Marcus Freeman raves about unique kicking prospect Spencer Shrader

When Notre Dame starts its season this fall it’ll do so with a truly unique kicking prospect handling its kickoffs and field goals. It’s not what kicker Spencer Shrader does with the football that’s so impressive, but what he does off the field.

After pursuing a professional soccer career in Brazil, Shrader has built multiple businesses of his own.

And he’s pretty good at football, too.

“Yeah, I think he’s going to be a great weapon for us,” coach Marcus Freeman said. “He’s been as consistent as anybody in fall camp and he has a huge leg. He is definitely a huge enhancement to our football program.”

Shrader’s interests off the football field are what make him such a unique kicking prospect, though. He’s meshed what he knows with what he can provide.

He runs Shrader Athletics, an LLC he founded. He also operates CopperFox Technologies, another LLC he runs. Along with a sister, he also runs a non-profit called Liberty Villages Inc.

Clearly he’s pretty adept at putting together quality enterprises.

“As far as off the field, I got to learn a lot of those things as we were recruiting him, as I got to visit with him when he was being recruited,” Freeman said. “He’s a unique, really unique, mature individual that is thinking about life beyond the game of football. I think that’s part of what attracted him to Notre Dame. He could have went to a lot of different places, but he understood this place.”

Shrader spent his first four seasons at USF after his soccer dreams were put to rest. He was quite productive there, making 28-of-40 field goals and hitting from 52 yards as a long. He also made 93 point-after attempts.

Now, though, as he settles in for a season at Notre Dame as one of the program’s most unique kicking prospects, Shrader is focused on the future.

It’s one of the reasons Notre Dame’s pitch appealed to him. The Fighting Irish brand is a powerful one.

“That’s what I told him in our meeting, if you have interests beyond this game of football, understand this is one of the most powerful networks there are in all of college education,” Freeman said. “You can maximize your off-the-field interests as well as playing football here at the highest level.”