As Kyle Juszczyk’s high school football coach, Kevin Gault was there at the beginning of this story, the one that’s now taken the 49er to three straight Pro Bowls and made him the highest-paid fullback in NFL history.
Gault was at the 6 a.m. football conditioning workouts at Cloverleaf High in rural Ohio, year-round endeavors of sweat and pain that Juszczyk would religiously attend — even if he had a basketball game to play that night.
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“Kyle wasn’t a great God-given athlete,” Gault said in a phone interview. “Most of the guys in the NFL woke up incredible athletes. They worked hard, but they were given that ability.
“But Kyle was a self-made man. Kyle made himself good.”
And Gault was at Cloverleaf’s 2008 senior football banquet, when the graduating Juszczyk lugged an entire filing cabinet with him to the event.
“He had taken notes on every single kid and team that he had ever played against, and he had put together an entire drawer of scouting reports,” Gault said of Juszczyk. “And he passed it down to the junior class. It was better than any scouting report we had ever put together as a coaching staff. He had notes on everybody — who they were, what they did, what they liked. It was amazing what he found out about those kids.
“We had told him: ‘You have to know everything about the guy you’re playing against if you’re going to defeat him.’ And he took that literally.”
Every fall Sunday, hundreds of finished products grace the gridiron: The bevy of NFL players who suit up have undergone years of physical and cerebral development, and they play football at its highest level to a massive audience.
But every butterfly was once a caterpillar and behind Sunday’s polish lie much humbler stories. Juszczyk’s is one with particularly workmanlike roots.
It began in the third grade, when Juszczyk started showing up to Cloverleaf’s football field to watch his older brother practice with the team.
“I don’t think Kyle missed a single day,” Gault remembered. “He was this little teeny kid, hanging around, throwing balls, jumping on the pads — doing all kinds of crazy things. So I asked him, ‘Why don’t you be one of our managers?'”
Juszczyk breathed the football program’s air for six years. Then, as a ninth-grader, he finally suited up for Cloverleaf. Four years later, Juszczyk would be off to become a star at Harvard, after which he’d advance to the NFL and punch his ticket to multiple Pro Bowls.
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But Juszczyk’s time at Cloverleaf was anything but a cakewalk. When he reminisces on it today, Juszczyk readily lists the key figures who guided him through his formative years as a football player.
There’s Gault, of course. Then there’s Dave Ward, formerly a teacher and assistant on Cloverleaf’s staff whom Juszczyk views as a source of fatherly guidance in his life. (Juszczyk’s mother raised her three sons on her own.)
Was there anyone else who helped make up this mosaic — perhaps an adversary on the football field, someone who sharpened Juszczyk’s edge, who helped propel him to the stardom that he enjoys now?
Sitting in the 49ers locker room late last season, Juszczyk pondered that question for several seconds, his lips pursed, his head lowered in deep thought.
Finally, brimming with certainty, he looked up with his answer.
“Chris Snook,” Juszczyk said.
In Juszczyk’s drawer full of scouting reports, the largest file was on Snook.
He’s the same age as Juszczyk, and a decade ago Snook was on a remarkably similar football path.
Snook went to Highland High, about 20 miles from Cloverleaf on the opposite side of Medina County. He and Juszczyk first played against each other in the seventh grade, but it was Snook’s teams — like Snook himself — that usually held the upper hand.
“We traded blows back and forth throughout middle school to high school,” Snook said of Juszczyk in a phone interview. “You could tell there was a mutual respect. He was the type of player I would have loved to play alongside at some point.”
Alas, that never happened: Snook and Juszczyk were destined to be rivals who’d combine to produce a captivating high school football story. And in the larger picture, Snook served as both a measuring stick and hurdle that Juszczyk would have to overcome on his way to the NFL.
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“Chris Snook was a big, dominating kid — even as a seventh-grader,” Ward, the Cloverleaf assistant who’s been an influential figure to Juszczyk, said in a phone interview. “And by high school, he wasn’t a 5-11, 175-pound tailback. He was 6-2 and well over 200 pounds. You could tell something special was going to happen there.”
Juszczyk, on the other hand, began much smaller than Snook. The 49ers list Juszczyk at 6-1 and 240 pounds now, but he was nowhere near that size as a Cloverleaf freshman.
