As the summer heat winds down and the leaves begin to change to shades of yellow and orange, another season besides fall is on the horizon, possibly the most anticipated season of the year: football season. The Slippery Rock football team gears up to begin a new season in pursuit of a championship. Charles Snorweah, Slippery Rock football’s newest addition to their roster, will serve as another weapon in The Rock’s pursuit.
Snorweah, who was born in Liberia and moved to the United States at just two years old, found a new home in the Philadelphia area. From a young age, sports were always a big part of his life.
“I was into a lot of sports. I would go outside and play basketball, soccer or football,” Snorweah said. “It wasn’t until I went to Bucks County, that I met a few friends in my neighborhood that talked about the local team (St. Mike’s), and I was told to come try out.”
It was from there that Snorweah discovered a strong passion for the game of football. Since then, he has been terrorizing backfields all the way up through high school, where he was a consensus three-star recruit after lighting up the stat sheet at Pennsbury High School. In his senior season, he was named the Philadelphia Inquirer Southeastern Pennsylvania Player of the Year after rushing for 2,793 yards and 40 touchdowns.
Snorweah led his team to capture the PIAA District I Class AAAA title. Over his final two years at Pennsbury, the talented running back averaged 2,161 yards and 32.5 touchdowns. Adding to a long list of athletic accolades, he also displayed his impressive speed in the sport of track and field, winning the state championship in the indoor 400-meter dash and was all state in the 200-meter and 400-meter dash on the track.
After shattering records in high school, Snorweah signed to play football at Rutgers University on a Division I Scholarship. He would go on to appear in 15 games during his tenure at Rutgers but ultimately did not amass the type of playing time he had hoped for, due to a talented Scarlet Knights backfield.
He went on to finish his undergraduate degree in labor and employment relations last spring and looked to further his education with a graduate degree, yet he still longed to play the game he holds so close to his heart. When faced with a difficult decision of staying at Rutgers and going through another season in a running back committee or go to another university where he had a chance to move into a feature role, the now Rutgers graduate chose the latter.
“I’m going into my last year of eligibility and I wanted to maximize my last season (as a football player),” Snorweah said. “Although I love my teammates at Rutgers and everything they have going on there, I just felt like for me to maximize my last year of eligibility I would have to go somewhere else.”
Now the projected starter in a backfield that also contains a slew of talented backs, Snorweah, who will wear the same number (4) as Wes Hills did a year ago, will be tasked with filling his shoes. Hills, who was also a graduate transfer last season from Delaware, set the SRU single season rushing record with 1,714 yards and 17 touchdowns as he led The Rock to the NCAA quarterfinals.
“When Coach Lutz recruited me, we talked about (Wes Hills’) story, his journey. That is also part of the reason I came here too. I saw some similarities between us. He came from a Division I program and needed an opportunity to showcase himself and maximizing the opportunity and now I feel like I’m in a great position in which I can do the same thing,” Snorweah said.
A team player through and through, it is now Snorweah’s time to shine in SRU sports as one of its most talented rosters in quite some time. Expectations are high for the boys of fall this year, as The Rock enters the season as the 10th ranked team in Division II football and the overwhelming favorite to win the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC). Snorweah expects himself and the team to live up to those lofty prospects week after week.
“The expectations for us this year are to win the national championship. We don’t want to overlook any of our opponents, and we want to take the season week by week, but as a team we know that the expectation is to win a championship this season and we have the pieces to do that,” Snorweah said.
The last time that Snorweah went out on top in a season was his senior year in high school, in which he rushed for over 2,000 yards. For 2019, his expectations for himself remain just that. With nearly unmatched speed in a 5’9” 185-pound frame, Snorweah certainly has the capability of leaving multiple PSAC defenders in the dust.
“I want to rush for over 2,000 yards personally, but the most important thing is to get the W,” Snorweah said. “However, I would like to hold myself to a standard of 200 yards per game.”
There is a saying that goes, “high achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.” The Green and White will certainly shoulder high expectations in the 2019 season.
