Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 198
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-4422-5711-5 • Hardback • December 2016 • $51.00 • (£39.00)
978-1-4422-5712-2 • eBook • December 2016 • $48.50 • (£37.00)
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
Upside Down Football presents information about the most ‘overlooked,’ yet most critical position on the field. As popular as American football is, there are positions and players who can fly under the radar. For instance, can the reader of this review name the long snapper on a favorite football team? In the small world of long snapping, players have one job—get the ball (quickly and accurately) into the hands of the punter or kicker. Kluck, an award-winning author and sports writer, interviews high-profile players, coaches, instructors, and camp directors to provide a thorough background of the football position and subject. He provides many personal accounts and experiences, while taking the reader along on his journey and allowing a look into the world of long snapping. Kluck brings his experience as a writer, teacher, former college and semi-professional long snapper, and lover of football. The author adds an interesting dimension to the book. He covers the impact of social media and internet influences, and how they have changed the recruiting and marketing of athletes directly to colleges, universities, and professional teams. This is the book to read for an in-depth look into the world of a long snapper.
Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; faculty and general readers.
— Choice Reviews
Author Ted Kluck has just written a book that is easily one of my favorites. The title, Upside Down Football: An Inside Look at Long Snapping in the NFL may instantly reveal why it is so special.... Kluck’s book does a great job of explaining all aspects of the modern snapping industry, from high school and college to the professional level. The book will be of value and interest to anyone connected to long snapping at any level or that want to learn more about this fascinating position and those who occupy it at the highest levels.
— Longsnap.com
The book does an excellent job in looking at the real men who are striving for their place on the field. It is an easy and informative read and [we] recommend this book for any library.
— Gridiron Greats
Upside Down Football provides an in-depth look into the trials and tribulations of trying to make it as a long snapper in the NFL: “it’s like being elected president. It’s that rare.” Kluck aptly chronicles the efforts players go through at any level—youth league, college, semi-pro, and professional—and reveals just how difficult it is to be a professional specialist. This books features well-written testimonies from agents, coaches, and players who offer their input and advice for anyone trying to succeed in this highly competitive field.
— Eugene Lee, sports agent, MBK Sports Management Group
Ted Kluck’s Upside Down Football is a Plimptonian rocket to that unexplored region of football known as the “Planet of the Long Snappers.” Unique and deeply personal, this engaging book gives the reader an inside look at the highly-specialized athletes who inhabit this world and the agents, coaches, and trainers who orbit them.
— Mark Durr, Editor-in-Chief of Coffin Corner, official magazine of the Professional Football Researchers Association (PFRA)
Ted Kluck’s Upside Down Football gives such a factual look at the unique and oftentimes bizarre world of a professional long snapper as well as the mental fortitude that plays into the position. As a journeyman punter in the NFL for eight years and having an “up close” view of these OCD/perfectionists, I must say that by Ted turning this story “upside down” it most certainly lands on its feet Right Side Up!
— Glenn Pakulak, former punter, New Orleans Saints and University of Kentucky