Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 2, 2023 19 me and you can train and we'll get you set up for some trials,'" Shrader said. Shrader agreed to the offer. That night. Done deal. It's ambition that tells the tale of Shrader's story, which isn't exactly one of success on the pitch. He fractured his ankle early in his three-month stay in Brazil. He got two weeks of training under his belt once the fracture healed, but his opportunity at the end of the 90 days was to stay and compete for a spot on a local U20 team. That was the equivalent of a collegiate athletic schol- arship, as Shrader put it. All expenses paid for, but the future beyond that wasn't certain. No guaranteed contract. "It was a little too risky for me at that point," Shrader said. Saying "thanks, but no thanks" wasn't the end of the afore- mentioned ambition. It was really just the beginning. The injury took away some of the agility that allowed Shrader to set the Lithia (Fla.) Newsome High School record for goals in single soccer season. He scored 33 of them. He was also a top- ranked tennis player in high school. That's a sport that would have been difficult to get back into as well. So, why not go back to football — the American kind? That was Shrader's third sport in high school. He was the placekicker at Newsome for all of one season. That was still enough for the University of South Florida to give him a shot, and a shot was all he needed. Four years, 95 successful extra points and 28 made field goals later, Shrader — an Indiana native, no less — is the start- ing kicker for the University of Notre Dame. Shrader credits kicking coach Brandon Kornblue of Fort Myers, Fla., for helping get him there. The three most accurate kickers in the NCAA in 2017 — including the na- tional leader in accuracy, Eddy Pineiro (Florida) — were all pupils of Kornblue Kicking. So was 2021 Lou Groza Award winner Jake Moody (Michigan), the first kicker taken in the 2022 NFL Draft. Pin- eiro, meanwhile, made 33 of 35 attempts for the Carolina Panthers last season. The kicker Kornblue has grown closest with through training is Kyle Brindza, Notre Dame's record holder for single- season field goals with 23 in 2012. Kornblue recognizes talent. Then he develops it. "I don't bring in just anybody," Korn- blue told Blue & Gold Illustrated. "If I'm going to spend that amount of time and be that concentrated with a kicker, I want it to be somebody who legitimately has a chance. I want to be able to give every- thing I have to help make that possible." Kornblue said he saw athleticism and explosion in Shrader's leg the first time he saw him kick. But it's more than ath- letic ability that has Shrader primed for a strong season at Notre Dame. It's his personal nature. Who he is. Kornblue called him a "go-getter" and a "high- achieving type of kid." He's always been those things, and more, according to the people who know him best. "Was I surprised he moved to Brazil? No. Was I surprised he chose football? No," said Sophie Shrader, Spencer's younger sister and a four-year letter winner on the University of Tampa's women's soccer team. Spencer trained youth tennis play- ers in the Tampa area in high school and college. That prompted Sophie to train aspiring soccer players. A client's mother shared snippets from one of So- phie's sessions on Facebook, and five clients turned into 50 seemingly over- night. Shrader Athletics, a joint venture of the Shrader siblings, was born. So- phie holds 20 training outings per week in Tampa. Spencer handles marketing and client outreach from afar, but it re- ally all started when he took on a hand- ful of trainees as a 16-year-old. "It was just for fun and for a little bit of money," he said. "But I was pro- fessional. I really did my best. It really quickly expanded into a legitimate busi- ness. I created PDF pamphlets of all my training. I followed up with the families through email explaining what we were doing and if the child was improving." Spencer also founded CopperFox Tech- nologies, a brand design, web develop- ment and sales force recognition com- pany in addition to The Liberty Villages, a Christian community providing resources for homeschooled students and families to achieve success and reach their potential. The Shraders said being home- schooled is a major reason for their pro- clivity to branch out and try new things. Spencer currently lives in a South Bend home he dubbed Clover Cottage. He's fixing it up in his free time and intends to rent it out via Airbnb after he's fin- ished at Notre Dame. It's always go, go, go for the Irish's kicker, and in a good way. "I try not to just be sitting around twiddling my thumbs," Shrader said. "When I'm at football, I'm working 100 percent at football and doing the best I can. When I'm off the field talking with my teammates, I'm trying to learn about them. I'm trying to network with them because they're go- ing to be leaders on the football field or in the business field one day. "Then off the field, the resources we have here, they're unrivaled. The connections that we have, the people that we have speaking to us after prac- tice. I make sure to follow up with them and be a presence just so they know I'm here, that I'm interested in them, that I want to help them succeed even though they're already at the highest level." Shrader is on his way to being one of those post-practice guest speakers. He's only been at Notre Dame for a few months, but he already understands what it means to bleed blue and gold. "He's a really unique, mature individ- ual who is thinking about life beyond the game of football," Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said. "And I think that's part of what attracted him to Notre Dame. He could have gone to a lot of different places, but he understood this place." A lot of different places, all right. But it was always Notre Dame for Shrader once his time at South Florida was up. "He'd say Alabama called and I'd be like, 'Oh, that's really cool,'" Sophie said. "Georgia called. 'That's really cool.' But nothing was as exciting as Notre Dame. Everybody in the family was on board with Notre Dame. That was our No. 1 pick." ✦ "He's a really unique, mature individual who is thinking about life beyond the game of football. And I think that's part of what attracted him to Notre Dame. He could have gone to a lot of different places, but he understood this place." NOTRE DAME HEAD COACH MARCUS FREEMAN ON SHRADER