Scott Haack walks down the steps into the basement of his family’s Des Moines home and is surrounded by jerseys, helmets, trophies and footballs — his son’s collection of mementos from his time as a high school, college and professional football player.

Perhaps the most interesting items are 13 footballs stocked on a shelf in front of a window. Each one commemorates a special accomplishment in Matt Haack’s football career.

There’s one is from his days at Dowling Catholic and four from Arizona State. Eight include the Miami Dolphins logo.

The one on the far left has a date: Nov. 4, 2018. That was the game that earned Matt Haack the AFC’s Special Teams Player of the Week honors.

“Occasionally, everybody will get one,” Scott said. “There’s one here that says ‘the longest game in history.'” 

The collection is a conversation starter for anyone new who comes to the house. Whenever a visitor wanders to the basement, Scott said, they see the display and wonder: How could someone in Des Moines, Iowa, be such a big Miami Dolphins fan? 

“They’ll be like, ‘Dolphins, ‘Oh, are you a Dan Mariano fan,'” Scott said. 

Scott and Christy have a more interesting explanation for their basement display.

Matt Haack is the starting punter for the Dolphins. And for the last three NFL seasons, the 26-year-old native of Des Moines has created a collection of awards.

“It’s been absolutely crazy,” Christy said as she stands in the basement.

Matt’s story really is. Because just a few years ago, hardly anyone, including Matt himself, knew what a good punter he could become. And barely anyone knew that he had the potential to not only play in the NFL, but be a star on special teams.

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How Haack got ‘thrown into punting’

Matt’s punting career started by accident during football camp his freshman year at Dowling Catholic.

Matt, who handed his team’s punt returns, was back one day fielding punts and tossing the ball back across the field. But one time, Matt decided to do something different. He punted it back. One of Dowling Catholic’s coaches saw his punt go flying high into the air.

“That’s kind of how I got thrown into punting,” Matt said.

He became Dowling Catholic’s punter, but the Maroons rarely used a traditional punter. Instead, they tried to utilize his speed in punting situations, giving him the option of running the ball or booting it down the field. 

“We basically put him back there because he was a great athlete,” Dowling Catholic coach Tom Wilson said. “We were rolling him out and punting some. Sometimes he had the option to take off with it. He did a great job with that.”

But no one really knew how good of a punter Matt could be.

Instead, he thought his future was at wide receiver. It looked like his best shot. During his junior season, he was one of the Maroons’ top targets, catching 24 passes for 410 yards and four touchdowns. A year later, in 2013, he piled up a game-high 114 receiving yards during the Shrine Bowl at the UNI-Dome.

The problem was, hardly any colleges seemed to notice. 

Before his senior season, Wilson arranged for Matt to tour some smaller Division I and Division II schools. He went to camps at Iowa, Iowa State and Drake or anyone else that was within driving distance of Des Moines. No one offered him a scholarship.

Then one day, Christy heard about a special teams camp at Iowa State being run by kicking guru Jamie Kohl, who had kicked for the Cyclones.  

Christy, who had the day off from work, didn’t look at the trip as a chance to get Matt more exposure. Instead, she figured Matt could get some pointers that might come in handy down the road.

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“I said, ‘What do you do if you’re in the state championship and you’re in the back of the end zone,’” Christy asked Matt. “I said, ‘Do you really know how to punt?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, no.’”

So Christy signed him up. It was so late in the process, they had to drive to Ames so Matt could sign some consent forms.

Kohl, one of the most respected coaches in the kicking community who has served as a consultant to Chicago Bears, knew all the elite campers. 

“I didn’t know Matt from anybody,” Kohl said.

That was about to change.  

Surprise cross-country trip leads to big-time attention

Christy didn’t expect anything serious to come out of the camp. After signing Matt in, she drove off to grab something to eat and do some shopping. When she got back later in the day, the punters were squaring off in a competition. Matt was putting the finishing touches on a win.

Christy couldn’t believe her eyes.

Neither could Kohl, who had worked with some of the top specialists in the game. But here was an unknown prospect blasting off 75-yard punts. 

“Jamie came up to him and said, ‘Who are you,'” Christy recalled. 

