I’m going to start right now a new project wherein I power rank the best Dallasites of all time who went or go by two first initials. There is, of course, T.C. Broadnax, our new official city manager, who right now is perfect and has done not a single thing wrong in Dallas. A.C. Greene, of course, deserves consideration. And maybe even A.C. Green. But not A.C. Gonzalez. Then there is L.P. Ladouceur, the long snapper for the Cowboys, who has never made a mistake in 12 years of playing professional football. From the Guardian:
You may have never heard of Ladouceur though he has played for more than a decade on one of the world’s most famous teams. Chances are you wouldn’t recognize him without his helmet since the majority of his television appearances are closeups of his backside in the instant before he flicks a football between his legs. You have, undoubtedly, seen his work in the form of a decade’s worth of precise snaps whistling true to Dallas punters or flying toward the hands of holders on extra points and field goals. It is highly unlikely you took a moment to marvel at his reliability.
Long snappers live to be ignored because if they are noticed, it usually means a calamity has occurred. A snap has been botched and the ball is flying over the punter’s head or rolling helplessly toward the holder on a field goal, throwing the game’s most anonymous player under the glare of the television lens. Suddenly everybody knows the long snapper and there’s no place to hide. For Ladouceur, his perfection is silence.
