Snap decision turns
Runge into specialist

The importance of the relationship among long snapper, holder, and placekicker cannot be overstated. To be successful, they need more harmony than a Southern Baptist church choir.

-- The Boston Globe

IT seems strange that a man whose job requires so much precision once had a life with so little direction.

Odd that a man whose mission is to do one thing and do it perfectly wandered aimlessly for so long.

"I was really lost," says Bryce Runge, who now is found, "and didn't know what I was doing. Got in trouble. Ended up working in warehouse jobs, different jobs. I ended up working in an auto parts store. ...

"No intentions on anything. Flipping along, you know, living off my parents. Not knowing what I was doing."

Today he does. Today he has a purpose, a job, one that means something.

Every single time he does it, it means everything.

Runge is Hawaii's long snapper.

There have been long-snapping specialists in college football. Some have even eventually been awarded scholarships. But Runge just may be the first in the history of the game to have been specifically recruited for this skill, been given a glamour spot in one of those celebrated classes on Signing Day.

He's as surprised about it as you are.

When June Jones flew him in and floored him with the offer, "I was like, 'Whoa!' " Then, " 'All right. Yeah.' "

But all this is the icing, not the cake. He was already, at last, headed in a direction he felt good about.

He'd been a professional in-line skater for a while, jumping off ramps, skidding down rails. You know those guys on the videos crashing to earth, twitching in pain? That was him.

(Being clubbed in the head while long snapping is nothing.)

Then came the years of the odd jobs and the gradual realization.

He's 27 today.

"I took all them years off," he says.

His brother was coaching high school football and Bryce was working in the warehouse and his brother gave him the option of coming on to help coach part-time.

"I needed extra money," Bryce says, "and I said, 'All right.' "

And then, working with those kids ... "I fell in love with football again," he says.

It drove him. It opened his eyes.

He got it together and enrolled in Fullerton (Calif.) Community College. They asked if there were any snappers and Runge raised his hand.

He was so much better than the rest of them he was made a specialist right then and there.

"I rocketed it back there, right perfect," he says, "and I was the man ever since."

That caught the eye of a coach who likes to make a point of being different. And history was made.

Bryce Runge is engaged now. He's 27 and his life is on its way.

"I think about it all the time," he says. "I think about it more now that I'm out here."

He is focused. He puts his hands on that ball, and he knows exactly what to do.