Seahawks Sign 34 Year Old U. Texas Long Snapper and Former Green Beret Nate Boyer
NFL – One of the best stories of the NFL Draft didn’t happen until the draft was over.
Nate Boyer, a 34-year-old former Green Beret, has been offered a contract as an undrafted free agent with the Seattle Seahawks.
“Yeah, I’ve done things that are more difficult,” Boyer told NFL Network’s NFL Total Access on Saturday. “You can’t really compare the two in a lot of ways, but this is a huge challenge in itself. This is the best athletes in the world. Just to get an opportunity and be able to compete… And I’m playing for a great team in a great city. I couldn’t be anymore thrilled. Just for the chance that’s all you can ask for.”
The 5-foot-11 long snapper had never played organized football until he was out of the military and somehow worked his way into the University of Texas rotation. Now he has found his way into the NFL.
“I played at 190 pounds mostly because in the summer time I was deployed, you know,” said Boyer, who now weighs 220 pounds. “So I had to stay at a fighting weight for special forces, it’s just a different job, they’re totally different worlds. So I had to be true to that. Putting weight was a challenge and it’s still a challenge.”
According to the Army Times, Boyer has multiple war-zone deployments to his credit, including to Afghanistan for two summers as a member of the Texas Army National Guard.
Boyer learned that his NFL dream was coming true on NFL Network cameras, getting the call from Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider.
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Awesome, always love stories like this that come out of the draft. Everybody knows the Jameis’s and Mariota’s but not everybody knows the guys like Nate Boyer.
…An article in TIME magazine about genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan changed Boyer’s life. He bought a plane ticket to Africa in the autumn of 2004 and volunteered his service to the Sudanese by building refugee camps, assisting doctors and supporting local villagers however he could.
“I was figuring out a lot about myself, I guess. But it was kind of selfish, I wasn’t really doing anything for anybody else,” said Boyer. “Then I read that magazine article.
“So that’s kind of what bridged that gap. And when I was over there is where I gained my patriotism, because those people over there were so appreciative of Americans.”
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A week after returning from Sudan, Boyer enlisted in the Army and scored highly enough on diagnostic tests to gain acceptance into the elite Green Berets, a Special Forces unit.
“If we don’t get involved in some of these major crises, people are like, ‘Where’s America? Where’s the U.S.?'” Boyer said of his decision to join the military.
“So I sort of gained an understanding for that and how much it meant to those people that I was there, so I wanted to continue that.” [USA Today]
Just hope it’s not too much of a PR move and that he actually gets a shot. Yeah I know 34 year old long snappers aren’t exactly a high demand position on an NFL roster but who knows, a dude that willingly sends himself to Darfur to help with genocide then enlists in the Army and joins the Special Forces is basically a priceless role model and leader for the locker room.