Podcast 8

The hosts of the podcast, Sam Shendell and David Newberger, discuss their favorite positions in football and their love for the sport. Sam plays receiver and talks about the skills required for the position, such as route running and hand-eye coordination. David is a long snapper and emphasizes the importance of technique and repetition in his position. They both express their passion for football and share memories of playing with friends and attending games. They conclude the episode by thanking their listeners and signing off. Hello and welcome back to Episode 8 of the Sam Shendell Show, on Podcast 8. And today we have a special guest, David Newberger. He's been on the show, but he came back. Welcome back to the show, David. Thank you, I appreciate it. Am I the first repeat guest? You are the first repeat guest, actually. That's impressive. So, I mean, that's something to hold your hat on. Today, the topics we're going to be talking about is favorite positions. First we'll talk about the positions we play and kind of what they're like and what skill sets you need to play them, stuff like that. And then we'll talk about our favorite positions that we like to play, either like in the backyard playing football or in youth football or any type of organizational or non-organizational. And then also we'll talk about why we play football and what's our favorite thing about football and what kind of brought us to like football. I'll start off with right now what I play. I'm currently a receiver at the University of North Dakota and yeah, I mean it takes a lot of skill set, a huge skill set. Route running and hands are kind of like the main two, but there's also like a lot of other stuff that go into it, like speed and quickness, lateral quickness, how to get in and out of breaks fast enough. And then also mentally, you have to be pretty smart to be a receiver to read coverage. Not as much as quarterbacks, but you still got to read coverage and kind of see what, how your route will defer depending on like what coverage it is. But like mostly it's just like route running, hands, being able to jump is nice and then like your size and your skill set will like defer depending on what kind of receiver you are. So like me, I'm a kind of big receiver, so I'm 6'3", 210, so like size is a huge thing for me and it's an asset that I use every time I play football and it's a pretty big skill set. David, would you like to get into your skill set? Yeah, so in high school I played receiver and safety as well as a long snapper, but here at UND, I'm a long snapper and it's really its own ballgame, like in terms of positions like, you know, maybe like a goalie in hockey, we're kind of off doing our own thing, but there's really a lot that goes into it behind the scenes, like before practice and stuff. But it's a lot of technique, there's a lot of technical stuff that comes along with long snapping, but the main thing that is just repetition, you know, in the heat of the fire you revert back to your training. Yes sir, I like that quote, I like that quote. So I think that's what kind of keeps me calm during games is just because I've snapped so many times in my life just getting repetitions, it's kind of like shooting a basketball really, there's a lot of similarities, just like basketball players need to get shot stuff, I need to be getting snaps multiple times per week, so yeah. I'll talk a little bit about like what I played in high school too and then we can get into like our favorite positions to play, but in high school I played receiver and safety, obviously I still play receiver, and I was a kick returner and a punt returner, which was a lot of fun, but safety was like probably my favorite position to play as a senior in high school just because I like to hit, and I led the team in tackle so that was pretty cool, it was my first time doing that for the football team, so I liked playing safety because like not only could you play coverage and like try to get interceptions and do all that type of stuff, but you could also come downhill and make a huge hit, like fill a gap or like contain the edge, do whatever you gotta do on a certain play depending on the play call and what kind of defense you're in and what kind of offense you're playing, it was pretty cool, like changing up your defense each week or like figuring out what they tend to do, so if you're gonna blitz more, I mean coverage more, but safety kind of like, it differs depending on what team you're playing, how you're playing, which is kind of cool and I liked it, and then kick returner and punt returner was a lot of fun, those are probably more fun than safety and receiver to be honest, but like just being able to return was a lot of fun, I never got kick return touched down, but I got some punt return touched down, so that was pretty cool, but it was just cool because all these guys are coming downhill on you and you just gotta try to make a play and try to do something sick really because kick returner and punt returner are pretty much some of the most more explosive plays in