‘I know they’re with me’: Packers’ Peter Mortell copes with deaths of Sam Foltz, Mike Sadler

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Updated: July 27, 2016

12:39 PM ETPackers rookie punter Peter Mortell, right, who played at Minnesota, on friend Sam Foltz of Nebraska: “Even though Sam was younger than me, I looked up to him and he made me a better person.” Photo courtesy of Peter Mortell

GREEN BAY, Wis. — The group chat will forever remain in Peter Mortell’s iPhone messages. Not only can he not delete it — just as he cannot stop referring to Mike Sadler and Sam Foltz in the present tense, struggling to accept that they are really gone — he cannot stop adding to the conversation.

“They might not respond,” the Green Bay Packers rookie punter said Tuesday, “but I know they’re reading it.”

Sadler and Foltz were killed in a one-car crash just outside of Milwaukee on Saturday night, when authorities say their vehicle skidded off a rain-slicked road and struck a tree.

Just a few days earlier, the five punting pals — Mortell from Minnesota, Sadler from Michigan State, Foltz from Nebraska, Riley Dixon from Syracuse and Drew Meyer from Wisconsin — were rapid-firing texts at one another, cracking jokes and making plans for their annual Wisconsin reunion at the Kohl’s kicking camps. Sadler, Foltz and Meyer were in; Dixon, a rookie with the Denver Broncos, was out.

Mortell was the lone undecided, mindful that Packers players were reporting to training camp at 6 a.m. Monday but also knowing he was only a 2½-hour drive away.

“They asked me if I was going to come down,” Mortell said, his eyes red. “And I said, ‘I don’t think I’m going to make it this weekend, guys.'”

The quintet had grown especially close in recent years — through fall college football seasons, winter workouts, spring practices, summer camps. And the group message — started nearly two years ago — had served as something of a digital oral history of their friendship.

“Even though we only saw each other face-to-face a couple times a year, when we’d play each other or at this camp,” Meyer said, “we had a special bond.”

That bond grew stronger each offseason as they attended and worked the camp while bunking together at Meyer’s family’s home — an upgrade from the sweltering UW-Whitewater dorms where the other college players stayed. It was a spur-of-the-moment idea that quickly became a tradition.

“That first year, it was more, ‘Guys, I’m going home. Does anyone want to come with me? We have air conditioning,'” Meyer recalled with a chuckle, before his voice trailed off. “It was a unique group of guys.”

After spending the evening at the home of one of the camp counselors, playing games and catching up, Sadler, Foltz and LSU kicker Colby Delahoussaye were en route to Meyer’s home late Saturday night when Sadler lost control of his black Mercedes on a notoriously dangerous curve. Sadler and Foltz died at the scene; Delahoussaye, who was in the back seat, escaped with burns and lacerations.

‘I knew exactly what had happened’

Former Michigan State punter Mike Sadler, shown at a kicking camp, had a positive impact on Packers rookie punter Peter Mortell: “Mike taught me how to keep an even head and have fun with the game,” Mortell said. Photo courtesy Kohls Kicking Camps

Meyer, who left after the others and took a different route with Nebraska kicker Drew Brown, knew something was wrong when he arrived at his family’s home before Sadler, Foltz and Delahoussaye. When Meyer’s calls to their cellphones went unanswered, he and Brown immediately headed for Beaver Lake Road, with Meyer …

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