Let me get this out of the way first, yes I understand that this is mostly a Philadelphia sports website, but this is an important topic for me, thank you for taking some time to read this.
Growing up, the college team I cheered for was Michigan State. My dad went there so I grew up cheering for the green and white. When you’re a football fan, whether if it’s college or pro, sometimes you make special connection with a few players that’ve been on the team for a longer period of time even though they don’t know you. Mike Sadler was one of those players. He was arguably my favorite players as a punter. He really changed football for me and really opened up my eyes on how he changed my way of viewing the life of a punter, not just on the field, but off it as well.
When you thinking of punting, you think of hang time and keeping the ball up as long as you can so your special teams unit can have a better chance of getting the return man and minimizing his yards gained. Mike Sadler was different. He essentially punted the ball on the line drive away from the returner so the he would have to chase the ball down. I thought it was smart because he could punt the ball 30 yards in the air, and on a good day it would bounce and travel and extra 20-25 yards and I thought that was really cool. Another way he changed punting is with his fake punts. He was extremely fast as a punter and his fake punts would come at the most random times. Did you know he averaged 18 yards a carry? That’s crazy! He made the game more exciting from the punting aspect because you never knew what could happen with him on the field.
When you think of good Twitter accounts to follows who do you think of? Joel Embiid? Pat Mcafee? What about Mike Sadler? Following him on Twitter is the reason why I’m writing this article. I promise you he was a top 5 follow. I remember my high school days of me begging him to follow me and to reply to my tweets. He never followed me back and he replied to just one of my tweets, but he was without a doubt one of the funniest people on Twitter. I can remember a prime time game against Nebraska (RIP Sam Foltz by the way) where he made a promise with fake Bo Pelini (@FauxPelini) where every time Mike had a good punt, he would pet his invisible cat, and he did! He did a few times I believe. He would also always tweet about how the special teams unit doesn’t get attention, so in order for him to get an interview on media day, he would have to flex his muscles and mention how he’s been putting in “so much time” in the gym (he never lifted). I even asked his former teammate Kurtis Drummond if he was the funniest guys in the team, and replied that he was in his top 3, possibly the funniest. I would definitely recommend that you to take a few minutes out of your day after reading this article to check out his Twitter account (@Sadler_3).
He was also a very photogenic person. My favorite one is where he and Connor Cook were posing for a picture and he looked like Sadler was taking Cook to prom, I thought it was hilarious. During team photos he would always be in the middle of the photo doing some kind of weird pose. He thought he was a model. His favorite thing to do was hangout with the QBs. I remember him tweeting about taking team photos with the QBs and he’s on the phone with a quote “can you hear now?? Good.. It’s a hard life being a very popular QB in the big ten” So to sum this up, he was a really fun character on social media and has made me step out of my comfort zone and try to make more people laugh not only on social media, but in person as well.
Finally, Sadler was a gifted student. I believe he graduated with a 4.0 and is the only student in Michigan State history to be an All American punter all 4 years of his college career along with being a 2 team academic All American. He made me really push myself in school, and made an impact on my academics. I had a hard time with my classes during my early high school career, but seeing him succeed made me believe that I can accomplish my goals in schools, and I’m proud to say that in 2 years I’ve raised my GPA up by .5 and I graduated high school this past June with a 3.0 GPA. After his time at MSU, he attended Stanford law school to continue his education, if only we knew, how big his impact would be on this planet.
It’s been almost 24 hours since the passing of Mike Sadler and it still doesn’t seem real to me. I keep having flash backs of all the fake punts and great things Mike has said and done on and off the football field. Like I said before, I never knew the guy, but this is one of the more painful deaths I’ve had to deal with in a year with so much tragedy and death happening. Mike’s in a better place know, probably continuing to tell corny jokes, punting footballs, and being a great guy. So I just want to say thank you Mike Sadler, for changing the way I watch football now, for changing the way I act as a person and to be more kind to everyone, for pushing me to become better as a student and to chase my dreams. Finally, thank you for all the hard work you put in over your 4 years at Michigan State, you’re apart of one of the greatest recruiting classes in the history of this program. I can’t thank you enough Mike, you truly are one of a kind and you’ll never be forgotten. RIP Mike Sadler
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