Chris Kluwe

Christopher James "Chris" Kluwe (born December 24, 1981) is a punter for the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League. He was originally signed by the Seattle Seahawks as an undrafted free agent in 2005. He played college football at UCLA.

High school
Kluwe played three years of varsity football for coach John Barnes at Los Alamitos High School in Los Alamitos, California and was selected to play in both the California-Texas Shrine game and the CaliFlorida Bowl. He also made the USA Today first-team All-American as a punter. He kicked an Orange County and CIF Playoff record 60-yard field goal vs. Loyola to force overtime in an eventual 30-23 victory. Averaging 46.6 yards as a punter, he had 10 punts of at least 60 yards and placed six kicks inside the 10-yard line. As a placekicker, he made 16 of 22 field goal attempts and 39 of 41 PATs. Prior to his senior year, he won the punting competition at the National Kicking Invitational with a 63-yard punt that had 4.98 seconds of hang time. Kluwe also played one year of baseball as a pitcher.

College
Kluwe developed into one of the top punters in the Pac-10 while playing for UCLA, graduating in 2003 with a double major in political science and history. He set school records for both total punt yardage and total number of punts in a season in 2003. In his senior year, he ranked 4th in the Pac-10 and 26th in the NCAA in yards per punt (42.9). He was selected as special teams player of the game in the Silicon Valley Football Classic against Fresno State after averaging 44.3 yards on nine kicks. He also tied the bowl record with his nine punts and placed three kicks inside the 20-yard line.

NFL
Kluwe was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Seattle Seahawks in 2005. He was released by the Seahawks for the final roster cutdown and was picked up the next day by the Vikings. Kluwe became one of the most surprising pickups for the Vikings, finishing the season with an average of 44.1 yards per punt, ranking second in the NFC and sixth in the league. He punted 71 times during his first season.

During a Week-13 game in Detroit, Lions safety Vernon Fox dove towards Kluwe during a punt and collided with Kluwe's plant foot. Tests showed Kluwe had a sprained ankle and would be out for 1–2 weeks. Kicker Paul Edinger was the punter for the remainder of the game, but a few days later the Vikings signed 42-year old veteran Darren Bennett temporarily until Kluwe's ankle healed.

On October 25, 2007 Kluwe signed an $8.3-million contract extension through 2013. The deal made Kluwe, who would have been a restricted free agent in the 2008 offseason, one of the 10 highest-paid punters in the NFL.

On December 20, 2010, Kluwe had the dubious distinction of punting the ball that the Chicago Bears' Devin Hester would return for a touchdown, breaking the all-time NFL record for combined punt and kickoff returns for touchdowns. Previously in the game, Kluwe had successfully kept the ball out of Hester's hands on four punts.

In 2011 Kluwe changed his jersey number when the Vikings acquired quarterback Donovan McNabb. McNabb previously wore #5 for the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles, and requested the same number when he arrived in Minnesota, which was then being worn by Kluwe. Kluwe agreed on the condition that McNabb make a $5,000 donation to charity and to mention Kluwe's band Tripping Icarus during a press conference. Kluwe took up #4 which had been worn by quarterback Brett Favre in 2009 and 2010. Following McNabb's departure from the team, Kluwe reclaimed his old #5 for the 2012 season.

2011 NFL labor dispute
During the 2011 NFL lockout, the Boston Globe reported that an agreement between owners and the players' union was being held up by special considerations for a few top names, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Vincent Jackson, and Logan Mankins. Kluwe tweeted his frustration at this impasse, assailing their greed and calling them "douchebags".

After Nate Jackson wrote an article for the sport website Deadspin, excoriating Kluwe for talking "out of turn", Kluwe responded with his own article, highlighting the contrast between his own fruitful career and Jackson's lack of statistics, while reiterating his opinion that four people endangering the livelihoods of the 1,900 affected by the dispute was "pretty much the definition of greed".

Personal life
Kluwe and his wife Isabel had their first daughter in July 2008, and their second in 2010. He also wrote a blog named "Out of Bounds," which appeared on the website of the St. Paul Pioneer Press until 2012. He quit the column in protest over the paper's editorial in support of the Minnesota Marriage Amendment which would have amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

Kluwe is well known as an avid Guitar Hero 2 player, having once made an appearance on Minnesota's 93X radio station while playing the game with Andy McNamara from Game Informer magazine. He is also a frequent guest on Minnesota sports station KFAN for "Video Games Weekly" on Wednesday nights. During a KFAN interview on the PA and Dubay show, he admitted he was not very good at sports games.

Kluwe has also immersed himself in the MMORPG World of Warcraft, playing a troll rogue named Loate and has been a member of one of the formerly top-ranked US guilds, The Flying Hellfish, for over four years.

Kluwe is a Libertarian.

Music
In addition to his full-time job as punter for the Vikings, Kluwe is the bassist for the local Minneapolis alternative/progressive rock band, Tripping Icarus. Kluwe formed the band in 2009 with friends Andrew Reiner (guitar) and Matthew Marshall (drums), and later recruited Jesse Revel to join on lead vocals. Tripping Icarus recorded their debut EP, The Sideshow Sessions, in the summer of 2009. A year later, they recorded their first full length LP, Perfect Citizen, which was slated for an early 2011 release. When Donovan McNabb was traded to Minnesota before the 2011 season, Kluwe offered McNabb the number 5 jersey in exchange for mentioning Tripping Icarus in at least 5 press conferences, as well as donating $5,000 to Kluwe's charity, and an ice cream cone. McNabb didn't mention the band in five separate press conferences, but Kluwe concedes that "in his very first press conference, he mentioned it like twelve times".

Same-sex marriage activism
On September 7, 2012 Kluwe released a letter via sports website Deadspin he had sent to Maryland state assembly delegate Emmett Burns, defending the opinions of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo and sharply criticizing Burns on his attempt to stifle Ayanbadejo's free speech. Ayanbadejo has been a vocal supporter of same-sex marriage and Burns had sent a letter requesting that the Ravens ownership "inhibit such expressions" by their employee.

On October 1, 2012, Kluwe published a letter to the editor that responded to a video statement released by former Minnesota Viking Matt Birk. In the letter, Kluwe outlined six principal reasons why he disagreed with Birk's statement.

Kluwe was also featured in a documentary called "The Last Barrier" which aired on NBC Bay Area on December 8, 2012 at 3 p.m. PST. During this interview he spoke about his feelings towards equality.

On the January 18, 2013 The Ellen Degeneres Show, Ellen Degeneres inducted Kluwe as the first inductee in her Hall of Fame for his support of Marriage Equality.

Kluwe and Ayanbadejo filed an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court on February 28, 2013 regarding Hollingsworth v. Perry, in which they expressed their support of the challenge to California Proposition 8.

Protest against Pro Football Hall of Fame
On December 9, 2012 during the game against Chicago Bears, Kluwe covered the logo of Pro Football Hall of Fame with a post-it note with a message "Vote Ray Guy" as a slant against the Hall's 50th Anniversary celebrations due to the lack of pure punters in the Hall.

Radio
Kluwe talks almost every week in the sports section of "The Half-Assed Morning Show", a radio show on the Minneapolis-Saint Paul radio station KXXR "93X."