I Was Cheered and Taunted As a Freshman Varsity Kicker

Getting snapped, crackled, and popped daily during JV practices is what I remember most

Photo of author as high school freshman.

I was a freshman kicker on the varsity football team. Six-foot-one and, maybe, 150 pounds.

We played our home games in the DakotaDome on the University of South Dakota campus. A miniature version of the old NFL-domed stadiums such as the Astrodome.

It was fun kicking extra points and field goals on Astroturf instead of into gusts of wind and getting cheered on by my freshman class who I heard roar every time I ran on the field to kick.

The snap is clean. The hold is down. The kick is up. And the kick is straight through the heart of the goalposts.

I am now 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds with a not-quite-as-big-as-Homer Simpson paunch and have been teaching high school for 20 years.

But I remember my kicking days when I watch a field goal go through the goalposts or a kicker misses a game-winning field goal attempt like Buffalo Bills Scott Norwood in Super Bowl XXV.

Sometimes, a kick will remind me of when the varsity coach called me into his office and said he wanted me to be the kicker for the varsity.