The Long Snapper

by Jeffrey Marx

  As things turned out, the beginning of the game could not have been scripted any better for him. On the second play from scrimmage, linebacker Tedy Bruschi intercepted a Chad Pennington pass, giving New England the football at the New York thirty-five-yard line. Tom Brady took the field and immediately threw a touchdown pass to wide receiver David Givens. Only forty-eight seconds into the game, it was time for Brian to go to work. He pulled on his helmet, grabbed his mouthpiece, which he kept tucked under his belt, and ran onto the field for the extra point. Brian had done it so many times that it was an almost mindless experience for him. All he was doing was getting on a bike again.

  His snap to Ken Walter was right where they wanted it, and the hold was equally uneventful. Vinatieri put boot to ball…and the extra point was perfect. Brian returned to the sideline without anyone needing to know who he was. Life was good.

  The rest of the game went just as well for both Brian and the Patriots. Brian ended up snapping the ball nine times (six on punts and three on extra points) without incident. The Patriots intercepted Pennington four more times after that initial pick-off and—with a final score of 21–16—extended their winning streak to eleven games. As was often the case with the Patriots, there was nothing particularly flashy or memorable about the way they played. It was strictly business as usual.

  In fact, the most widely talked about “highlight” of the ESPN broadcast had nothing to do with the game itself. Late in the second quarter, sideline reporter Suzy Kolber interviewed Joe Namath, who had clearly enjoyed more than a splash of liquid refreshment in advance of the halftime ceremony. Almost thirty-five years after Namath had first guaranteed and then delivered victory over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, Kolber asked the sixty-year-old “Broadway Joe” what it meant to him that the Jets had been struggling. Leaning in toward the stunned reporter, who was young enough to be his daughter, Namath said, “I want to kiss you. I couldn’t care less about the team struggling.” And then—as if Kolber or any football-watching fan in America possibly could have missed it the first time—Namath once again offered up his desire to kiss her. His alcohol-enhanced performance would quickly take on a celebrity-gossip life of its own, and Namath would soon issue a public apology. No doubt about it, there are times when even the most legendary of football heroes would not mind borrowing—if only temporarily—the no-name, no-attention existence of a long snapper.

  Eight

  For a family with four generations of roots firmly planted in South Louisiana, the likelihood of a last-minute Christmas gathering in a suburb of Boston was highly improbable, and the logistics were hardly conducive to any grand festivities. Brian met Lori and their four boys at Logan Airport in the middle of the afternoon. His parents, unable to get on the same flights as everyone else, did not arrive until late in the evening, but they didn’t miss much. Christmas dinner was devoid of any ceremony or celebration. Lori just threw together a hodgepodge of whatever she could find at the hotel, primarily sandwiches and snacks Brian had picked up earlier, and the Kinchens hunkered down in Brian’s room.

  The only visual clue announcing the existence of a special occasion was a little fake Christmas tree, all of three feet tall, that Brian had adorned with minimal lighting and relegated to an out-of-the-way spot on a counter in the kitchen area. No boxes of any heft could have possibly fit under it, but the boys had already opened gifts at home in Louisiana. Brian had not done much shopping in Foxborough. He gave Lori a curling iron; she could only conclude that he simply wanted to have something for her. And he told the boys that their weeklong visit—which would include going to the Patriots game on Saturday—was a Christmas gift. They would also get to pick whatever team gear they wanted once they could get in the Patriots Pro Shop and look around after the holiday.

  The Saturday-afternoon game against the Buffalo Bills marked the end of the regular season for New England. Nobody associated with the Patriots had forgotten what the Bills had done to them in the season opener (blowing them out by a score of 31–0 and raising legitimate concerns about what was left to come in 2003). With the fortunes of the two teams now dramatically reversed, the Patriots rolling with a 13–2 record and the struggling Bills arriving in Foxborough at 6–9, fans in New England were fired up about the opportunity for a redemption game. With that in mind, and with home-field advantage throughout the playoffs not yet clinched, the Patriots got right down to business, scoring four unanswered touchdowns in the first half. The final score even came in perfectly symmetrical form—31–0 again—this time with the Patriots blanking the Bills. Their twelfth straight victory meant they would march into the playoffs with the best record in the league.

