LONG-snapper earns scholarship

Jeff Long has been practicing long-snapping a good eight years in his backyard with dad. He’d practice after football practice at Port Jervis High. He’d practice before games, simulating punt snaps by hitting the square in the middle of a blue tarp, simulating field-goal snaps by knocking cones off buckets without touching the bucket.

Now he’s traded in all the sweat for a Division II scholarship. Long recently signed with Gannon University in Erie, Pa., a scholarship he says is worth $32,500 a year.

Not bad for being able to snap a football with great speed and accuracy.

But Long, 6-foot-2 and 240 pounds, has worked as hard at his craft as anybody. Longtime Port Jervis coach Bob Corvino calls Long “one of the best long snappers I’ve ever had.’’

Long had Division I potential. But he didn’t want to risk losing the scholarship to waiting for a D-I school to call. So he signed on at Gannon, which, Long says, will give him a shot at linebacker as well.

He said the school also offers one of the best criminal justice programs around. He wants to become a U.S. Marshall or a state policeman. His father, Jeff Sr., is a corrections officer at the Orange County Jail in Goshen.

Long snaps the ball to the punter 15 yards away between .75-.85 seconds. D-I snappers usually are in the sub-.8 range. He’s into powerlifting as well, with, he says, a 315-320 bench press, 400-pound squat and 550-pound deadlift.