I remember meeting Matt Katula for the first time during the summer of 2005. He was a starry-eyed, pleasant guy from America’s heartland who genuinely seemed to appreciate the rare opportunity then afforded him – a chance to become a professional athlete.

Admittedly laid back, Katula took the opportunity in stride and reduced the potentially overwhelming task (to unseat incumbent long snapper Joe Maese) to the simplest of equations. He just reminded himself to do the best he could every day and if he did perhaps he could land on the Ravens roster and find success like several other undrafted free agents that the Ravens had signed before him.

I spoke with Katula fairly regularly that first season and teased him at times saying that instead of sending my son to school I should put him out in the back yard and have him practice throwing spirals between his legs through a hanging tire. After all, how many jobs are out there that can pay college graduates what the NFL pays its employees who take the field– even those at the bottom of the salary totem pole?

I also teased Katula about how easy he had it during camp.

While most players were running around and knocking heads in oppressive heat, Katula, Dave Zastudil and Matt Stover escaped to the quiet fields at McDaniel College to hone their respective skills. Katula was not insulted by the thought. If anything he knew it served as a reminder to him of his good fortune.

As the end of Summer Training Camp ’05 neared, we both realized that Matt had a chance to make the final 53. Things had gone well and there was no noticeable difference between his performance and that of Maese. If anything, Katula seemed to have a slight edge.

After his first preseason game, a road loss in Atlanta, Katula basked in the glow of his good fortune.

“It has been a dream of mine to play professional sports since I was young, and this past Saturday was the realization of that dream.”

Yet there was more work ahead if he wanted to continue living the dream and carry it forward to the final 53 man roster.

Katula welcomed the redundancy of his position and viewed it as a means to perfect his craft. He recognized that anonymity is a wonderful place for a long snapper in the NFL and flying below the radar screen, unnoticed would bode well for the angular former Wisconsin Badger.

It was no secret that then special teams coach Gary Zauner preferred a taller long snapper and Katula’s competitor Maese, generously listed at 6’0” and 245 pounds seemed to be the anatomical opposite relatively speaking to Katula’s linear 6’6” frame. All things being equal, it looked like the job was about to be handed to the lifelong Packers fan.

But all things weren’t equal.

The business side of player personnel decision making weighed in and that spelled, “Advantage Katula!” If he could match Maese’s productivity economics suggested that Katula would win out since he was a measurably less expensive option.

And that’s exactly how it played out.

I had Matt on our former radio program Gametime a few times. He and his wife Allison, an energetic and engaging personality, the perfect complement to Katula’s low key demeanor, joined us in studio on one occasion to share the plight of a young family embracing life in the NFL.

Later on I had the good fortune of meeting Matt’s parents and his Grandmom (more diehard Cheeseheads) when the Green Bay Packers visited M&T Bank Stadium on a frigid Monday night that December during Matt’s rookie season. It was pretty obvious why Matt embraced core family values and level-headed sensibility.

“My rookie season has been a crazy ride so far, and it’s not even over”, Katula said after a dozen weeks of his first full NFL season. “Five more weeks to play the game I love. And hopefully, a few more seasons after that!”

Katula would go on and play “a few more seasons” – four to be exact.

But unfortunately the road in Matt’s career journey has taken a somewhat unexpected twist. He learned this past weekend that he lost his job to long snapper Morgan Cox who just like Matt once was, is an undrafted rookie free agent who has performed on par with the incumbent.

Plus he’s less expensive.

Katula knows the story. After all he’s lived it.

And hopefully he’ll keep living it in another uniform and remember his days in Baltimore where his childhood dreams became a reality.

We should all be so fortunate.