“He was 5-5, 5-6, maybe 135 pounds,” Gault said of this young version of Juszczyk, who played quarterback for Cloverleaf’s freshman team.
Juszczyk actually dazzled in one of his first opportunities at that position, orchestrating a two-minute drive culminating in a last-second 35-yard touchdown pass to lead Cloverleaf’s freshman team to victory.
“Kyle drew up the scoring play on the dirt,” Gault said. “Regardless of how small he was, he never failed at anything that he did. I looked over at the assistant coach and said, ‘That kid’s going to be something special.'”
Still, Juszczyk needed to pack on much more muscle if he was ever going to succeed at the varsity level — and challenge Snook, who’d end up playing college football at West Virginia, on the gridiron.
“In middle school, Chris Snook was twice as big as everybody,” Juszczyk said. “And then in high school, his class was like the second coming. He was an absolute beast. Played varsity as a freshman, his whole class started as sophomores, and then by junior and senior year, they were dominant. They were killing everybody. Best team in the league.”
Juszczyk underwent a major growth spurt after his sophomore year, so he and Cloverleaf were ready to give Snook’s Highland team a competitive fight in 2007, his junior year.
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“Wow,” Snook remembered telling his Highland teammates at the start of that game, “Kyle Juszczyk got huge.”
Both Juszczyk and Snook played two ways, lining up at running back and linebacker, inverse positions that saw them meet many times throughout the game — with plentiful contact.
In that 2007 matchup, Snook’s Highland squad bruised its way to a 3-0 victory over Juszczyk’s Cloverleaf team, which failed to reach the postseason.
But when Juszczyk exploded through the 2008’s first five games, the senior year rematch with Highland — scheduled as the final game of the regular season — became the talk of Medina County. Snook, already a record-holding running back, battered his way to nearly 2,000 more rushing yards that season, while Juszczyk also laid waste to the Suburban League.
All the while, both players were also standout linebackers, and they both absorbed the painful physical punishment that goes with being a star two-way player in small-school, rural Ohio.
“I was never as sore in college as I was after high school games,” Snook said. “I felt like a truck hit me after playing both ways in high school. I consistently got 20-30 carries, played linebacker, kickoff, kick return, punt, punt return. I was never off the field, and Kyle was the same way.
“And that’s just the way it was in Ohio. By the time the season was over, our quarterback had a broken collarbone, our fullback had some broken ribs, one kid’s hamstring was torn. But that was normal, because our schools weren’t big enough, so they needed guys to go both ways.”
Cloverleaf’s stadium wasn’t big enough for the anticipated finale against Highland, either, so the school rented and installed extra bleachers for the big game — and many spectators still had to stand. Cloverleaf entered with a 7-2 record, while Highland was an undefeated 9-0.
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Because of the relatively limited size of the Ohio postseason bracket, Cloverleaf needed a win to make the playoffs for the first time in program history.
“This was our best team in school history, and this was the biggest game in school history,” Juszczyk remembered. “This was a huge deal, and it was Highland standing in front of us. We had to beat Snook.”
There’s a photo of Juszczyk and Snook, captains of their respective teams, both hulking figures weighing over 220 pounds among their average-sized high school teammates, meeting at midfield for the coin toss. Physically, the two stars looked like mirror images of each other.
Chris Snook (No. 44) and Kyle Juszczyk meet at midfield for the coin toss before their senior year showdown. (Courtesy of Kyle Juszczyk)Over the white-knuckle ride that was the next four quarters and two overtime periods, they’d play that way.
“It was a rivalry because we were both big dogs in football,” Juszczyk said of himself and Snook. “We were like the two big dogs in the league. You become rivals because of that.”
The stage was set for a matchup that the northeast Ohio high school football community would talk about for a long time.
A chilly late October rain doused Cloverleaf’s field that night, hampering both teams’ passing games and further magnifying the two premier players. Cloverleaf was already missing its quarterback Cody Roberts, who’d go on to play at Cornell, due to a broken collarbone.
