Alex Klein, football
Senior Alex Klein looks forward to playing kicker on the Endicott College football team this fall while pursuing a major in business with a pre-law track.
When did you first start playing football?
“I switched to punting because I really liked kicking and punting. On TV, I would always look at the kicker and punter, I wouldn’t really care about the other positions. In the backyard, I would kick and punt so I just did it for freshman year. I kicked in one of the varsity practices and then just started kicking and punting from there.”
What is your favorite thing about football?
“For my individual position…I would say it is completely different. You are solely yourself, it’s up to your own placement of the ball. You’re obviously not going to get hit. There’s not those [physical] aspects of football, but punts are a very personalized thing and you have to do different stuff yourself. It has a team aspect of it but it is kind of personal in a way.”
What position do you play and what do you most enjoy about playing that position?
“My position is different than anyone else’s; no one else has it. In the Northeast, you won’t really find a whole lot of good kickers and punters. It’s more [common] down South because we don’t really have that kind of talent up here, since you can’t be outside all the time. It’s rare to have a guy who can do that individually, so I think being that person was fun.”
Why did you want to play football at the collegiate level?
“With football, I didn’t really start seriously considering it until senior year when I led the league in yards-per-punt. Then I started to get noticed by 20 plus colleges and I was like, ‘oh, maybe I could actually do this in the future.’”
What about Endicott College enticed you to play for them?
“It really came down to trying to go somewhere where football is good, or go somewhere where I can continue my studies and schooling. Endicott is the best of both worlds. There were so many other colleges whose main selling point is, ‘we have football.’ Obviously [Endicott’s] football is good, but also their education is great. Their business program is unlike the other schools I was recruited by.”
What are you most looking forward to in these next four years of your life?
“College is a place to have fun, but it’s also a place to meet people. I love talking to people, meeting people at parties. I think college will give me that opportunity, especially with the football aspects, that’s like a whole fraternity of people. You can connect with them. Later in the future you can turn to them.”
Do you have hopes to play football beyond the collegiate level?
“Not particularly. If it’s presented to me then that would be great, but I feel like kicking in the NFL is a very specific thing. You travel around a lot; you do not really get a solid home. I would love to go to grad school. I would love to go to law school. I think those hopes are above playing [football] at a future level.”
Do you have any ideas of majors or other focuses you’d like to pursue at Endicott?
“I’m going to be a business major [with a] focus in pre-law, so that’s just business and a pre-law track. They’ve advised me for that specific track, so I’m going to be doing that.”
Do you have anything that you think is important to include about your relationship with football or your commitment?
“I give a lot of credit to myself and family for kind of keeping me in there. I didn’t really want to play after junior year. I didn’t know if I wanted to play here [at Algonquin] after junior year. I just kind of stuck with it. If stuff is hard, just kind of wait it out and see if it gets better.”