Siena Saint to Tampa trenches
Lacrosse player follows dream, transfers schools and sports, wins NFL spot
Zach Triner, a 28-year-old rookie with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, started his improbable journey to the NFL with a conversation in a teammate’s dorm room at Siena College eight years ago.
Triner had finished his freshman season on the lacrosse team. He had an impressive year as a faceoff specialist for the Saints, who won a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference title and went to the NCA A Tournament.
But something was lacking. Triner missed football, the other sport in which he excelled growing up in Marshfield, Mass. He shared his feelings while hanging out with Siena teammate Marquis Terrell, a La Salle Institute graduate who also played both sports in high school.
“He was a phenomenal faceoff guy, but he missed the grind of football,’’ Terrell recalled. “I basically told him, you have one shot in life to follow your dreams, and if that ’s a calling for you, I think that ’s what you should go for.”
Of course, Siena doesn’t have a football team. The college dropped the sport for financial reasons following the 2003 season. But the Saints do have an alumnus playing in the NFL because of Triner, who is the Buccaneers long snapper on kicks and punts.
On Sunday, his unlikely path leads to London, where Tampa Bay (2-3) faces Carolina (3-2) at 9:30 a.m. Sunday in an NFC South matchup.
Triner said in a phone inter view from Tampa he still talks to some of
his old lacrosse buddies who can’t believe where he is now. Even Triner is somewhat amazed in hindsight.
“I always told them I was good at football, but they were like, ‘yeah, yeah, sure. Whatever you say, bud,’” Triner said. “You have the unconventional path here, and then eventually, a day at a time, you work and you work and you work, and you take a couple of minutes to look back and it ’s surreal.”
Terrell said he didn’t really believe Triner would follow his advice. But Triner decided to transfer to Assumption, a Division II school in Worcester, Mass. He spent three seasons there as a defensive lineman and long snapper.
The latter is a unique position that requires Triner to accurately snap the ball about 15 yards to the punter or seven yards to the kicker while under a rush.
“My high school coach from Marshfield had taught me that skill set and they were looking for a snapper,’’ Triner said. “I was looking to get some extra playing time wherever I could. It ended up being a perfect fit.”
After graduation, Triner worked in inside sales for Fidelity Investments, based in Boston. On the side, he worked out at any football field available with people willing to catch his snaps.
“It ’s a hard thing to do ... find enough guys that would want to do it not just every now and then, but hey, let ’s do that three times a week,’’ he said.
Concentrating full time on long snapping took him back to his faceoff days at Siena, where he won at a 52.1 percent clip in his only season in Loudonville.
“You always look back and realize, wow, I specialized in one thing, got really good at one thing versus trying to be good at everything,’’ Triner said. “Having that lacrosse background certainly helped.”
Triner, who is 6-foot2 and 247 pounds, said he tried out for roughly a third of the NFL’S 32 teams. He signed with the Jets in 2017 and the Packers in 2018, but both teams released him prior to the reg ular season.
Finally, the Bucs signed him to a futures contract in January. Even though his spot seemed assured after training camp, Triner and his wife Carissa sweated out the 4 p.m. deadline on the final day of cuts.
“Yeah, it was like the ultimate countdown,’’ Triner said. “My wife and I were at the supermarket because we didn’t want to just sit around ... Pretty much every aisle, you’re like, how much time? OK, it ’s still 3:50. That 4 o’clock countdown, instead of getting a call, you don’t, that ’s a good thing.”
He reached out last year to Terrell, his former Siena teammate, to thank him for giving him the push back to football.
“Upon ref lection, I just couldn’t get that (conversation) out of my head,’’ Triner said. “I told them I was transferring and I never looked back.”