  Much of the post-game attention rightly focused on the dominant defense the Patriots had been playing for quite some time, and especially at home. In their last six games at Gillette Stadium, the Patriots had allowed only one touchdown and a total of a measly twenty-two points. Three of those games had been shutouts. But at least one family among the 68,436 people in attendance for the Patriots–Bills game was focused on something other than defensive statistics. As excited as the Kinchens were about everything else going on with the Patriots, only one set of numbers was critical to them: nine snaps for Brian in the season finale—four on extra points, three on punts, two on field-goal attempts—with zero reason for anyone else to ever think or talk about any of them. Business as usual, Brian told himself. In fact, the only thing out of the ordinary for him was the post-game celebration on the field. He had never before been part of an NFL team that had so much to be genuinely excited about. But there was also the reality of being so new to the Patriots. How involved could he really feel in all the revelry? Brian walked slowly off the field, intentionally taking time to look around and soak up the atmosphere, and enjoying the wonderful energy. He also felt somewhat strange, however—still a bit of an outsider looking in.

  In the stands, Lori had run into Bill Belichick’s wife, Debby, whom she knew from Cleveland. They had hugged and exchanged family updates. And now Debby took Lori to her husband’s office so that Lori could say hello once he was done with his players and the media. “Surprise!” Lori said when the coach finally entered. After greetings and a few minutes of chitchat, Lori sincerely thanked Belichick for calling Brian and for giving them the opportunity to hop on the Patriots’ bandwagon. “It’s so great to be here,” Lori said. “I mean, I can’t even tell you how much fun this has already been for all of us.”

  The Patriots had indeed earned both home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and a bye in the first week. With Belichick apparently feeling the holiday spirit, he began 2004 by giving players and staff a long weekend off, from New Year’s Day through Sunday, January 4. That enabled Brian to fly back with his family for a few days in Baton Rouge. After being gone for almost three weeks, he was excited to be home. With Parkview closed for the holidays, Brian would not see his students. But he did bring a box of small gifts for them—a generous supply of Patriots trinkets, including team photos, stickers, and fanny packs. Lori would distribute them in school on Monday. Brian also taped a video message for Lori to play in his classes.

  Sitting in his home office Saturday night, wearing a red T-shirt and a white Patriots cap, Brian stared into a camera he had set up on his desk and created a tape with all the production value of a hostage video. The camera tightly framed him from chest up, with the top of his head not quite making it into the picture, his face unintentionally darkened by shadows. And the tone of Brian’s delivery was not exactly scintillating. But this was not about quality of presentation. It was only about letting his students know that they were still in his thoughts. Brian started by asking them to take out their notebooks because he wanted to give them one more lesson and then one more test. “Just joking,” he quickly assured them. With the semester ending, making this the last time Brian would address these kids as his students, what he really wanted to do was speak from the heart.

  “I love each and ev
ery one of you, and have enjoyed being around you,” Brian said. “Some have pushed me, and tested me, and taken advantage of my kindness. Others have been perfect angels. And, obviously, a lot of you are in between. But I have enjoyed each and every one of you.”

  Brian said he would be back “in a month or so”—which would mean making it all the way to the Super Bowl. He told his students about the goodies that “Miss Lori” would be handing out to them. Then he asked his students for their prayers and support, told them that he prayed for all of them each day, and closed with this: “I hope that you continue in your walk with the Lord. Hopefully…God has used me to help you in your walk and strengthen you in your faith. And that’s about all. Wish I had more to say. I know it’s probably kind of boring, and you probably want to get to the playground, or something like that. But I love you and miss you, and I’ll see you soon. Thanks.”

