Podcast 5

In this podcast episode, the host discusses the pros and cons of being a college football player with two guests, Hayden Stade and David Neuberger. Hayden talks about his background and how he chose football as his sport to pursue in college. David shares his experience as a long snapper and how he took an untraditional path to college football. They both talk about the friendships and brotherhood formed in college football, as well as the excitement of playing a sport they love. The sacrifices and time commitment required for football are mentioned as cons. They also discuss the impact of football on their social lives and the pressure they feel as college football players. The challenges of balancing schoolwork and football are addressed, along with the support they receive from academic advisors. Lastly, they talk about staying connected with their families despite the distance. Overall, they express their appreciation for the opportunities and experiences that college football has Hello and welcome back to podcast number 5 of the Sam Straddell Show. Today we'll be talking about the pros and cons of being a college football player. And today I have two guests with me, Hayden Stade, tight end freshman for the University of North Dakota and Longstaffer David Neuberger for the University of North Dakota. Welcome to the show, welcome to the show, welcome. Thank you for having me. Of course, of course. Alright, first I'm going to start with Hayden. Alright. Hayden, tell me a little about your background, where you're from, how high school football went, the recruiting process, and how like your first year of college football has gone for you. Okay, well, originally I'm from Princeton, Minnesota, a small town about an hour north of the city. Throughout high school I played a few sports, both fastball and football, but from the beginning I kind of knew that football was my sport that I wanted to pursue in college. Once I got into high school I started getting books from smaller D2 schools and stuff like that. Once I got to junior, senior year I started getting bigger books, obviously North Dakota and a few other D1 schools. I came up to North Dakota for a visit, like a junior day sort of thing, and they gave me an offer. And that was my first offer, and I accepted it like a few days later. And kind of went from there. Came up in July of 22, and first year went really well. It was fun. It was a long season, but I wanted to come ahead, which I did. So, I'm from Davenport, Iowa, originally. Right on the bend of the Mississippi in Iowa, right next to Illinois. So, growing up I played football, basketball, baseball, kind of like every kid in Iowa does. Football has always been my passion, though, and it was my best sport. In high school I played receiver and safety as well. I wasn't just a long snapper, but I kind of realized I wasn't blessed with tremendous athleticism like my guys, Sam Strandell. Oh my gosh. Well, I appreciate you. God bless you. So, I realized I might have to take an untraditional path to college football. So, I started long snapping freshman year, in addition to playing offense and defense. I didn't really start working at it until COVID happened, which is probably the best thing for me. Started working at it during COVID, and went to a few showcases, got ranked pretty high nationally, and then here we are, University of North Dakota. There you go. All right, well, appreciate you guys coming on. Hayden, I'm going to come back to you for this question. I know, so you traveled a little bit this season. You know, you're in a tight end room. It's pretty competitive. I know, obviously, David traveled every game. He's our starting long snapper. He played every game. But, Hayden, I'm going to ask you your first question. I'm going to go back to David, but how did your first year, or how did you feel your first year in college football went, and how are you feeling after we just finished up spring ball? How are you feeling towards the end? I definitely think the first year was, you know, there's obviously you're not going to be the best one to come in, and I think I knew that, and I think just being around those older guys kind of just helped me, you know, evolve as a player and a person, and just having with Adams as only. I think he's a good guy to look up to, and he kind of showed me the ways, and Hayden normally did the same thing. He'll be back for a few years, so I tell him. But, this spring ball, I think I gained some weight over the winter, and I think that really helped me, and over spring ball, I definitely think I got better, and I'm a little bit of an importer this fall, seeing what it brings. All right, David, you started every game. You played every game. Obviously, your first game was at the University of Nebraska with 100,000 fans. Tell me a little bit about that, and then the rest of the season and traveling, how that went for you. Oh, yeah. So, when I committed, I knew I'd have a chance to start, because they had a couple guys on the team that could long snap, but they were starting long snap or graduated the year before, so I knew I'd have a chance, and so I was a starter going into Nebraska week. It was definitely a welcome to