Michael Schmeding
#76 Offensive Tackle
Michigan State Spartans Football
1. When did you first start playing football?
I first started to evolve around football when I was in 3rd grade; I was my high school’s water
boy for 3 years. This helped me to learn the sport better and to learn drills and basic techniques, plus I was too big to play anywhere else. The in 7nth grade a local junior football team allowed me to practice with them but I was about 60 pounds over the weight limit so it wasn’t likely I would play. Then my eighth grade year I forged my address to a town called Clifton where they ran an overweight league. I played there for a year against bigger children many or all of us looking like high school kids.
2. What position were you playing then?
At the time I was either a tight end or and offensive tackle, mostly playing offensive tackle though, and of course I always played both ways, so I played tackle on defense too.
3. What position are you playing now?
I am now playing right offensive tackle.
4. What is the most interesting thing about playing football?
The people you meet through out it and that too many people football is a game, or a sport, but to me it’s my life. It has gotten me an education and has showed me some of the better things in life.
5. What do you enjoy most about playing the game?
I enjoy the most looking down at my opponent when he is on the ground 5 yards off the ball grabbing his side or gasping for air because he just go hit by me or my teammate and myself.
6. Who were the players you looked up to, growing up?
I never really looked up to anyone when I was growing up just Shaq, and not for basketball but how he lived his life.
7. What is it like being a part of the Michigan State Spartans Football Program?
It’s a great honor to be able to go to practice knowing you’re playing for a spot on one of the best programs in the nation, and playing up against the best. Along with all the great things that come along with being a division 1-A athlete or football player, there is also a great deal of time and hard work put into it, that many people would not be able to go through.
8. Were you a fan of the Spartans growing up?
No I was a Notre Dame fan growing up.
9. What goals do you hope to achieve while playing at Michigan StateUniversity?
I hope to get my education that’s number 1 but playing wise I would like to one day go to the national football league, so I would say to some out of Michigan State in the top two rounds of the selection.
10. What’s the best story an upperclassmen teammate of yours told you
About playing ball at MSU? Most likely just the feeling you get when all those fans are applauding you and chanting the fight song and if you have ever been to a game it’s a great place and the best feeling is when you worked you butt off in practice and we get a great win, it makes everything so much better.
11. Tell us something about College Football that only a player would know.
Now there are a few things that go on behind closed doors that I can’t tell you but I will tell you that once you’re done being recruited and you’re a freshman, they still care about you but not as a player they just want you to get their team better. I don’t disagree with that but it’s just a rough change for many athletes who get recruited to a school saying that they would love to play there but don’t think about the struggle they will have to put in just to dress.
12. What’s something you’d like to change about College Football?
I think that there should not be an amount of players that are aloud on the sideline I think the whole team should be on the sideline.
13. Is steroids, in your opinion, an issue in Division I Football?
Sure it is, but a normal person can’t see it because we are fairly well built and it may look like steroids but really its how we are trained. Steroids are around just in smaller schools or conferences such as the MAC and other conferences. Mostly the bigger conferences such as the big ten, I know that we are tested twice a month at any time, and it is impossible to cheat the test. It’s not your normal piss test.
14. If you could have any job in a Division I football program what would It is?
Not sure but would definitely want to be on the sidelines.
15. Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
Graduated from Michigan State either in the NFL or looking for a good job, I would like to have my future wife next to me and I think she might be closer that I think right now. And getting ready to support my family, but hopefully I will be playing football I don’t know if could say good-bye in 5 years.