RENTON – A job as a $12-an-hour security guard might not be viewed as a conventional springboard to professional athletic success, but it apparently depends on how efficiently you make use of your time.

Bryan Pittman, a Thomas Jefferson High product and a walk-on/walk-off for one season at the University of Washington, wore his security-man suit every day to his job at a freight company in Fife.

The place had gone out of business, and it was his job to keep an eye on things until all the equipment and big rigs could be auctioned off.

But when he found how rare it was that anybody would come anywhere near the place, he started finding other ways to stay busy.

He opened up one of the semi trailers that was backed up to a loading dock, paced off 15 yards, and went to work practicing long snapping. He attached a little pillow, about 1 square foot, on the far wall of the trailer as a target, and he got in “a couple hundred” snaps during every shift.

“I mean, it was an eight-hour shift, and about all I was doing was snapping,” he said. “I don’t mind admitting it now ... it’s not like they can fire me.”

After leaving UW, Pittman had spent some time with Arizona in the Arena Football League but lost his job when he was injured, and he then came home to play for the semipro Puget Sound Jets.

Eventually, he got so good during his clandestine workouts that he landed in training camp with the Cleveland Browns before securing steady work with the Houston Texans in 2003.

Now, he’s joined the Seattle Seahawks and probably is the frontrunner to be their snapper this fall.

Pittman was the last Seahawk off the field Wednesday at the team’s minicamp practice. He did some extra work and some running after the others had hit the showers.

When he finally came to the sidelines, he was asked about the period of almost five years when he persisted in working on his snapping skills in the long-odds hope of landing with an NFL team.

“I dreamed like thousands of others do, watching Sunday games, thinking, ‘Man, I could do that,’ ” he said. “But there’s a fine line between believing you can do it and actually being able to get out there and do the job.”

When he started getting banged up in the semi-pro NorthWest Football League, Pittman started to wonder if it was time to give it up. “I just told myself that I should stick with it until I actually hear a scout or coach tell me that I’m just not good enough. But nobody ever said that. So I stayed persistent and that window of opportunity finally opened for me in the spring of ’03, and here I am today.”

Pittman played 92 consecutive games for the Texans before being suspended for the final four games of 2008.

The ruling was a violation of the league’s drug policy. Pittman’s test during training camp last year revealed the presence of a diuretic that is banned by the league as a possible masking agent for performance-enhancers.

The 32-year-old Pittman said he was actually using it as diuretic. He hadn’t made his target weight for reporting to camp, and he took the diuretic to get rid of the last few pounds.

“I was ignorant of the policy, and it was my mistake,” he said. “I had authorization from a doctor to take the diuretic, but I didn’t get authorization from the league doctor. I should have known what I was doing. Basically, they told me even though you weren’t masking anything, you violated the policy, and there’s no excuses and no exceptions.”

After the suspension, he worried that he would have trouble getting back into the league, but Seattle was at the top of his wish list, and the Seahawks were looking for a long-range answer at snapper after having to bring back the repeatedly retiring Jeff Robinson to bail them out the past couple of seasons.

“It feels like a second chance,” Pittman said. “I feel like I’m on even ground again, and I get to prove myself. It’s not given to me; I’ve got to work hard and try to earn the job. That’s what I was hoping for.”

We may wish him well, because it’s probably not very likely he’s going to be able to get another job as a security guard.

Dave Boling: 253-597-8440

Dave.boling@thenewstribune.com