Promotion
Ladouceur snaps up a career in the NFL

Ladouceur snaps up a career in the NFL

By TIM WHARNSBY

TIM WHARNSBY
From Friday's Globe and Mail
November 22, 2007 at 10:53 PM EST

DALLAS — The Dallas Cowboys have plenty of headline makers with loudmouth wideout Terrell Owens, lawbreaking defensive tackle Tank Johnson, star quarterback Tony Romo and standout safety Roy Williams.

But strewn in there among the Cowboys' talented 53-player roster is a Canadian, who hopes to go unnoticed during games because that means he is performing his job as Dallas's special-teams long snapper to perfection.

Louis-Philippe Ladouceur of the Montreal community of Pointe-Claire kept his record spotless yesterday. In his 40th game, the Cowboys stomped all over the New York Jets 34-3 to improve their record to 10-1, the best start in club history. This sets up an NFC showdown with the Green Bay Packers, also 10-1, at Texas Stadium next Thursday.

"It's one of those jobs in which nobody really watches you, but they expect you to be perfect," 6-foot-5, 255-pound Ladouceur said. "I don't mind it at all. I'm there to make sure that nothing goes wrong on the punts and field goals and [point after attempts]. That, of course, matters.

"I'm good at what I do and that makes it easier on my teammates."

Last year, when Romo mishandled the snap on Martin Gramatica's 19-yard field goal attempt in the Cowboy's 21-20 loss in the NFC wild-card game against the Seattle Seahwks with 79 ticks left on the clock, Ladoceur's snap was perfect. Romo's hands were not and he blamed the mishap on a slippery football.

Ladouceur, 26, didn't grow up near Montreal dreaming about becoming a long snapper. But he did have a passion for sports. He cheered for the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL, the Montreal Alouettes in the CFL and the Buffalo Bills in the NFL. He also demonstrated on the gridiron at College Notre Dame high school that he was good enough to be recruited to play defensive end for the University of California at Berkeley.

"I fell into [long snapping] by accident," said Ladouceur, who started working on the unique skill in his senior season at Cal. "I went to college as a defensive end and picked it up along the way. I knew that in order to play in the NFL, I needed some sort of specialty."

He wasn't drafted, but was signed as a free agent by the New Orleans Saints in 2005. After playing in three exhibition season games for the Saints, they released him the day before hurricane Katrina flooded the city.

He later had tryouts with the Bills and Miami Dolphins, but was refused employment. Then after the third week of that season, his Canadian agent, Gil Scott, happened to be talking to another client, Shaun Suisham, the Cowboys' punter at the time. The punter mentioned that the Cowboys weren't happy with their long snapper after he messed up in a game against the San Francisco 49ers.

The Cowboys remained in the Bay area that week to play the Oakland Raiders, and Scott was able to secure a midweek tryout for Ladouceur, who had returned to nearby Berkeley.

"I went to their hotel on the Tuesday night, brought a suitcase in case I made the team, and I did the next morning," said bilingual Ladouceur, who worked out for not only the special-teams coach, but also the head coach at the time, Bill Parcells, and owner Jerry Jones.

"It's all about the opportunity you get and making the most of it. There are a lot of players in this league, and Tony Romo is one of them, who weren't drafted."

There are 32 teams in the NFL and two of the league's long snappers are Canadians. But what are the odds they both played at the same high school? J.P. Darche of the Seahawks grew up in St. Laurent, Que., and preceded Ladouceur at College Notre Dame by six years.

"I didn't know him when I started to do the job at Cal," said Ladouceur, a sports nut who lives in downtown Dallas and will attend the Toronto Maple Leafs-Dallas Stars game tonight. "But a guy who coached both of us [at College Notre Dame] hooked us up for a phone call and then I met him when New Orleans played Seattle in one of those preseason games."

Darche, who went to McGill University and whose younger brother Mathieu plays for the Tampa Bay Lightning, is in his ninth year with the Seahawks. Ladouceur hopes to last that long in the NFL and then possibly stay in the Dallas area to work in the oil business. His major at Cal was in geophysics.