Sam Salz doesn’t remember exactly how old he was when he was struck by the understanding that he just had to play college football.
“I was somewhere in my elementary and middle school years,” he said. “It really came out of nowhere, to be honest with you, because football wasn’t a big thing in my family growing up. … But something struck me about it. And I just don’t know. I felt like I had to do it.”
There wasn’t a lot Salz could do to work toward that goal in his childhood. He grew up in Philadelphia in an Orthodox Jewish family and attended religious schools that didn’t have football programs. He let his dreams of making a college team fade into the background for a while, until it was actually time to go to college.
“I looked into Texas A&M, and all of a sudden I fell in love with the school. I fell in love with the traditions,” he said. “So I found myself at Texas A&M, and football is a really big part of the culture here.
“So my first football game came around, and now I’m back in the same frame of mind where I was when I was a kid. And all of a sudden I said, wow, you know, like I had to do this. And I saw the first live football game. I said, you know what? I can do this. And that’s how it all started.”
He decided the best first step would be to attend tryouts and watch what drills the coaches ran so he could start to get in shape. He was determined not to give up despite the fact that he – at 5 feet 6 inches – had never played the game before.
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“And then as I’m walking out, I see this field outside the facility and I say, you know, there’s no better place for me to train because I can visualize where I want to be. I see the stadium and hopefully maybe someone will see me,” he said. “The players were there. They would occasionally encourage me as I started coming out more consistently, and that’s when it ended up happening.
“So I started training on that field every day. I ended up figuring out when the team would train so I could start my training on the field before they went to practice and finish after they left practice. I would be on this field for about 1 1/2 to two hours a day, and I’d be in the gym for about 2 1/2 to three hours a day.”
About 11 months after he started his training regimen, in the fall of 2022, Salz got a text from the staff within the A&M football program. He had made the team as a walk-on.
However, Salz’s religious observance left in a tricky position when it came to attending games. Most college football games take place on Saturdays, which is the holy day of rest in the Jewish faith.
“I can’t be at the game until the sun goes down, so well until nightfall,” he said. “Thankfully this season we had about five games that were at home that were at night.
“When there is a night game, I walk to the facility; I leave some food there beforehand. I spend the waning moments of the Sabbath there and then, you know, engage in the study of Torah or religious texts of ours – or just, reading or whatever it is. And then after that, I pray. Once I pray, I can put on my uniform.”
