Back in late April, Olivia Ray from WISH-TV did a story on former Snider quarterback Michael Haupert who was scheduled to perform at a concert at the Bluebird nightclub in Bloomington; only to have that concert canceled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Well, as it turns out, music is nothing new for Haupert. While playing the guitar is fairly new for him, his musical background goes back to his growing-up years. In fact, he’s not the only musician in his family.
“My mom is a singer, she grew up singing in church, and I inherited that gene, and basically I started singing from a very young age,” Haupert said. “I didn’t start the guitar until last year, my freshman year of college. But growing up, in middle school, I did show choir for two years, and I would sing at church with my mother every other Sunday. So that was kind of my upbringing as far as my musical background [is concerned].”
Haupert has posted videos of himself performing covers of various songs to social media. He has covered songs such as “In Case You Didn’t Know” by Brett Young and “Blackbird” by the Beatles Those cover videos, along with an old acquaintance were instrumental in initially getting his gig in Bloomington.
“Coincidentally, one of my classmates from middle school, she works at the Bluebird in Bloomington where my gig was originally supposed to be,” Haupert said. “And she said, ‘hey my manager had seen your video and is very interested in you coming to perform, would you be interested in that?’ I was a little hesitant at first, just because I’ve never really performed in front of everybody like that. But as I started thinking about it, I thought it would be a great opportunity so I said ‘yeah, let’s do it.’ And we had a date for it, and eventually due to COVID-19, obviously [it was] canceled, which is unfortunate, but hopefully, I can get that rescheduled at some point.”
Not only has Haupert recording himself performing cover songs, but he has also started writing some of his own songs.
“I write them every now and then. I write them just based off how I’m feeling that day and kind of stuff like that,” Haupert said. “I haven’t posted any quite yet. What I’m wanting to do with that is I’m wanting to put them on SoundCloud or have people stream them on Spotify…and see what happens in that aspect.”
Haupert had a successful career with Snider football. In his junior and senior seasons, Haupert threw for over 2300 yards and 29 touchdowns in his career.
“He was a joy to coach; [he was] a great young man, hard-working, intelligent, loved his team, loved his teammates,” Panthers’ head coach Kurt Tippmann said. “And during his time at Snider, he gave everything he could to help us and our program, and help his teammates. He was truly a great, great teammate and a great young man to be around.”
Not surprisingly, Haupert has several memories from his time at Snider. One of those memories involved games against one of the Panthers’ tougher opponents.
“Probably my favorite memory from Snider was probably my senior night when we played against Bishop Dwenger,” Haupert said. “We had about 45 seconds on the clock; roughly; and drove the ball 80 yards, and Jack James had nailed the winning field goal off the goal post. That was probably one of my more exciting memories.”
Nowadays, Haupert plays at Indiana State. But he greatly credits his time at Snider for helping him to prepare for the college level, particularly when it comes to conditioning.
“Our offseasons at Snider are pretty intense as far as the conditioning and the weightlifting [are concerned],” Haupert said. “When I had gotten to Indiana State, that first month of summer conditioning and lifting was obviously pretty difficult because I wasn’t really accustomed to the pace and everything. But as far as my conditioning…I was very well-off, and I was able to get adjusted very quickly in that aspect, which I think put me ahead of multiple other teammates at that point in time.”
Haupert has played a variety of positions at ISU. He was listed as a quarterback when he first got there. Since then, he has seen practice reps as a receiver, a cornerback, a special teams player, a running back, and also has had multiple stints as a quarterback. This year, he got to take snaps at QB in the Sycamores’ wildcat package. This past year, he rushed for 362 yards and two touchdowns. He also threw three passes, one of which went for a touchdown.
“As he’s gone there, what has really made us proud is as they’ve used Michael in different ways and he’s morphed into the responsibility he has on the team, he’s really been an unselfish and truly team-player that is gonna help them win some games,” Tippmann said. “He did last year and will do so again this year.”
Haupert played in a limited role as a true freshman and was able to redshirt due to NCAA regulations. This past season, he played in 10 games. He has seen improvement in multiple areas in his time in college, particularly when it comes to adjusting to the pace of the college game.
“I got to play in two games [as a true freshman] due to that new rule, and it was just very up paced,” Haupert said. “And I didn’t really know what was going on. But last year, everything kind of slowed down to me. I was able to process things a lot quicker. So [there are] multiple different categories in which I’ve improved.”
Haupert is currently majoring in Chemistry at Indiana State. He does have hopes of playing in the NFL, but he’s not shutting the door on a career in music.
“The NFL has always been a dream of mine since [I was] a little kid. I’m obviously going to work for that,” Haupert said. “As far as my music goes, I never really thought of a music career up until probably about a month and a half ago when I started posting my little covers on my Instagram and getting people’s feedback, and now all these interviews are kind of coming in. And hopefully, I can book some gigs once all this craziness is over with and continue to grow in that aspect and just see what happens next with that.”