  The next night, Sunday the fourth, was the game Louisiana football fans had been waiting for, hoping for, all season. Actually, they had been waiting and hoping for much longer than that—ever since LSU won its first national championship in 1958. Even the location of the big game was a gift for LSU fans. The Sugar Bowl matchup between top-ranked Oklahoma and second-ranked LSU—which also carried the distinction of being the Bowl Championship Series national title game—would be played in New Orleans, in the Tiger-friendly confines of the Louisiana Superdome.

  What a temptation for Brian. He was only seventy miles away in Baton Rouge. LSU coach Nick Saban had already called him with two tickets to the game—a gesture of thanks for his volunteer work throughout the year. But Brian had to be back with the Patriots the next morning. He found an early-Monday flight out of New Orleans that was scheduled to get him back to Boston in time. But what if he encountered a flight delay or cancellation? He could not afford to take that chance. Plus, he really wanted Austin and Hunter to get the enjoyment of seeing the game in person. Brian’s dad and brother Todd were already going. Now they could take Brian’s two oldest boys with them.

  With that settled, Brian left Baton Rouge early enough Sunday to be back in his Foxborough hotel room in time to watch LSU on television. It was stressful enough to watch from afar as a team he cared so much about—had spent so much time helping—was battling such a strong opponent for the glory of being number one. A personal subtext further heightened the drama. Steve Damen, LSU’s regular snapper for punts and therefore one of the players with whom Brian had worked the most, had been suspended for selling his complimentary tickets to the game (a violation of the amateur rules governing collegiate athletics). Gant Petty, another player with whom Brian had regularly worked, would have to fill in. Petty had already been snapping for field goals and extra points, but he had never snapped for a punt in a game. Now he faced the daunting challenge of his first chance coming in the bright spotlight of the national championship game. The less-than-ideal circumstances left Brian on edge.

  Things went well for LSU. Amazingly enough, though, with only nine seconds left in the game, and with Petty having done absolutely fine up to that point, LSU still needed one more clean effort by the punt team to secure victory. The Tigers were ahead 21–14. On fourth down, they had the ball on their own forty-eight-yard line. Out came the punt team. One bad snap, and Oklahoma could possibly pull off a miracle win. One good operation from the punt team, and LSU would give the state of Louisiana its first national title in forty-five years—in other words, sheer euphoria. Punter Donnie Jones looked downfield and saw that Oklahoma was setting up without a return man. He knew that the Sooners would be “bringing the house”—rushing him with everyone they had and trying to block the punt.

  “Come on, Gant, just put it in his hands,” Brian told the television in his hotel room.

  Petty snapped the ball perfectly. Jones caught it with no problem, quickly turned the ball so its laces were up, and kicked it away. By the time the ball rolled out of bounds at the Oklahoma twelve-yard line, all nine of those seconds had expired and the LSU Tigers were national champions.

  “Yes!” Brian shouted.

  Watching the wild celebration in the Superdome, he knew that Austin and Hunter had to be having the time of their lives. Sure, he would have enjoyed sharing the moment with them and everyone else back in Louisiana. But at least he knew he would be on time for work the next morning. And Brian also knew he would have bragging rights—“Number one, baby! LSU is back on top!”—in the Patriots’ locker room.

  LSU fans all over Louisiana were caught up in Tigermania the next morning, especially in Baton Rouge, where offices and schools were filled with many more smiling faces than would normally be found early on a Monday. Parkview was no exception, and the level of excitement in Brian’s classes only increased when Lori opened the box of Patriots paraphernalia and handed out the gifts he had gathered for his students. Patriots stickers were soon affixed not only to notebooks and clothing, but also to the cheeks and foreheads of a few kids. Fanny packs were creatively placed—a boy named A.C. Turner wrapped one around his head—to make a variety of fashion statements. And the girls wasted little time before examining the team photos to pick out their teacher’s hottest teammates. (Tom Brady was no surprise as the consensus favorite, but linebacker Mike Vrabel and tight end Christian Fauria also drew a considerable amount of attention and even a few shrieks from the twelve-and thirteen-year-olds.)