football because you know, as David knows, as a line snapper, special teams is a pretty huge part of it, so I'd like to hear you explain your high school positions. You just gotta make the first shot miss right? Yes sir, yes sir, obviously. But yeah, so in high school I was playing really three ways with long snapper, I was okay as a receiver, I was like second on the team in catches, but I think defense has always been my passion really, and you know I've thought about coaching as well, and like if I were to coach I would definitely coach defense, but in high school as a safety, my senior year I was third in the state in interceptions, and I think I was third on the team in tackles as well, so I had a pretty decent season, and you know, I just really liked, we played a lot of cover three, I don't know if that means a lot to you, but we played a lot of cover three, so I was just in the middle of the field over the top, it allowed me to get the opportunity to get a lot of interceptions and stuff, but I also came downhill and run support, so yeah, I just really liked playing safety. Oh yeah, I bet. My favorite position to play of all time though, is probably quarterback. I played when I was a youth football, just because quarterback, you're the leader of the team, you're the leader of the squad, you kind of decide, not decide, but like you help the flow of the game and how it looks, and like it's pretty cool, I mean quarterback you make the biggest plays, it's nice to be the most well-known on the team I guess sometimes, but the offense kind of runs through you, I mean you're in every run play, you touch the ball every play, except on like certain personnel, like I guess like wildcat or the ran backs in the quarterback position, but you get a pass, and like passing was a lot of fun when I was a kid and playing in the backyard, I always do quarterback because I like running the read option, or like option plays, and then passing was also my favorite thing to do, but just being quarterback was like you're in charge of everything, and you kind of like run the offense. Yeah, so I have to agree with Sam, you know growing up I always played quarterback, I didn't play receiver on offense until high school, but you know at recess we'd always play football, like backyard football, I'd always be the quarterback, and you know as I've grown up and I've like started to learn football more, and know more about coverages and stuff, I kind of wish I did play quarterback, because I think it's just really fun like making reads, like reading what the coverage is, and just knowing who's going to be open and when to get the ball where, but yeah you touch the ball every play, I just think it's probably the most fun position in football to play. Yeah, I definitely agree, I mean whenever like you make a player in Madden, you always usually make a quarterback just because like they're the most fun to control, and that's kind of like how it is in the backyard, or like whenever you're playing it with your friends, like in non-organizational, it's just fun to be quarterback, and it's nice to be in all the other positions, I mean I like running back too, just because you got the ball on handoffs, and you can make a play, and you can get like dump passes, or you can take screens, or whatnot, you can do whatever, but quarterback is just like the most fun, it's the most explosive, and you can make the most explosive plays. Now we're going to talk about, you know, why we kind of played, why we played football, what got us into it, like what our favorite memories are, and I'll start it off, I remember I grew up in Riverside neighborhood, which is on the north side of town, and across the street from my house was a green, or like a grass field, it was a pretty big grass field, it was probably like a 40 yard grass field, and there was a bank on the other side of it, or a little hill that stopped a flood, they put in for flood protection, but it was a lot of fun playing on that field, just because like not only did we play football, we also got to play baseball, and other games, but football, just on a cloudy day, and the leaves on the ground, and like just playing with all your friends in the neighborhood, it was just some of my favorite memories, and then going back inside, watching college football on a Saturday, or going to like UND games, and then on Sunday, doing the same thing, playing outside, and then coming back inside to watch the Vikings, it was just like some of my favorite memories, and that's kind of what I got into football, and then since then I've been hooked, I was, when I was a kid I always carried a Vikings helmet with me wherever I went, and if I couldn't bring it inside, then I left it in the car, but I was just a huge football fan, and then when I moved in my new house, because we moved when I was in fifth grade, or fourth or fifth grade, in the middle of Grand Forks, and we still had a little grass area, but it was not nearly as big, but I'd spray paint lines in the backyard, so we could play football, and get games going again, and that was