Menlo School's Zach Smith Headed for ‘Dream Come True’

Long snapping was Zach Smith’s security blanket to start. 

But after just three years of experience, a viral YouTube video and a spot on the USC football team in the fall, it’s become the Menlo School senior’s lifeline.

“At first, I was kind of just messing around on the quad, snapping the football around, didn’t really know what long snapping was,” Smith told Patch. “It’s kind of like dream come true, I got a great opportunity and I’m planning on just working as hard as I can and making the most out of it.”

He’s come a long way in a short amount of time. His mother held him from the violent sport as long as she could because she didn’t want him to get hurt. But she gave in his sophomore year, and even though he lacked experience, Smith viewed long snapping as his way to see playing time.

He’s not quite sure where the interest for long snapping started. He first wanted to be a quarterback, but realized it wasn’t for him after a few drills. Then, by chance, he started long snapping with friends and discovered it was something that was natural.

“My family grew up going to Lake Tahoe in the summers and my favorite thing to do there was sit along the lake and throw rocks,” Smith said. “I’d always be trying to throw the rocks in weird positions and one of them I’d like to do was bend over and throw it between my legs. So that’s kind of like the snapping motion.”

Throwing rocks soon turned into snapping footballs, which then led him to multiple summer camps to get better. He continued to snap for his three years at Menlo School, then in his last semester as a senior, he and his friends had an idea.

During an hour-long free period every day, a group of friends decided to film him doing trick shots around the high school campus. The goal was to shoot three a day. Some took 15 minutes, others took hours. After they had a handful of shots, Smith and his group of friends edited the video and threw it on YouTube.

“It was just going to be for us,” Smith said. “But Bleacher Report got a hold of it and that really sent it out to other places. It spread pretty quickly, which was kind of cool to watch.”

It wasn’t what got him into USC, or what got him to be the No. 2 snapper in the country, but it did spread his name around the Internet. However, the video is somewhat of a misnomer in Smith’s eyes. While the video went viral, and got picked up by media outlets such as ESPN, the trick shots were not all that tricky to him.

“I think that people think that I am better than I actually am because of the trick shot video,” Smith said. “Really, any long snapper could have done what I did in the video.”

His coaches view it differently. National long snapping coach Chris Rubio, who trained Smith multiple times during the summer, said Smith is the kind of player who can handle anything thrown at him. His ability to learn quickly is what sets him apart from the other players in the country.

“He learns so quickly it’s almost shocking,” Rubio said. “He is one of those rare kids where there is no ceiling for him, he can go as far as he wants. He can be one of the best ones in college, easily.”

That fact is hard to believe about someone who started to snap as a sophomore in high school. But after a whirlwind of YouTube fame and spot on the roster at his dream school, Smith’s view on long snapping has grown beyond being his one opportunity to play on his high school team.

“Just loving to long snap makes you good,” Smith said. “I love doing it.”