By Brad Moore
Tribune reporter

     While 81 Lobos are on football scholarships, their top pro prospect -- deep snapper Joe Maese -- gets by on financial aid and money saved from a summer job as a bar bouncer.
     As a walk-on, he's not even allowed to eat with the team at the training table. And he must pay his tuition and housing costs.
     "I've struggled a little bit," Maese said. "I thought maybe I'd get a scholarship this year, but it didn't happen.
     "But I'm doing fine, and I think my day will come."
     University of New Mexico coach Rocky Long says Maese "deserves to be on scholarship, but it just didn't work out."
     Under NCAA rules, Long can give up to 25 new scholarships in any one year. A Division I school can have up to 85 football players on scholarship.
     Maese agreed to come to UNM in 1999 as a junior walk-on from Phoenix College in Arizona with the hopes of earning a scholarship this season as a senior.
     But since the Lobos were short of the 85 total scholarships, Long says it was more important to bring 25 new scholarship players into the program to strengthen numbers.
     After a walk-on has been in the program two years, the program can give him a scholarship without it counting against the yearly limit of 25.
     Long says if Maese doesn't make an NFL team next season, he will offer Maese a scholarship for next year. Maese's eligibility as a player would be over, but he could have a fifth year in college on scholarship.
     Maese is on schedule to graduate in the spring with a degree in communications. But he's planning to skip next semester and concentrate solely on training to make an NFL roster.
     The 21-year-old comes from humble means in Glendale, Ariz. His single mom, Donna Maese, has supported Maese and his two younger siblings financially.
     Donna Maese makes ends meet by working as a second-grade teacher by day and cleaning houses at night.
     Her 20-year-old daughter, Marie, attends a branch of Brigham Young University in Hawaii on a softball scholarship. Her 19-year-old son, Freddie, is a band member at the University of Arizona.
     "I'm very proud of all three of my kids," Donna Maese said by telephone from Arizona. "And they're all very conscientious of me working a lot. But I tell them, 'I don't mind working extra so you guys can make more out of your lives.'"
     Joe Maese says if he makes an NFL team next season, things will become easier for Mom.
     "She's taken care of me for a long time, so it's time to return the favor," Maese said. "She's a big motivation for me to make the NFL."
     He could get the resources to help.
     According to sports agent Kevin Gold, who runs a Web site dedicated to snappers, NFL teams pay rookie snappers the league minimum of $193,000 per year.
     "People can joke about it, but that's a nice way to make a living," Gold said. "Joe will probably be a seventh-round pick."
     Maese was a bouncer at an Albuquerque bar during the summer, but during the football season, practice, games, meetings and school put too many demands on his time for him to work.