college football moment, and the sea of red, as they call it out there in Lincoln. My first snap, you know, the nerves were high. I almost snapped it over the punter's head, but thankfully, he had a good vertical. Yes, sir. I thought I did. Yes, sir. Ever since that snap, I just... Spent money on that? Yeah, I gained experience. You didn't screw up. I gained experience, and it was just money. Yes, sir. All right, so first, I'm going to go talk, because we're going to talk about pros and cons of college football. So, we're going to start with Hayden and David, if you guys want to go back and forth. Tell us the pros of what college football is, and what do you think the best thing about college football, or just the pros of it. I think the first thing right away is the friendships that you make. You know, some kids, when they come to college, you have to go out and make new friends, but when you're in football, you're given that, and you have time with all those people, and you make a bond with them. I think that's one of the biggest things that I've noticed about college football. Pretty much automatically with the group of guys that, I guess, you have to make friends with, because you're on the same team together. And David? I would say, same thing as Hayden. Some of us had to grind to get here. Might not have went to parties like the typical high school kids, or might not have had a ton of friends. I would just say, being a part of a team, kind of like a brotherhood. I would say we gelled really well together, our grade. I would say everyone is truly my friend, which is a great thing. Another positive of college football, I would say, is it's just a bigger stage than high school, and it's something you've always dreamed of being a part of, like as a kid. And then, if I were to pick a con of college football, sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Sometimes, we had a playoff game over Thanksgiving break, and I didn't get to go home and see my family for Thanksgiving. That was a little tough. And I know our summer break won't be very long, so I won't get to see family very much because we'll have to be back up here in Grand Forks training. But overall, it's definitely worth it. I think so, too. Yeah. I'd say, for me, personally, I think the main pros is, obviously, the relationships you make are pretty cool. Now, everyone's friends with everybody on the team, which is pretty cool. And obviously, our freshman class is pretty close. We're all friends with each other, and we do stuff with each other every weekend. But I think the main pro for me is just playing a sport that you love. When you think of fall, you think of football, and you think of playing outside and just watching football games in the cold weather, fall weather. It's just that aura. It's just that aura. That's a good word to put it, because it gives you an idea of why you do it or what makes you love it. And college football is tough and practices, and the preparation takes out some of the fun, but it's still football. When it comes down to it, you're still making plays, and you're still being competitive and having fun, which is the main components of college football. And then when I think of cons, I would just say it changes how you live your life. You have to do what everyone else is doing because you want to be the best football player and person that you can be. You have to prepare every night, so you can't watch TV shows as much or often. You can't hang out with friends. You have to prepare for practice and the script or the plays you're supposed to run the next day or stuff like that. Or on the weekends, in the offseason even, a week of full lifting and running, you kind of just want to nap and lay down and rest. Otherwise, you can be going out, hanging out with friends. And you can't do a bunch of other stuff like drinking or smoking because you've got to focus on football, and you've got to keep your body healthy. I know Hayden, you didn't say con. Is there a con that you would add? Say that again? Is there a con you would add for football? I just think it all comes back to sacrifices. I mean, you guys both kind of hit on that there. When it all comes down to it, I think it's strictly sacrifices. You've got to give up way more than an average college student has to. I just think that's a big con for me. Yeah. So I know there's like school is a big controversy. What are some pros and cons of playing college football that correlate with school work or stuff that you have to do in the classroom? I think a big one is we all, since we're on the team, we all have Kelsey as our academic advisor. Yeah. I think that's a big pro because maybe kids that aren't doing well in school or have trouble in class can go right to Kelsey and then she can have immediate help right there. I think that's a big help to the team. She's really cool and you can ask her about a lot of things. For those of you at home who don't know who Kelsey is, she's like the academic advisor for just sports. So she kind of just works with football, like class registration or grades or study table hours. So yeah. David, what would you say for that? I would say a pro is the study table hours that they require as a