Newest Green Bay Packer has Shore ties

The newest member of the Green Bay Packers has ties to the Eastern Shore.

After being invited to minicamp Thursday and participating in all day tryouts Friday and Saturday, the Green Bay Packers signed BR Hatcher Saturday to a deal to be the team’s new long snapper.

Hatcher, who measures to 6′-4″ and 242 pounds, played in 35 games for Old Dominion over four seasons (2018-19, 2021-22), handling snaps for punts, extra points and field goals. In 2019, he posted four tackles, tying the school record for most tackles in a season by a long snapper.

Hatcher’s parents live on the Eastern Shore. His mother Michelle is a writing specialist at Nandua Middle School and his father Mike is the director of imaging for Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital and also serves as the head baseball coach and an assistant football coach of Arcadia High School.

“We thought he had gotten hurt when he called,” said Michelle. “But he said he was signing his professional contract, I squealed and Michael sat down.”

The couple originally hailed from South Carolina and moved to the Shore during their son’s time at ODU to be able to see him play, while his brother was at law school at American, because it was directly in between the two areas.

“We’ve really fallen in love with the place, I don’t think we have any plans to go back to South Carolina,” Michelle added. When asked if they were considering moving to Green Bay, she dispelled that possibility “that place is way too cold for us!”