  Lori did well to get everyone settled down long enough to show the video Brian had made. The students enjoyed seeing him. But they liked it even more when Lori told them she had a video camera with her and suggested making their own tape to send Brian. Slowly panning the classroom, Lori told Brian, “Here’s your wonderful class. They miss you so much.” Then she asked the students if they had any “words of wisdom” for him. They did not respond with much that could be construed as wisdom, but they did do a lot of smiling and laughing and waving, and they offered a wonderful collection of enthusiastic shout-outs that would later fill their teacher with pride and joy.

  “We love you, Mr. Kinchen.”

  “Good luck with the Patriot people.”

  “Your video wasn’t boring. Your video was cool.”

  “My birthday’s coming up. I’ll see you when I’m thirteen.”

  “We miss you. Peace out!”

  The unmistakable showstopper was a scripted performance led by Ashley Thornton, one of the girls who three weeks earlier had tried with such determination to catch one of Brian’s snaps on the playground before he first left for Boston. Ashley now stood between classmates Rachel Jackson and Meagan Breaux, the three of them side-by-side, with brand-new fanny packs wrapped around their waists. On cue, they looked into the camera with ear-to-ear smiles and spoke in unison: “Tom Brady, you’re a cutie! Don’t worry, Mr. Brian, you’re a cutie, too!”

  Lori later invited a smattering of Parkview teachers and administrators to be part of her video as well. Some were entirely kind and sincere—sending good wishes for Brian and his teammates. Others hit Brian up with semi-serious requests for Patriots T-shirts and tickets to a game. More than anything, though, his colleagues offered silly banter and friendly jabs.

  Eighth-grade Bible teacher Sonya Pruitt held up a newspaper story in which Brian had been quoted as saying that he had just been “chilling” with his students when he got the call from the Patriots—and she teased him about his word choice. “When have you started using the word chilling?” Pruitt asked, big smile lighting up her face. “And just for the record, if you’re trying to be cool, chilling is way out. So you gotta get with it and pick a new word.”

  In one of the most creative scenes, Dairon Bueche, who taught Louisiana history to eighth graders and was also a baseball coach, made light of Brian’s job with the Patriots by lining up in a school hallway to snap an apple to Brad Duffy, who was both a teacher and the middle school athletic director. Duffy stood behind Bueche in the role of a punter.

  “We were wondering,” Bueche said before getting down in position over his apple, �
�you’re making what, like thirty, forty thousand dollars a week now—just how hard is your job? I mean, look…I think I can do this.”

  While snapping his apple, though, Bueche was caught off guard by another teacher, Alisha Stutzman, a smiley, energetic blonde, who playfully rushed him and pushed him back the way a defensive lineman would. The apple bounced on the floor before Duffy could get to it, prompting an immediate personnel move.

  “You’re fired,” Duffy informed Bueche. “You’re cut.”

  Ah, the loyalty and respect that come with being employed as a long snapper.

  Even the school principal, Cooper Pope, who had been fully supportive when Brian pondered whether he should go to the New England tryout and had been openly congratulatory when he actually signed with the Patriots, now got into the act with an impressive flair for both fiction and taunting. It helped that the forty-year-old Pope was himself a football guy, having been an offensive lineman at Mississippi College and now coaching at Parkview. Standing in the teachers’ lounge, his left arm leaning against a soft-drink vending machine, Pope started his performance for the camera by telling Brian he had watched him on television and thought he had snapped real well. “But I noticed that even the punter got down the field before you did,” Pope said with mock seriousness, successfully fighting off a smile for the time being. “I’m not saying you’re out of shape, or you’ve lost your speed…or maybe somebody blocked you straight to the ground. I’m not sure what happened. But, uh, just a little concerned. I was gonna call Belichick and maybe see if we could work on some plyometrics, or some explosion drills, to get you to snap and explode off the ball, and avoid that block, and get down the field.” Pope could no longer control himself. He finally let loose with a burst of laughter. “Is that good enough?” he asked Lori.