Initially, Kellen McConnell thought trouble loomed when he was called to an impromptu meeting that included his head coach and a school counselor.
“Oh no, what did I do wrong,” Kellen said were his thoughts.
Just the opposite was the case.
At the meeting, the Bishop O’Connell High School senior football player was pleasantly informed by Knights’ head coach Todd Sabatino and team counselor Tracey Leipold that the University of Maryland’s Division I football team wanted to offer McConnell a preferred walkon position to join the Terrapins’ squad this fall as a long snapper.
McConnell, an all-conference linebacker for O’Connell this past spring, already had committed to play college football for Division III Hampden-Sydney College this coming fall. A lifelong goal, though, was to play Division I college ball. So the 6-foot-2, 230-pound McConnell decommitted to Hampden-Sydney and accepted Maryland’s offer.
“Hampden-Sydney stuck out for me and I was fully prepared and happy to go there,” McConnell said. “The puzzle was complete. When Maryland wanted me, I was ecstatic. There was a new puzzle thrown on the floor. This is crazy, like out of a movie or something. So I’ll give it a try.”
The situation arose when one of Maryland’s two long snappers transferred. Needing a replacement, Maryland remembered that McConnell also was a long snapper when he had previously made contact with the team, but for playing linebacker on defense, a position where he was a standout at O’Connell.
“They said they saw me play on film as a long snapper and liked what they saw, because of my pin-point accuracy and speed as a snapper,” McConnell said.
Added Sabatino: “Kellen is a top-notch long snapper, he works hard and I highly recommended him to Maryland. There were some hoops Kellen had to go through to make this happen, but it worked out.”
Against his wishes, McConnell began long snapping as a youth football player because his father, Mark, told him to.
“Dad made me, and now it’s paid off,” McConnell.
Mark McConnell knows a bit about football, having played Division I ball as a tight end at East Carolina and Towson universities.
In recent months, McConnell said his long-snapping skills improved by attending and participating in camps with standout O’Connell punter and place-kicker Tyler Fontenot, who will play Division I football at Colgate University.
“Those camps did me a lot of good,” said Kellen McConnell, who was a midfielder for O’Connell’s boys lacrosse team this spring.
In addition to long snapping, the senior hasn’t given up on his goal of eventually playing some linebacker for Maryland.
