Bergen Catholic football alum launches new business for college long snapping hopefuls

In a split second, teenager Logan Rager has parlayed his football passion into a successful business, a licensing deal and acceptance to an Ivy League school.

Rager, who was ranked the nation’s No. 1 high school long snapper in the Class of 2022, ended his high school career as part of Bergen Catholic's unbeaten team last fall. He accepted an offer to continue his football career at Princeton.

Rager started a business this year called LSL elite, and he trains players from fourth grade to college on how to accurately snap a football to a punter or holder in less than a second.

“When my high school career was over, I realized that I wanted to take my long snapping into something else,” said Rager, who will celebrate his 19th birthday in August. “I wanted to create a long-snapping business out of it.”

With greater emphasis placed on special teams from high school, to college, to the NFL, elite long snappers are now coveted. In the NFL, a long snapper, on the field for about six to 12 plays a game for punts, field goals and extra points, can earn more than $1 million annually.

Rager wants to snap in the NFL. His “LSL” stands for “Long Snapping Logan,” and the 6-foot, 205-pounder from Secaucus trains approximately 20 players in Franklin Lakes, Fairfield and Middletown.

His credentials make him a sought-after instructor: He can snap a football 15 yards to a punter in 0.62 seconds, give or take a hundredth of a second, and that’s better than almost every collegian. He helped Bergen Catholic to a 12-0 season and was chosen the top high school long snapper in the Class of 2022 by Rubio Long Snapping, a premier trainer of the position.

Rager’s students, many of them considered undersized for football, are mostly grammar and middle-school students with aspirations of playing high school football, or high schoolers with dreams of playing in college.

“We live in a country where if you have good grades and you can bend over and throw a ball through your legs, you can go to Princeton,” said Rager, who had a 4.3 grade-point average at Bergen Catholic and was accurate on all 136 of his varsity snaps. “And I want to give the same opportunities to kids who maybe never even thought that playing college football was possible.”

Joe Cortese, a rising junior at Indian Hills, has taken about 20 lessons with Rager and says he’s made dramatic improvement. So much so that the 5-foot-5, 165-pound Cortese believes that he can long-snap at the collegiate level.

“I’ve progressed so much since I started working with him, and my confidence has gone through the roof,” Cortese said. “I 100 percent believe that I can snap at the next level.”

Though Cortese is expected to grow several more inches and will add more weight, he knows long snapping and grades are his pathway to playing in college.

“As much as I am a football player, I know my size doesn’t give me much of an advantage to play linebacker or running back at the next level,” Cortese said. “Long snapping has given me the ability to play at the next level. And that’s why I do it – because I love football and I want to keep playing.”

Rager began snapping in sixth grade and attended Special Teams Solutions Camps, where he eventually became an instructor. One of the biggest challenges he learned to overcome is what he calls “Centeritis.” That is learning, and now teaching, players to overcome lead-hand dominance. For instance, right-handed snappers have a tendency to snap the ball too much to the left. The right-hander helps overcome that by throwing a ball left-handed.

“There’s a real science to it, and I developed the passion for [teaching] because of the reaction of the kids’ faces with the kind of snaps they were getting in just one hour of instruction,” Rager said.

Rager signed an apparel and accessory deal with Fuzion, a custom apparel company. Rager receives a royalty on sales of LSL elite items such as shirts, hats, sweatshirts and water bottles. He made a connection with Fuzion through a family friend.

“Never in a million years did I think I was going to have a clothing line,” Rager said.

We shouldn’t be that surprised. Rager wants to major in economics at Princeton, while also taking classes in finance and entrepreneurship. He is interested in real estate and likes the credo “Buying low and selling high.”

Rager’s father, David, is in the internet marketing business and proud of his son’s initiative. Dad also likes to attend Logan’s training sessions, because “This is going to be my last summer with him,” before he goes off to college.

“One of the things as a parent is you want to teach your kids different things, and one of the things they really don’t teach you about in school is business,” David Rager said. “And we thought this would be a great learning experience.”

Rager learned how to be a very good student, and now he’s learning how to be an instructor and businessman. And what he preaches most to his students is being a very good student. Good grades, along with the ability to long snap, will attract colleges. It could eventually attract the NFL, which draws about half its long snappers from non-Power Five conferences.

“My biggest advice to every specialist in the country is ‘Take the education,’” Rager said, “because the NFL is going to find you.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bergen Catholic NJ football Logan Rager launches long snapper business