Upside Down Football

The long snapper is perhaps the most overlooked and underappreciated position in football. He spends a great deal of his career bent over a football, with a guy either kneeling seven yards behind him or standing back at 15 yards. In a sense, the long snapper has one job-to go unnoticed. If he is noticed, it probably means he's flubbed a snap-and for a long snapper, a single mistake can mean instant unemployment. In Upside Down Football: An Inside Look at Long Snapping in the NFL, Ted Kluck shares the unique stories of these often-unseen high-pressure athletes. To fully explore the art of long snapping, Kluck attempts to perfect his own long-snapping technique, enlisting NFL snapping super-agent Kevin Gold and former longtime NFL snapper Justin Snow to help him. He also learns from elite NFL special teams coach Gary Zauner, experiences the camp circuit via snapping guru Chris Rubio, trains with snapping coach Nolan Owen, and talks with Green Beret and college snapper Nate Boyer. Upside Down Football features in-depth interviews with players, coaches, agents, and scouts, introducing the reader to men who have snapped at the game's highest level and to those who helped them get there. NFL and college football fans, along with long snappers of all levels, will enjoy this entertaining and enlightening perspective on the most underappreciated position in football.

Ted Kluck is an award-winning author and sports writer whose work has appeared in ESPN the Magazine, Sports Spectrum Magazine, and ESPN.com. He is the author of multiple books, including Facing Tyson: Fifteen Fighters, Fifteen Stories (2006), Game Time: Inside College Football (2007), Paper Tiger: One Athlete's Journey to the Underbelly of Pro Football (2007), Robert Griffin III: Athlete, Leader, Believer (2013), and Three-Week Professionals: Inside the 1987 NFL Players' Strike (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). Kluck played a season of professional indoor football as a long snapper and coached high school football.

Acknowledgments Introduction: Fully Grown Up (Today) Chapter 1: Walking on Broken Glass Chapter 2: Kevin Gold: Agent to the Anonymous Chapter 3: Rob Davis: A King's Ransom to Play a Kid's Game Chapter 4: The Cautionary Tale: Trey Junkin and the Danger of Living One Dream Too Many Chapter 5: The Rubio Zone Chapter 6: Bryan Pittman: The Security Man Chapter 7: Trever Kruzel: The Minicamp Body Chapter 8: Nolan Owen: The Would-Be Rubio Chapter 9: Perfect Laces: NFL Coach Gary Zaner Chapter 10: The Private Lesson: Nolan Owen Part 2 Chapter 11: The Rubio Camp Chapter 12: Transition: Tennessee, Glenn Pakulak, and Jon Akemon Chapter 13: The Soldier: Nate Boyer Chapter 14: Silverdome and the Onward March of Time Chapter 15: Where'd Everyone Go?: The Photographer: Tyler Schmitt Chapter 16: Mobile and the Nature of Embarrassment Chapter 17: Bloomington, Illinois: Satisfaction versus Euphoria Epilogue: Major League Notes About the Author