PEORIA — Taybor Pepper shoulders the responsibility as long snapper for the San Franciso 49ers. He'll be playing in Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday when the 49ers take on the Kansas City Chiefs in sports' biggest game.
But there was a time when Pepper rode atop the shoulder pads of his father, Cam Pepper, on an Indoor Football League field in Carver Arena in Peoria.
"You always want your kids to do better than you," Cam Pepper said. "Once Taybor made it into the NFL, I thought, 'Love to see him make it to the Super Bowl.' It just blows my mind he is in one of the biggest games you can possibly be in."
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Cam Pepper was 30 when he became the first player to sign in 1999 with the Peoria Pirates of the IFL. His son, Taybor, was not quite 5 years old on opening night, when the Pirates recorded a rarity for indoor/arena football during their inaugural game for Peoria — they shut out the Madison Mad Dogs, 36-0, in front of 8,203 in Carver Arena. It was just the third time in the history of indoor and arena football that a team was shut out. The future NFLer perched on his father's shoulders in the post-game celebration on the field.
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"I was working in sales for the team, too, and I sold a promotion to a bagel shop in the Peoria area," Pepper said, laughing. "It was one free bagel with a ticket stub from the game. The next day I think they gave away 3,000 bagels. But they sold 10,000."
Taybor Pepper spent about 2½ years with his family in Peoria — he started kindergarten here — and grew up around the Pirates. His favorite player was Pirates defensive end/linebacker Derric Coakley.
"I was the old guy on the team and had a house," Cam Pepper said. "I could not have handled living five guys to a two-bedroom apartment. It was tough for them. We'd have team meals around town, and Taybor would go with me at night for dinner. He loved Derric Coakley, remembers to this day playing with him (at practices and dinners). Derric really loved him, too."
At the end of the Pirates 1999 inaugural season, Cam Pepper took a job with Northern Illinois University, and the family moved.
Long-snapping is no long-shot
Taybor Pepper is a six-year NFL veteran playing a position that is the most unsung on the roster while also perhaps the most secure for those who do it well.
In 2012, seven long-snappers earned NCAA Div.-I scholarships. Three of those players are still in the NFL today. Taybor Pepper is among them, undrafted out of Michigan State but now with 83 NFL games played for Green Bay, Baltimore, New York Giants, Miami and now San Francisco. He is finishing the first year of a three-year, $3.98 million deal with the 49ers, according to Spotrac.
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The 6-foot-4, 245-pound 29-year-old has a list representing his NFL journey pinned atop his social media account on X, a reminder of perseverance.
Cam Pepper was an offensive lineman at University of Illinois who once tried out for the Philadelphia Eagles and taught himself how to snap. He played for the Eagles in a 17-13 loss to Buffalo in the American Bowl at Wembley Stadium on July 28, 1991. He passed his knowledge of snapping to Taybor, and that began a journey to the NFL and the Super Bowl.
"We never pushed him into football," Pepper said. "He played since third grade. Seventh grade he decided not to play. Then eighth grade, night before two-a-days, he said 'I'm going to go play football.' "
They scrambled to get his medical clearance, equipment and figure out a schedule. A week later … "he came home beaming," Pepper said. "He said, 'I'm the long-snapper.' "
And so it began.
'A great role model'
Taybor Pepper was the only kid on the eighth-grade team who knew how to snap with two hands, something his father had taught him in grade school. Years of camps followed, and then a D-I ride to Michigan State and a battle as an undrafted free agent to gain a foothold in the NFL.
"We found out there was an annual national long-snapping competition in Las Vegas," Cam Pepper said. "Taybor was one of only six eighth graders there. He just got better and better and we kept taking him to camps."
Now Taybor is back in Las Vegas, years later, in the Super Bowl. He's married and lives with his wife, Haley, and their 19-month-old daughter, Rue, in Michigan.
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Cam Pepper and his wife, Donna, live in Paxton, Illinois, about 90 miles east of Peoria. They'll be at the game Sunday. "All he told us was we get lower bowl tickets because he's playing in the game," said Pepper, 55, who now is director of marketing for Longview Capital Corporation, and also has his own direct digital media sales company, brandingPower.
"It's beyond exciting for us," Cam said. "Football has afforded me a lot of things. Taybor, too. He has a chance to position himself as a great role model for kids."
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men's basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