freshman. I think it's just a good way of getting positive study habits built and it carries on for the rest of your college experience. Hopefully you get good enough grades where you won't get study tables for all the semesters but I think just having that the first semester instills good habits. Yeah. I think a lot of people hate it right away and obviously it's super time consuming because you have to do six hours of study table starting Sunday to Thursday, which kind of sucks because Sunday through Thursday it's practice, lifts, class, meetings, and then we've got to do six hours of study table on top of that, which is really time consuming and you don't really have time to do anything but school and football, which kind of sucks. But it definitely gives you the right mindset and the right mood to work on school. I think the con, obviously, is sometimes you can't really focus as well on school because of football and you have to prepare for practice. Coaches put such a big emphasis on getting ready for practice and being prepared but at the same time they put an emphasis on school and it's hard to do both. Yeah, it's hard. You have to be really good at balancing things and a really good skill is knowing when to do this and knowing when to do that. Some more pros and cons we can talk about is your social life. How is football? What are some pros and cons of football that have with your social life? I know you talked about friendships and relationships. What are some other things that you think cost-flow can affect in your social life? I'd say a pro is not only football but since we're all in, there's multiple other sports in UMD, so I think other sports, you know, basketball, girls basketball, tennis, all that, volleyball, soccer, we all have that same collegiate athletics that we're both all going through. I think if you can have a bond and know each other, since we're kind of the same, under the same pressure and all that stuff, knowing that is also a big, it helps. So Hayden pretty much just said my pro, but so I'll just say my con. I would say being a college football player here at UMD, you're under a little bit more pressure just from the community. People know who you are and you can't be messing up because if you mess up, the media is going to write a story about you and you don't want the program looking bad like that. Yeah, the coaches kind of talk about that. The first, before fall camp even started, everyone knows kind of who you are. If you're a part of UMD football, they kind of know that and they can figure it out. So you've got to make the right decisions and some of that affects your social life so you can't do some things that you'd like to do. But in the end, it kind of works out in the end because it's more positive than negative because it helps you make the right decisions. You are the athlete that kind of reflects not only as UMD football, but also UMD as a whole. That's what I think they are. Oh yeah, 100%. I'd say another con, this kind of goes with social life, but me living in town, I get to see my family once a week, which sucks. I would like to see them every day, but for you guys, I can't even imagine what you guys have to go through because you can't see your family at all for long periods of time. So how do you guys work with that with your family and seeing them and stuff like that or communicating with them? For me, it's a little over a four hour drive home. It's not too terrible. I know a day is longer than that. I could go home more often, some weekends here and there, but the only time I ever go home is longer breaks and stuff like that. I get time to call my parents and my siblings and aunts and uncles and my whole family. Just kind of set a time to talk with them on the phone or FaceTime or whatever I think. I'm getting used to it now. We're going into my second year pretty soon, so I just got to get used to it. Being from Iowa, it was a little tough at first. I think everyone that goes to college is going to experience a little bit of homesickness at some point in your college life. I would say I've just kind of gotten used to the fact that I can't just go home every weekend and see them because of the drive. Thankfully, we have phones and stuff. We can communicate. I'm not trying to make a point to call them for an hour a week or so. Of course, all the time I'll be texting my dad, whether it be sending each other tweets on Twitter or just talking about random things. We still have a good relationship, so that's good. I definitely found it hard right away because you go from seeing your parents every day so you don't really have to worry about communicating with them, but then all of a sudden they're gone. You have to really be conscious about talking to them and communicating with them and touching base with them. They do a good job, too, because they want to talk to you and hear how your things are going. Well, I appreciate you guys coming on the podcast. Awesome. Thank you, sir. Welcome. I appreciate you, too. Hopefully, this isn't the last time, but I appreciate you guys. I'd love to do it again. It was an honor, sir. Yes, sir. All right. Thanks for tuning into the Sanford Hill Podcast. Have a great one. See you. Bye.