All Kohl knew was that Matt had potential. He was raw and so inexperienced that he was flying under the recruiting radar. But that was about to change.

Following the camp, Paul Rhoads, Iowa State’s coach at the time, invited Matt and Christy to tour the school’s facilities with him. Rhoads, who had punter Kirby Van Der Kamp at the time, didn’t offer him a scholarship, but he urged Matt to call him if anyone else did.

Kohl knew offers would come if coaches could see Matt punt. But the window was closing. Schools were going to be lining up their punters soon, and few scholarships would be available.

So, Kohl urged Matt to travel the country with him in a few days to audition for colleges.

“Most people know who Jamie is and his program,” Scott Haack said. “Of course, I’m like, ‘Who are you, and what do you do again?’ The whole time, I’m googling on my iPad, ‘Kohl’s Kicking’ to see if it was legit.’”

It was. 

The next day, Scott started booking plane tickets. By the end of the week, he and Matt were on a plane headed to camps at Arizona State, Stanford and Miami. 

“When I left the Arizona State camp, we were like, ‘This guy is probably just trying to get us to spend money to go to more of his camps and stuff,’” Matt said. “We don’t know him. He doesn’t know us. I don’t even know what I’m doing punting.”

And it showed in small ways. Matt arrived to the Arizona State camp in soccer cleats.

But everyone saw his potential. During the trip, Todd Graham, the coach at Arizona State at the time, called to offer Matt a scholarship and Wilson, his coach at Dowling, started fielding calls from other coaches interested in the punter.

“They trusted their son’s talent and they took a risk,” Kohl said.

The risk paid off.

Des Moines native takes his talents to South Beach

The thought of Matt becoming a pro football player didn’t creep into Christy’s mind until Arizona State’s pro day.

Matt, who played four seasons for the Sun Devils, tallied 209 career punts for 8,991 yards, averaging 43 yards per punt.

It was a solid college career. Despite the success, when Arizona State held its pro day, most of the attention during the special teams portion was on Zane Gonzalez, a kicker who would be drafted by the Cleveland Browns.

But Matt left an impression, and several coaches approached him after the workout, including Miami Dolphins special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi.

“We had several scouts come up to him afterwards and say, ‘We weren’t looking for a punter, but we found one,'” Christy said. “At that point, I thought, ‘Well, maybe he can do this.'” 

Matt signed an undrafted free agent deal with the Dolphins and battled with incumbent punter Matt Darr for the job. It seemed like a long shot though. It was such a tough task that Matt and Christy came with a bunch of family members to Minnesota for Miami’s final preseason game in 2017.  

“(We were) thinking this might be our only chance to see him in a pro uniform,” Scott said.

However, Matt was so impressive during the preseason that the Dolphins cut Darr. They then reportedly signed Matt to a three-year $1.67 million contract.

“It’s probably not what I had expected or probably envisioned of how things would transpire,” Scott said.

During the 2018 season, he was named AFC Special Teams Player of the Week after averaging 44.7 yards on nine punts during a win against the New York Jets.

On Dec. 1, 2019, he was a part of one of the NFL’s most surprising trick plays when he completed a 1-yard touchdown pass to kicker Jason Sanders in a 37-31 win. It was the NFL’s first touchdown pass to a kicker since 1977.

He was rewarded with a one-year $2.133 million dollar contract in 2020. It’s all a little hard for even Matt to believe. 

“Every time I see Jamie Kohl, he brings it up that we could write a book on that week,” Matt said.

Matt is entering his fourth season in the NFL. While life has changed a lot, he hasn’t. He still visits Iowa a few times a year and tries to work with Dowling Catholic’s specialists when he does. He recently moved into a new house in West End, Florida. 

But most of his prized possessions remain in his parent’s basement in Des Moines.

They have the Pat Tillman Award he was given at Arizona State. The game ball he was given for Special Teams Player of the Week in 2018 sits on the mantle in the basement along with a signed Dowling Catholic football.

“He’s kind of  a cool story,” Kohl said.

Tommy Birch, the Register’s sports enterprise and features reporter, has been working at the newspaper since 2008. He’s the 2018 Iowa Sportswriter of the Year. Reach him at [email protected] or 515-284-8468. Follow him on Twitter @TommyBirch.