Summit's big-time college football player

When Joe Shackleton picked up the phone in Breckenridge Thursday afternoon, his son Alex, a former Summit High football player who walked on at Michigan State last year, was on the other end.

"He said, 'Dad' - and I went, 'Oh, crap, what now,'" Joe recalled a few hours later. "Then he said, 'The coach called me in today and told me I'm gonna be the starter, and I've got my full ride.'"

Cue the celebration at the Shackleton residence!

Or, in the case of Alex, a subdued 19-year-old long snapper whose deliciously methodical on-field routine we'll get to in a moment, cue the clothes unpacking!

For as Shackleton explained later, there was very little urge to celebrate. "I was just happy that today was the last day of two-a-days," he said. "I went home and started unpacking to move into my apartment."

This is life when you are a rare mountain-town kid to receive a full scholarship at a Division 1 football school. You don't have much time to glow.

That doesn't mean, however, that Shackleton did not exult within when first-year Spartans head coach Mark Dantonio called him into his office to deliver Thursday's news.

"I was just overwhelmed," recounted the former three-sport SHS letterman (golf, basketball, football). "Just really excited that I was able to earn the scholarship. When I came here my goal was to start and earn a scholarship. So I got my goal."

Coming out of high school, Shackleton had a long list of schools interested in his snapping services - Nebraska, Hawaii, Houston, Central Michigan, Colorado, Colorado State and the Spartans. Each offered the same deal: They'd give him a roster spot as a walk-on, and if he ever earned a starting job, he'd get a full ride.

"I kept saying, 'Go to Nebraska, go to Houston,'" said Joe, who was a scholarship basketball player himself at MSU in the '70s. "And he said, 'No, dad, I wanna go where you went.'"

With a senior three-year starter in front of him last year, Shackleton redshirted. Which meant he lived a scout-teamer's life - college football's equivalent to a serf - lining up at right tackle against future NFL draft pick Cliff Ryan, a monster who stood 6-foot-2, weighed 310 and could squat 730 pounds.

The father-son phone calls that autumn all sounded the same.

"He'd say, 'I just got hammered this week, Dad, I was on my back the whole time,'" Joe recalled.

Alex, whose size (6-2, 250) is more suited to playing on a high school line than a college line, doesn't dispute that.

His goal, each time he lined up opposite Ryan, was "that I wouldn't be the one he'd throw to make a tackle" - which happened, according to Shackleton, "basically every play."

But every now and then he'd make his block, and by the end of the redshirt year his footwork had improved substantially. "Mainly what I learned," he said, "was how to block."

This fall, Michigan State has been picked to finish at or near the bottom of the Big Ten, but that doesn't mean Shackleton will view his new assignment any differently. As a long snapper - the most anonymous position on the field, if you're a good one - your success rests on your ability to maintain a routine that never changes.

So when Shackleton lines up against UAB on Sept. 1 for his first play as a $30,000-a-year Spartan, the nerves will be the underdog.

"Once I get in my stance, I take a really deep breath and clear my head, and then focus on - I call it my horizon. It's where my butt is positioned, how low it goes, and once I get it to where I wanna hit the punter, I just keep it there and focus on that one spot."

Then, when he's good and ready, he snaps the ball like a whip, allowing another play in a major-college football game to start.



Devon O'Neil can be contacted at (970) 668-4633, or at doneil@summitdaily.com.