Gault elected to not start Juszczyk at QB instead, even though he’d handled that role earlier in the season. Cloverleaf’s idea of using Juszczyk was similar to the one that the 49ers have now: He was most effective lining up at several different positions. This way, the defense had a harder time keying on Juszczyk as Cloverleaf fed him the ball from every angle imaginable.
“It was Snook and I, just going back and forth,” Juszczyk remembered. “There were so many monumental moments, especially when I played linebacker and he played running back — us meeting in the hole. It was like something out of a movie.”
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Gault, whose dad and wife were both on the sideline, remembers when Juszczyk and Snook collided right in front of his guests.
“My dad turns to my wife and asks, ‘Do you still want your son to play football?'” Gault said. “She looked at my dad and said, ‘no.’ It sounded like someone took a baseball bat and hit a tree as hard as they could swing it.”
But even through the pounding — and even with his right wrist broken and his left hand fractured coming into the game — Snook barreled forward to a sensational performance, racking up a school-record 301 yards on a staggering 48 carries.
“I got my yardage that game,” Snook said.
But it came at a price.
“By the time the season was over, I couldn’t feel my finger anymore,” Snook said of the effects of playing through fractures on both hands. “I had to have a surgery that put a screw in my wrist later, and now I can’t bend my hand back as far as I should be able to because I didn’t get it fixed when I should have.”
The game was tied 14-14 as time dwindled, but Highland had Cloverleaf on the ropes again. Their kicker, one of the best in Ohio during the 2008 season, lined up for a 30-yard field goal to win it at the gun.
But a Cloverleaf assistant, after noticing that the Highland kicker was not wearing his tail pad, alerted officials of the infraction. They penalized Highland 15 yards and the kicker missed the ensuing 45-yard attempt.
“He hadn’t missed a kick all year,” Juszczyk said of Highland’s kicker, remembering this dramatic turn of events. “And then it went wide. Sent us into overtime.”
When it came to improbable events breaking in Cloverleaf’s favor, lightning then struck twice: Snook fumbled on Highland’s second overtime possession and Juszczyk’s team took over with victory at their fingertips. Cloverleaf called three consecutive direct snaps to Juszczyk, aiming to set up the potential game-winning kick.
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“Third-and-6 from 16, I told him to just secure the ball in the middle of the field,” Gault said. “But Kyle said, ‘Coach, I’m gonna score.’
“And wouldn’t you know it? He scored.”
Juszczyk smashed an attempted tackle in the backfield, knifed through Highland’s defense and galloped into the end zone as fans spilled from the Cloverleaf bleachers onto the field. Roberts, the QB with the broken collarbone, sprinted from the sideline and somehow mobbed Juszczyk first.
Juszczyk barreled into the end zone in double overtime as Cloverleaf beat Snook’s Highland team to reach the playoffs. (Courtesy of Kyle Juszczyk)“Insane,” Juszczyk recalled the moment. “The place went absolutely nuts.”
For the first time in school history, Cloverleaf had qualified for the Ohio state playoffs. And in the final clash of two high school football titans, Juszczyk’s team had bested Snook’s.
“Our crowd covered our home field,” Ward said. “It was a very special night.”
A year later, Snook reached out to Juszczyk via a Facebook message, checking in from college at West Virginia to see how his old high school rival was doing at Harvard.
Juszczyk was enjoying some early playing time in the Crimson offense while Snook redshirted during his freshman season. The conclusion of that epic battle on the rainy Ohio night had marked a point of divergence for the two stars, at least from a football perspective.
“I felt that the game against Snook helped raise the bar of competition I was going against,” Juszczyk said. “It really got me ready for the next level.”
Juszczyk, of course, excelled as an eminently versatile offensive weapon over his four seasons at Harvard. The Baltimore Ravens picked Juszczyk in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL Draft and he signed a four-year, $21-million contract with the 49ers upon hitting free agency in 2017.
At West Virginia, Snook saw the field in specific formations as an H-back during his 2010 redshirt freshman campaign. But Snook suffered a concussion in a midseason game against Connecticut that year, halting his career.
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Snook estimated that he’d suffered four to six concussions prior to that — back during high school.
“The worst one was in the all-star game,” Snook said. “I played three quarters and don’t remember anything. I came to after the game, while eating a cheeseburger with my family at Red Robin.”
