Lions Scholar-Athlete Is a Star Snapper and Magician

Patrick Eby was elated in the spring of 2015 when he found out he’d been admitted to Columbia College and would play on the football team. Then came news that the assistant coaches who recruited him had left the program. And oh, yes, the Lions had no head football coach, either.

Since he plays the specialty position of a long snapper, the player who tosses the ball through his legs to the punter at the start of each quarter, Eby worried he might have to find another program and another school. “I was afraid I’d be dropped, and I was panicking for a month or so,” he said.

A few weeks later he got a call from Al Bagnoli. The former head football coach for the University of Pennsylvania, Bagnoli had retired in 2014 after 23 years and nine Ivy League championships—only to unretire a year later to join Columbia.

“He told me, ‘We’re really excited to have you,’” Eby recalled. “Words can’t express how much relief I felt in that moment.”

Since then, Eby, a psychology major, has been a four-year starter for the Lions, playing in all 40 games as the team rose to its best season since 1996, 8-2, in 2017. (In 2018 the team went 6-4.) He’s also a contributor off the field, as an amateur magician whose skills are put to use as team-building exercises. He saw his first card trick in first grade, when his grandfather showed him a simple trick.

“It blew my six-year-old mind,” Eby said. “And it was how I found my niche on the team.” As an ice breaker during freshman year he showed some teammates a few tricks, and then Bagnoli, who told him to start prepping for magic show for the whole team, now an annual event. “I do it to lift everyone’s spirits, because preseason is tough,” Eby said.

His expertise on the field went public in a big way in 2016, via a 16-second video that made it on to ESPN: In a hallway in the Carman Hall dorm, he crouches into position to snap a football to a friend standing 14 yards behind him. The ball flies from Eby’s hands in a tight and perfect spiral, seamlessly knocking an apple off the head of the receiver.

His favorite moment on the field came in 2017, playing against the Penn Quakers. Columbia was in the unusual position of being undefeated, and 20,000 people showed up at Kraft Field, which seats about 17,000. The game went into overtime, and the last play was executed perfectly. The Lions stormed the field as the loudspeakers blared “All I Do Is Win,” by DJ Khaled.

“What Coach Bagnoli did, and all the staff members he brought in with him, is nothing short of a miracle,” Eby said. “Being a part of the resurgence of a perennially bad football team may be the best thing I will ever be a part of.”

The feeling is mutual. “Patrick has been an extremely valuable member of our football team, “Bagnoli said. “He has worked very hard on his craft, and his accuracy, dependability and consistency over the past four years has been remarkable.” In his senior year, Eby was named a First Team All-American by Stats FCS, one of only 13 Columbia players in team history ever to earn that honor.

Being an Ivy League student and a Division One athlete “really teaches you time management,” Eby said. But the best part may be the time spent with teammates off the field. “These are relationships that I’ll have the rest of my life.”

After he graduates on May 22, Eby plans to pursue a career as a long snapper in the NFL. He’s already scrimmaged with some teams and is hoping to hear good news soon.

“I don't know when that journey will end, whether it's in a month or 10 years from now,” he said. But when his football career is over, Eby plans to return to academia to get a doctorate in clinical psychology. “I’d like to open up a practice and contribute to society that way,” he said.

His expertise on the field went public in a big way in 2016, via a 16-second video that made it on to ESPN: In a hallway in the Carman Hall dorm, he crouches into position to snap a football to a friend standing 14 yards behind him. The ball flies from Eby’s hands in a tight and perfect spiral, seamlessly knocking an apple off the head of the receiver.

His favorite moment on the field came in 2017, playing against the Penn Quakers. Columbia was in the unusual position of being undefeated, and 20,000 people showed up at Kraft Field, which seats about 17,000. The game went into overtime, and the last play was executed perfectly. The Lions stormed the field as the loudspeakers blared “All I Do Is Win,” by DJ Khaled.

“What Coach Bagnoli did, and all the staff members he brought in with him, is nothing short of a miracle,” Eby said. “Being a part of the resurgence of a perennially bad football team may be the best thing I will ever be a part of.”

The feeling is mutual. “Patrick has been an extremely valuable member of our football team, “Bagnoli said. “He has worked very hard on his craft, and his accuracy, dependability and consistency over the past four years has been remarkable.” In his senior year, Eby was named a First Team All-American by Stats FCS, one of only 13 Columbia players in team history ever to earn that honor.

Being an Ivy League student and a Division One athlete “really teaches you time management,” Eby said. But the best part may be the time spent with teammates off the field. “These are relationships that I’ll have the rest of my life.”

After he graduates on May 22, Eby plans to pursue a career as a long snapper in the NFL. He’s already scrimmaged with some teams and is hoping to hear good news soon.

“I don't know when that journey will end, whether it's in a month or 10 years from now,” he said. But when his football career is over, Eby plans to return to academia to get a doctorate in clinical psychology. “I’d like to open up a practice and contribute to society that way,” he said.