pretty fun, and I just love football ever since, it's just a cool thing, playing out 40 degree weather, in clouds, just with leaves on the ground playing football, it's just my favorite memories. Yeah, so I got into football at a pretty young age, my dad actually never played football in his life, but he really loves watching football, and ever since I was born, I pretty much had a football in my hand, or you know I've been going to games, because my dad's been an Iowa football season ticket holder since 2004, I want to say, and he would always take me to games at a young age, and I'm pretty sure my first ever football game was when I was like, maybe like six months old, I went to Arizona State to watch Iowa play them, and I don't remember that obviously, but yeah, I just always really just, it's been my true passion in sports, like I played basketball and baseball growing up, but football's always just been the sport that's really stuck with me, and I really truly love it, but yeah, kind of like Sam said, growing up, I had, I would have friends over, and I'd like spray paint lines in the backyard, try and make it a football field, I had like mini goal posts made out of like PVC pipes, stuff like that, pylons, everything, you know, rain, snow, shine, I just always loved it. Oh yeah, I remember shoveling off my backyard after a blizzard too, just so we could play football in like late November, and I just remember just playing in the backyard was just like the most fun, just before high school games when I was little, or like at the high school games off to the side, just playing there, it was a lot of fun, and then I've been able to go to like a lot of college football games obviously, like UND in town, but like also going to the University of Minnesota was a lot of fun going to those games, and then going to Vikings games, because I mean, I'm a huge Vikings fan, so I went to three games in Minneapolis, and then go for fans, I've traveled to Florida, watched their bowl games, I've been to some of their biggest games and their biggest offsets, like when they beat Penn State, I was in that one cup three or four years ago, which was a lot of fun, but just like football just, when you think of fall for me, you just think of football, and football just has a lot of good memories for me, and I just love it, love it to death. Are there any games like that you've gone to that just reminisce with you, or like you remember, because like they're just good memories? Yeah, so, you know, most of my games are, most of my memories from attending games are Iowa games, just because that's where I mainly went to growing up, we've made several road trips across the Big Ten to Northwestern Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Michigan State, my dad's been to a few others, but the game, there's a couple games that really stick with me, you know, Iowa played Ohio State in 2017, Ohio State was ranked number four in the country, and I was absolutely destroyed, I'm like 55-24, that was a really fun game, another game, they were playing number two Michigan, I want to say it was, and they knocked them off 14-13 on a last second field goal, that was pretty electric, and the other one that sticks with me was actually my senior year, I went to the Iowa Penn State game, and I think they actually set the record for the loudest college football crowd, I could be wrong, but they scored a touchdown late to take the lead, and they knocked off number four Penn State, and yeah, that was just a really cool experience, and then on the NFL side, I'd have to say, I've been to one NFL game, it was actually in January, January 1st, I went to the Packers Vikings game, I'm actually a Packers fan, but yeah, so it was a, that was a pretty fun game for me, and actually turned out to be Aaron Rodgers' last win as a Packer, so I'm glad I got to watch him play as a Packer in person. Yes sir, but yeah, obviously, as you can tell, football's a pretty big part of our life, and it's kind of like our motivation, it's what we work for, and like, it's what we look forward to, I mean, I'm looking forward to fall already, I'm looking forward to summer just playing football at the field, or like on the turf, you know, basketball, basketball's fun, baseball's fun, but like, football's just a whole different thing for us, and we love it to death, but I appreciate everyone who's listening to the Sam Shandell Show, obviously this is my last podcast for now, but I appreciate it all, it's been a lot of fun making these podcasts, and not only telling, talking about college football, but also talking about my personal life, and all that good stuff, so I mean, it's been a lot of fun, and I just appreciate everyone that's come along, and thanks Dave for coming on for your second time on the podcast. Of course. It was a lot of fun, not only, it was pretty cool listening to all your information, all your memories, but yeah, it's good reminiscing, but I appreciate you coming on, and I appreciate everyone who's listening to my show, and this is me signing off for now, thank you. Thank you.