Crawl-on Clemson Tiger: How Florenzo became a key contributor

Philip Florenzo earned his way onto the Clemson roster and it's been a dream for him.

by Ariana Pensy - Correspondent - Thu Apr 13 07:00:17 GMT-04:00 2023

CLEMSON - You hear a lot about the star players - the ones recruited as the top high school prospects, No. 1 in the state, State Champions. You hear about the flashy players - the quarterback, running back, the receivers, the defenders. But you don’t hear about the guy who had to fight just to get a chance to be on the roster, the guy who plays a position some fans don’t even know the name of: the long snapper.

While starting junior long snapper Philip Florenzo plays a critical role on the team, not much is heard about him or his amazing journey to becoming a starter for the Tigers.

“My freshman year, I wanted to come out for this team,” Florenzo said. “That was kind of my goal and because of COVID, I wasn’t able to try out at all. I kept emailing this place, like 100, 200 times just saying ‘Give me a chance.’ You know, I went out to the field every day and snap footballs, just stuck with it. Finally, like, going (into) my sophomore year, I finally got the final email saying, ‘Come out to tryouts’ and it was about a fifteen-minute tryout, snapped about five balls.”

His story shows the power of persistence and of never giving up. Even after being denied a spot initially because of COVID roster rules, he continued to practice and train so that when his time came, he would be ready. Florenzo did not even start playing long snapper until his senior year of high school. But once he started at this position, he was determined to play at the collegiate level. He would not play for just any college though - Florenzo wanted to be a Clemson Tiger.

“I just kept working at it and I really wanted (to) play in college,” Florenzo said. “I had the opportunity to maybe play at Miami, Ohio as a preferred walk-on, but (I’d) just visited schools and (applied) for schools and I (came to) visit here as a normal student and I fell in love with Clemson and my dad always told me, ‘I’m not paying for you to go to play sports, I’m paying for you to get an education.’ And I fell in love with Clemson.”

Florenzo’s father got his wish. Although he now plays for the football team, the former walk-on is also a financial management major. The summer following his freshman year, a chance encounter with a Clemson alumnus while working opened the door for him to try out for Clemson football.

“I was actually working that summer at a restaurant,” Florenzo explained. “He was an (alumnus), and he said, ‘Oh, I know the president of the school,’ (and) is like, ‘You want me to email him?’ Let’s see how that goes. I can’t get him on my own. Maybe if the president of the school emails him, then something good will happen.”

While COVID may have been a setback for him, it is also what eventually allowed him to have a spot on the team. During the COVID year, his freshman year, all of the players were returning so there were no openings. However, things changed the following year when an extra 10 spots were added on the roster and gave him the opening he needed.

Following that chance encounter at summer job, the alumnus sent an email to Clemson president Jim Clements, who forwarded it to someone in the athletic department. Florenzo was finally given the date that he could attend tryouts for the team, as well as all of the necessary paperwork he needed to complete prior to the tryout. With everything completed, he had the tryout that changed his life forever.

“At the end of the tryout, (special teams) coach (Bill) Spiers said, ‘Hey, why don’t you just hang around, say goodbye to Coach Swinney’ as like 100 guys are shaking his hand,” Florenzo said. “And, you know, I’m nervous. I felt good, but you never really know. And he walked up and he said, ‘Lorenzo?’ I was like ‘Florenzo.’ ‘Florenzo? Okay, hey man. How’s it? It’s a good try you had there. I’m just gonna be straight up with you. You made the team.’ and I said ‘Are you serious? Serious? This is happening?’ and he’s like ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘When I met my wife, I knew I was gonna marry her. When I met you, I knew you were gonna be a Tiger.’ A couple tears were shed.”

He had the opportunity to work with Clemson’s leading scoring kicker, BT Potter, last year. However, he said that Potter makes fun of him a little because he is a “crawl-on.”

“BT (Potter) makes fun of me because I call myself a crawl-on,” Florenzo explained. “There’s walk-ons that are preferred and asked to come here and I’m a crawl-on because I had to ask them to let me be on the team and then try out so (that’s) kind of my little chip is to be a crawl-on.”