rest of my college career with my teammates. I don’t want to get too many big thoughts in my head, because anything can happen between now and then.”

“Anything” being the unthinkable — notoriety, four years of unheralded perfection erased in one unwanted second in the spotlight.