Snook says that concussion science in 2010 was significantly fuzzier than it is now, but Dr. Julian Bailes — later portrayed by Alec Baldwin in the 2015 film “Concussion” — gave him “a strong suggestion” to quit playing after the concussion at West Virginia.
Snook heeded this advice, medically retiring from football. He helped the Mountaineers for a season from the sideline — working extensively with future NFL defensive linemen Bruce Irvin and Will Clarke — while he finished his marketing degree. Snook is now married and living in the Washington, D.C., area, where he’s a project manager for a home remodeling company.
“I remember checking in to see what was going on with his career,” Juszczyk said of Snook. “We were headed in similar directions, and then his was derailed by concussions. That was too bad.”
Snook has watched Juszczyk’s NFL career from afar. The first career touchdown, fittingly, came against the Cleveland Browns, whose stadium is less than an hour’s drive away from the Cloverleaf and Highland campuses where Juszczyk and Snook once battled.
Juszczyk paid tribute to local legend LeBron James by spreading his arms wide after that score, an imitation of the pregame routine during which the NBA star disperses chalk into the air.
“We’re all Browns fans, so we laughed pretty hard at that,” Snook said. “My buddies from home always joke with me every time Kyle makes a big play: ‘Look, that could have been you, you could have been making $20 million,’ and stuff like that. People ask me that a lot: ‘Does it make you think what could have been?’
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“Of course I think about that to a degree. But I’m so comfortable about the decision I made to stop playing, because it’s my brain and I only get one of them. I think people are always surprised about how at ease I am about it. I’m just happy for Kyle, because he’s always been somebody I can tell works hard. I’ve never heard a bad thing about him, so it’s just good to see it pay off for him.”
Still, the parallels of this story and the subsequent parting of paths of its two protagonists serve as a prime example of just how fickle the path to professional sports can be — even for immensely talented athletes. It was Snook, not Juszczyk, who won the regional MVP award in high school and received scholarship offers to play college football at the FBS level.
But when all was said and done, it was Juszczyk who made it to the NFL.
“I think about everything that has gone right for me all the time,” Juszczyk said about his journey to the pros. “There’s a million things that have had to go my way.”
Beyond the necessary boon of a clean injury slate, Juszczyk also thinks that playing his college ball in the Ivy League instead of the FBS — no major football power offered him a scholarship — ended up being a blessing in disguise for his football career.
(Snook credits his high school coaches’ connections for his more prominent position on the college football recruiting radar: one of them coached former 49ers offensive lineman Alex Boone, a Cleveland-area product who played at Ohio State.)
“If I went to Ohio State, who knows — maybe I don’t play until my junior or senior year,” Juszczyk said. “I started as a freshman at Harvard. The offense was revolved around me. If I was a Buckeye, that probably wouldn’t have happened. They’ve got some other guys. They’re not worried about some random H-back.
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“It all worked out in my best interest.”
Snook wore No. 44 at Highland. By chance, that’s the same number that Juszczyk dons now in the NFL (he was No. 2 during high school at Cloverleaf). Snook says that his wife mentions that parallel from time to time, even though it’s entirely coincidental.
Chris Snook’s football career was derailed in college by concussions, but he has no regrets and continues to enjoy watching Juszczyk from afar. (Courtesy of Chris Snook)“I doubt it has anything to do with me, Colleen,” Snook said with a laugh, referring to his wife.
But from a symbolic perspective, the shared jersey number is fitting and representative of the overlap: Juszczyk and Snook both have rural Ohio roots, they both built themselves into local stars there and they both squared off so many times in hard-fought battles that shaped their larger stories.
Whenever the pair’s pads popped, another page was added to their interwoven stories. Their formative high school years were the stage for a rivalry that became a positively sharpening force in life.
“One of these days, I’d love to watch the film of that game again with Kyle,” Snook said of the 2008 Cloverleaf-Highland double overtime thriller. “I think that would be pretty cool.”
The day that viewing session happens will be a memorable one indeed — just like the day Juszczyk and Snook last squared off in front of that packed house, over 10 years ago now in that Ohio rain.
(Top photo of Kyle Juszczyk, No. 2, and Chris Snook, No. 44, courtesy of Snook)
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