Snyder a banzai bonanza on Farm

STANFORD -- On the night of Sept.15, Clinton Snyder's momcouldn't help but worry as she looked down onto the field.

One play into Stanford's game against San Jose State, her son wasdown again -- writhing in pain after his third neck stinger of theyoung season.

A week later, against Oregon, the Cardinal linebacker sufferedanother stinger, in addition to a thigh contusion from a collisionso hard that his thigh pad cracked in two.

But Snyder's teammates don't call him a "warrior" for nothing.Although he missed chunks of the season opener against UCLA becauseof two stingers and severe body cramping and all but the one playagainst San Jose State, Snyder has been a steady and dominatingpresence for the improving Stanford defense.

In a 23-6 loss Saturday at Oregon State, Snyder led the Cardinalwith a career-best 12 tackles. In Stanford's 24-23 upset of USC onOct. 6, the redshirt sophomore from San Diego had 10 tackles,including 11/2 sacks, and forced a fumble -- spending seeminglyevery ounce of energy his body could muster.

But that hasn't calmed his mom's nerves.

"I think I worry more now because I know how much Clint willsacrifice himself," Beth Snyder said this week.

Beth likes to say she kept her son away from football as long asshe could. But once Snyder started playing as a high schoolfreshman, there was no turning back.

Snyder continued to play basketball through high school. Butthere aren't too many college programs interested in a

6-foot-4, 230-pound center/power forward.

"He really loved basketball," Beth Snyder said. "But it seemedlike football was going to open more doors."

Snyder was so good at football at Monte Vista High that he wasnamed the San Diego Union-Tribune's defensive player of the year in2004. In the classroom, the ultra-competitive Snyder was just asproductive. With a 4.47 grade-point average and a 1,240 SAT score,he was selected as the newspaper's 2004-05 male student-athlete ofthe year.

"I wasn't really like a literature-type guy," said Snyder, amanagement science and engineering major. "I was more of a math guy -- that kind of came naturally."

Outside the classroom, Snyder seems more like a daredevil-typeguy. Although he somehow stayed away from the San Diego surfingscene -- "I never had a surfboard," he said -- Snyder took a likingto snowboarding.

But he has stayed away from the slopes since coming to Stanford.

Worrying about injuries has never stopped Snyder from playingfootball.

Snyder sprained his medial collateral ligament a couple of timesin high school but had no issues with his neck until a few monthsago. Now, his mother is well-versed in neck stingers, researchingthem on the Internet.

She also has listened to team doctors. "They kept assuring himthat he wasn't risking permanent injury," she said.

Stingers are common in football. They occur when sudden movementcauses the compression or pinching of the bundle of nerves runningfrom the back of the neck into the arm, according tosportsmedicine.about.com. The pain generally subsides quicklywithout long-term effects.

After the Oregon game, Snyder said, he had an epidural andcortisone injected between his C-3 and C-4 vertebrae to calm "thenerve down just enough to where it's not pinching as hard anymore."

The medical attention paid off immediately. In the next game,against Arizona State, Snyder had nine tackles, including two of theCardinal's six sacks.

Snyder leads Stanford in sacks (six) and is second on the team intackles (63).

"Clint's kind of the heart of our defense," said safety BoMcNally, the Cardinal's leading tackler. "He's like the EnergizerBunny. He just keeps going and going and never runs out of energy. Ican feed off that, and other players can feed off that."

Going all out is essentially Snyder's rallying cry. As he put it,"You don't really have to be a great football player to be good atfootball. You can just play really hard, and you can still be afactor."

Snyder doesn't just play hard, though. He also plays withintelligence.

"He's been outstanding," coach Jim Harbaugh said. "He's one ofour guys you can always count on -- every play, every game, season,training camp, spring ball."

Although Snyder's mom can't help but be concerned for his son'swell-being, she added, "We don't try to dwell on the negative toomuch. He loves it and wouldn't have it any other way. He wants towin."