Michigan State University Athletics
Grinz on Green: An Appreciation for Mike Sadler
7/26/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Steve Grinczel, MSUSpartans.com Online Columnist
One of the best parts of being involved with college athletics is reconnecting with a former player years after his playing days are over.
How are things in the league? Who are you working for? Do you own your own business? You're coaching? Where? Married? Kids?
Mike Sadler was different.
Because of his intelligence, sense of humor, charm and self-awareness, the answers to such questions were projected onto him throughout his tenure as Michigan State's punter from 2011-14.
Certainly, an NFL team would add him to its roster for his talent, but if not, MSU's only four-time Academic All-American would be a giant success as an engineer, or an economist. Maybe he'd be a glib politician someday, governor or senator. He might host a late-night talk show or make it as an entrepreneur.
It was universally assumed, and agreed upon, that Mike Sadler would make it in whatever endeavor he chose. The only reason to worry about his future was the unexpected, which came tragically on a rain-slickened road in Wisconsin late Saturday night.
The car he was driving careened into a tree and the accident claimed his life, as well as that of Nebraska punter Sam Foltz. Colby Delahoussaye, a kicker at LSU, was injured in the crash, but survived. All three participated in a kicking camp earlier that day.
And so, at the age of 24, Mike Sadler's legacy has been cast from unlimited potential, underscored in the present with his acceptance to the prestigious Stanford Law School (he was set to enroll later this summer), with his accomplishments on and off the field as student-athlete personified, and perhaps most importantly, with how he regarded and touched everyone he met.
Specialists tend to be a quirky lot, sequestered from the rest of the team for much of the time in their own little world with fellow punters, kickers and long-snappers.
But Sadlers' teammates all attest they were part of his world.
He had the uncanny ability to be self-promoting and self-effacing at the same time. Only Sadler could in one breath launch his fanciful candidacy for the Heisman Trophy, and suspend it in the next, not wanting to take votes away from a more electable teammate.
Sadler was more humorist than class clown, with an obtuse take on the common and mundane that revealed his comedic genius. A star of the Twitterverse, Sadler once wondered what the offspring of a zebra and a Dalmatian would look like, and asked if cows drank milk?
While other football players might have been embarrassed by such attention, Sadler reveled in his role as a heartthrob of teeny-boppers, as determined by Seventeen Magazine.
He made cerebral cool because his humor usually included an element of plausibility. His punter's playbook probably could fit on a yellow sticky note and it would be easier to play Oregon without the distraction of no one agreeing on the correct pronunciation of "Oregon."
Sadler's contributions to the Spartans as a punter were undeniable. During the 2013 Big Ten and Rose Bowl championship season, he led the nation in pinning opponents down inside of their own 20-yard line and no team scored a touchdown against MSU on a drive beginning at or inside its own 10.
Midway through his junior season, Sadler told me he had 12 different types of punts in his repertoire. And while he could have used the knowledge credited for his 3.97 grade-point average in applied engineering sciences to graph the falling inflection point of each one, he used the credo that served him from the first time he punted a ball.
"I just go out and try to kick it high and far," said Sadler, who at the time was a Rhodes Scholarship candidate and looking into pursuing a Ph.D. in economics.
Co-defensive coordinator Mike Tressel, who coached linebackers and coordinated special teams that season, provided insight to Sadler's dumb-like-a-fox approach.
"Don't let him fool you about using his brain," Tressel said back then. "He has a plan, so when he steps out there he doesn't have to think any more. You want to have a person that can make good decisions and over the course of time, he's shown us he can make good decisions."
For all his prowess as a punter â€" and he's sixth on MSU's all-time list with a 42.2 average -- Sadler made a case, somewhat seriously, for being viewed as a one-dimensional player. He used his ball-carrying derring-do, on trick plays sent out to field by head coach Mark Dantonio and which made him a fan favorite, as evidence.
On a fake punt play Tressel immortalized in Spartan lore as "Hey Diddle Diddle, Send Sadler Up the Middle," Sadler ran for 25 yards and a first down that helped preserve a crucial 26-14 victory against Iowa. Sadler confessed afterward that his ball-carrier instincts had more to do with survival than a true running back's intuition, but he still considered himself a backup tailback with three career carries for 54 yards and a stellar 18-yard average.
The media typically doesn't make a point of interviewing punters unless they mess up or contribute to a victory with a well-placed kick or fabulous fake. But Sadler had the highest profile of any Spartan punter of the last 30 years as much for his sense of team and the respect of his teammates as anything, and that made him a go-to guy for quotes.
Sadler transcended stereotypes assigned by position, social status and even body type. Generously listed at 6-foot, 175 pounds, Sadler forged an odd-couple friendship with 6-4, 291-pound center Travis Jackson, in which the two combined for a "Thick and Thin" podcast on Spartan football.
Big Ten Kickoff Media Days, which begin for Michigan State on Tuesday in Chicago, are the first indication football season is about to begin and have a Christmas Eve feel. These are bittersweet times for the Spartans, however.
Senior wide receiver R.J. Shelton, who is in attendance in Chicago, can't help but smile when summing up what Mike Sadler meant to the team.
"Sadler was a guy everyone could talk to," Shelton said. "For me, he's the one who broke the barrier and helped me feel accepted. With any type of problem any of us had with what's going on in our life, we could go to him and he'd put a smile on your face.
"He was the character, for sure, in that room, but everyone respected him and everyone liked him. If you ever interacted with him, you immediately fell in love with the dude. He did so much for Michigan State. He was called a specialist, but he was special for a reason. We love him dearly."
