Kluwe played three years of varsity football for coach John Barnes at Los Alamitos High School in Los Alamitos, California and was selected to play in both the California-Texas Shrine game (where he kicked a 57-yard game-winning field goal with no time left) and the CaliFlorida Bowl.

He kicked an Orange County and CIF Playoff record 60-yard field goal vs. Loyola to force overtime in an eventual 30–23 victory.

Kluwe enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he developed into one of the top punters in the Pac-10 Conference.

He was selected as special teams player of the game in the Silicon Valley Football Classic against Fresno State after averaging 44.3 yards on nine kicks.

Kluwe was a finalist in his senior year for the Ray Guy Award that annually recognizes the best collegiate punter.

Due to NFL rules, the Seahawks had to place Kluwe on the waiver wire for 24 hours prior to signing him to a practice squad contract.

[citation needed] Kluwe became one of the most surprising pickups for the Vikings, finishing his first season with an average of 44.1 yards per punt, ranking second in the NFC and sixth in the league.

Kicker Paul Edinger was the punter for the remainder of the game, but a few days later the Vikings signed 42-year-old veteran Darren Bennett for 1 week.

As Tice was not known to be sympathetic towards punters and kickers, this showed the amount of respect he had for Kluwe's willingness to play with a serious injury.

McNabb previously wore #5 for the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles, and requested the same number when he arrived in Minnesota, which was then being worn by Kluwe.

[7] After a poor performance in an October 25, 2012 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Vikings brought in several punters for workouts to potentially replace Kluwe.

Speculation immediately surfaced that Kluwe's days were numbered with the Vikings due to the use of a relatively high draft round pick for a punter.

[12][13] During the 2011 NFL lockout, the Boston Globe reported that an agreement between owners and the players' union was being held up by special considerations for a few top employees,[14] Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Vincent Jackson, and Logan Mankins.

After Nate Jackson wrote an article for the sport website Deadspin, excoriating Kluwe for talking "out of turn,"[15] Kluwe responded with his own article, highlighting the contrast between his own fruitful career and Jackson's lack of statistics, while reiterating his opinion that four people endangering the livelihoods of the 1,900 affected by the dispute was "pretty much the definition of greed.

"[16] Kluwe publicly released a letter on September 7, 2012, via sports website Deadspin he had sent to Maryland state assembly delegate Emmett Burns, defending the opinions of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo and condemning Burns on his attempt to stifle Ayanbadejo's free speech.

[17] Ayanbadejo has been a vocal supporter of same-sex marriage and Burns had sent a letter requesting that the Ravens ownership "inhibit such expressions" by their employee.

[18] On October 1, 2012, Kluwe published a letter to the editor that responded to a video statement released by former Viking Matt Birk in supporting a ban on same-sex marriage.

[20] Kluwe and Ayanbadejo filed an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court on February 28, 2013, regarding Hollingsworth v. Perry, in which they expressed their support of the challenge to California Proposition 8.

[22] On April 16, 2013, in recognition of his steadfast support of same-sex marriage and for starting a conversation about LGBT issues in athletics, Kluwe was named the Grand Marshal of the 41st annual Twin Cities Pride festival in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

"[25] The team stated it was not previously made aware of Kluwe's allegations, and countered that he "was released strictly based on his football performance.

[24] Kluwe later acknowledged that his comments on Priefer were "a little too harsh originally", and stated that he preferred that the coach get therapy and counseling and return to the league as a role model.

Kluwe at one time immersed himself in the MMORPG World of Warcraft, playing a troll rogue named Loate[41] and has been a member of one of the formerly top-ranked US guilds, The Flying Hellfish, for over four years.

He won this honor after defeating Firaxis producer and designer Garth DeAngelis in a best-of-three series of online matches of XCOM.

[45] In addition to being a punter in the NFL, Kluwe is the bassist for the local Minneapolis alternative/progressive metal band, Tripping Icarus.

Kluwe formed the band in 2009 with friends Andrew Reiner (guitar) and Matthew Marshall (drums), and later recruited Jesse Revel to join on lead vocals.

[51] Kluwe was hired as the Special Teams Coach at Edison High School (Huntington Beach, California) for the 2017 season.