Grand Blanc grad, now at EMU, aims for NFL job as specialist

Saturday, August 31, 2002

Few people are interested in the position Carson Dach plays for the Eastern Michigan University football team.

Fans take little notice of it. Other players don't want to play it. His teammates even kid him about it.

But that's fine with Dach. The Grand Blanc High graduate is getting a free college education and probably will make a lucrative living out of doing one thing: He is the long-snapper, the guy who delivers the ball to the punter or the placekick holder.

It's the position no kid wanted when he was growing up and playing sandlot football. "Hiking" the ball is not as much fun as running it, throwing it or catching it.

"It's still something nobody wants to do," said Dach, a senior who has handled all the long-snapping duties at EMU since he arrived there in 1999. "It's not a fun job. But it was a way for me to go to college and get an education."

It's also Dach's ticket to an NFL career. He is listed among the top six pro prospects in the nation at longsnap.com, a Web site devoted to the position. Player agents already are in contact with Dach's parents in Grand Blanc.

Dach's father saw all of this unfolding more than 10 years ago, when he first started teaching Carson the position. John Dach had been a center in high school and struggled with the long snap himself.

"But I always knew it was something where, if you could do it, there would always be a position for you on a football team," John Dach said.

Carson learned the intricacies of the position -- how to spiral the ball back to the punter at waist-level, how to hop backward on the snap to get into position to block. He began long-snapping for Grand Blanc Middle School in seventh grade and became the Bobcats' exclusive long-snapper through high school.

But it wasn't until a trip to a Detroit Lions game in eighth or ninth grade that Carson learned the true value of his position.

"I told him, See that guy going on and off the field? All he does is long-snapping, and he makes at least $180,000 a year (the NFL minimum salary at the time),' " John Dach said.

"He got real serious after that."

Carson twice attended the Ohio State Specialty Camp, both times winning the long snap speed championship. He doesn't recall his time back then, but today he can snap a football 15 yards back to his punter in 68/100ths of a second.

Carson was contacted by some 30 colleges, including the University of Michigan and Michigan State. Both UM and EMU told him he would be their starting long-snapper as a freshman.

He picked the Ypsilanti school because of its business program -- he's majoring in industrial distribution -- and because he felt so comfortable with the players on his visit there.

Now his teammates razz him about his easy job. Dach spends his entire practice sessions snapping to punters and holders because coaches don't want him to get hurt taking part in contact drills. His position on the roster is listed as "LS."

"I get a couple of comments daily," Dach said. "They'll say, Oh, how was practice today?'

"But I don't get it as bad as the kickers."

He still has to be strong enough to block and tackle, and the 6-foot-1, 258-pound Dach can bench-press 390 pounds. He has 12 career tackles.

Dach has started every game of his college career, beginning in 1999 with a 51-7 loss at Michigan State. EMU punted 17 times that day and Dach snapped on every one of them.

He's had a couple of low snaps in his career, but Dach has never snapped the ball over his punter's head.

Meanwhile, John Dach has continued to train long-snappers for Grand Blanc on a volunteer basis, and he's willing to teach anyone else interested in the specialized craft. Tutoring begins in January and continues through the summer until the start of fall practice.

It's tedious work, and John Dach recalls that Carson didn't really enjoy going out in the back yard twice a week after dinner and making 30-50 snaps. But the father just recently pointed out another, hidden advantage to his son.

"I told him, You never did figure it out, did you? It got us out of doing dishes.' "

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