The Daily Orange is a nonprofit newsroom that receives no funding from Syracuse University. Consider donating today to support our mission.

Sam Rodgers sat in the basement of Cornell Law School making his final preparations for a mock trial competition. He was about to present his argument in front of student judges that day, on Super Bowl Sunday in 2018. 

He thought of his friend and fellow long snapper, Rick Lovato, who had beaten him for an NFL job the year prior before getting traded to the Philadelphia Eagles midseason. Lovato was playing in the Super Bowl that night. 

Months prior, the two were sharing the same practice field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Rodgers was Syracuse football’s equipment manager at the time, doing laundry and organizing gear for the team he captained the year prior. He was waiting for his chance at the NFL. A spot opened up a week after Lovato and Rodgers tried out, when the Packers long snapper tore his ACL. The Packers signed Lovato. Rodgers went back to the equipment room. 

“I was devastated. I was so close. I was one man away,” Rodgers said. 

In his first year of law school, he was passed over again by the Arizona Cardinals. One step away from his NFL dream, Rodgers was ready to move on. He shifted fully toward a law career, and maybe, he thought, politics. Three years later, Rodgers is the Republican nominee for New York’s 53rd Senate District, running against incumbent State Sen. Rachel May (D-Syracuse).

Rodgers was the Orange’s long snapper from 2011 to 2014. It’s not a high-profile position, and it’s not often that a long snapper is elected captain of the team. In his time at SU, he was one of two captain long snappers in FBS football. After a year in the equipment room post-graduation with some near-misses in the pros, Rodgers graduated from Cornell Law School and became the assistant district attorney in Madison County, a rural county east of Onondaga. 

Katelyn Marcy | Digital Design Director

“Running for office is something that had been in my head as something I’d like to do,” Rodgers said. 

Campaigning as a Republican in New York’s 53rd Senate District comes with its challenges, Rodgers and campaign manager Ryan Frantzis said. The district is majority Democratic, and in a presidential year, getting people to vote against their party lines becomes a challenge.

“I could dream about winning big,” Rodgers said. “But if we win, it’s going to be close. It’s just math.”

His campaign signs don’t mention that he’s a Republican. They’re blue and orange, a reference to Rodgers’ time at Syracuse. At 29 years old, Rodgers believes he has unique advantages, including his youth. 

“Youth in politics is a good thing,” Rodgers said. “We need younger people in politics, we need more people in politics. If you look at the political scene, it’s all older people.”

After Rodgers’ final year of law school, his summer associate position at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York City turned into a full-time job offer after he passed the bar exam. But he turned down the job.

“If he went into the private sector, the first year salaries for big law, the base salaries are 190,000 dollars,” former teammate Julian Whigham said. “I asked him, ‘How do you make the decision to turn down that money and go into the public sector?’” 

Almost everyone in his class accepted full-time offers. The recruiting director at the firm asked what Rodgers was doing instead. Rodgers didn’t know.

He moved back to Syracuse with his wife, Jenna, who played soccer at SU and now works on athlete development for Syracuse Athletics. They bought a house, and Rodgers began pursuing his Masters of Public Administration from SU’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

He met with local Republican officials and realized he wanted to run for local office. He searched to find out what seats might be a good fit for him to run for. He’d consider running in Syracuse, but trying to win as a Republican in a heavily Democratic area doesn’t work mathematically, he said.

When Rodgers explored a possible run for New York State Senate in December 2019, he needed a campaign manager. He sent a Facebook message to Frantzis, who, like Rodgers, was new on the political scene. Frantzis met Rodgers that summer through Debra Cody, a Republican member of the Onondaga County Legislature in the fifth district. 

Frantzis had never managed a campaign before. They launched their run in January, and Rodgers started his job as assistant district attorney for Madison County in March. 

Within a week of starting his part-time job there — litigating misdemeanors, meeting with victims and settling traffic tickets — the coronavirus pandemic moved his master’s classes  and job online and halted his campaign’s ability to meet people in person.

“Our plan was to get Sam in front of as many people as possible as often as possible,” Frantzis said. “COVID sent that plan into a tailspin.”

The campaign held Zoom town halls and fundraisers, in addition to creating digital and social media advertising. The Senate Republican Campaign Committee partnered with Rodgers campaign but, by July, realized he had to get in front of more voters. 

Rodgers spent the summer knocking on more than 7,500 doors in the 53rd Senate District, wearing a mask and gloves when canvassing neighborhoods. On the trail, Rodgers said he’s had plenty of Democrats push back against him. He’s had Republicans ask why it’s not easy to find the word “Republican” on his campaign site. 

One person, he said, saw Rodgers in a blue polo when he knocked on their door and assumed he was a Democrat. When Rodgers informed him he was a Republican, the person cursed him off his property, shouting obscenities. 

“There are times that I’ll go up to a door, and it’s a Joe Biden sign, and there’s a 50-50 chance I’m going to be yelled at,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers is pushing to safely reopen the economy, and he wants to see businesses work more with government leaders to make more sensible regulations. He’s critical of May, the co-chair of the Senate Committee on Aging, and wants more accountability regarding New York’s COVID-19 crisis in nursing homes earlier this year. 

He uses his former role as the captain of the football team as the icebreaker on the campaign trail. In 2014, Whigham said the whole team cast votes to choose their team captain. Whigham voted for Rodgers. Former quarterback Terrel Hunt told Syracuse.com he would’ve voted for Rodgers twice, if he could’ve. 

Now, Rodgers said he needs Biden supporters to cross party lines if he wants a seat in Albany in January.

“Because of his background as a football player, it’s one of the most unifying fields that you can come from,” Whigham said. “People from all different backgrounds play sports, and being able to bring us all to one issue is what has helped him.”

Published on November 1, 2020 at 10:53 pm

Contact Anthony: amdabbun@syr.edu | @AnthonyDabbundo