Be Glad You're Not a Kicker

10-12-92

It was a pretty good week for Cobber sports. The volleyball team swept their first two home matches. Two players from the men's golf team were named all conference. Women's golf came in second in a big Iowa tournament. And a lot of us thanked our lucky stars we weren't kickers.

Concordia's football team missed a couple of field goals Saturday on the way to a 10-7 loss at St.Thomas. NDSU lost at home when a short field goal missed just a little wide in the final seconds of their game against St. Cloud. Both teams have good sophomore kickers.

It seems clear that a kicker's life is an unhappy one. But kickers should serve an important role in your life. Whenever you're depressed, feeling over-stressed and under appreciated, take solace in the fact that things could be worse. You could a kicker.

After extensive research, I have assembled what I think are the best reasons for us to be happy we are not kickers. There are many more.

1. The ball is not round. It's moving because the holder is nervous. And there are all these big angry people running at you while you are supposed to kick it straight and far.

2. Your teammates won't talk to you before a big kick because they don't want to jinx you.

3. Your teammates won't talk to you after a miss because they know you'll know they're lying when they say "don't worry about it."

4. Your teammates won't talk to you during the week because you don't really practice with them and you never get dirty and you're always talking to yourself and you seem strange.

5. A few years back, the rules guys took away the kicking tee because some guy from Tennessee named Yuri kept making 58-yarders off a rug.

6. Then the rules committee made the goal posts narrower because that guy in Tennessee had a younger brother who hit one from 59 yards and they felt that just ain't right.

7. Then the rules committee said coaches should try for touchdowns more, given the narrower goal posts and the no tee stuff. But coaches keep pushing the kickers out there in obvious field goal situations like nothing's changed.

8. When you miss an important kick, everyone in the crowd, remembering that one time in the back yard when they really connected on one, is convinced they could have made the kick.

9. When you make a kick, everyone calls it a "chip shot."

10. When you miss a kick, everyone calls it a "chip shot."

11. When you make a kick, the guy on the radio says you had the wind with you all the way.

12. When you miss kick, all the fans start checking the roster for a freshman kicker.

13. When you make a kick, all the fans start wondering what country you are from.

14. When you miss after having warmed up by kicking into that goofy net on the sideline, people say you wore yourself out on the net.

15. When you make a kick after a bad snap, the guy on the radio goes on and on about what a great job the holder did.

16. If you miss after a bad snap, fans say you didn't wait for the holder to get it down.

17. If you make a kick, the guy on the radio says the quarterback made that possible by getting it on the hash mark that you love to kick from, no matter what hash mark you like.

18. When you miss after having taken only a few practice kicks into that goofy net, the fans say you should have warmed up better.

19. If you make the kick, the guy on the radio talks about what great blocking you got.

20. If you get it blocked, you should have kicked it higher and sooner.

21. After a winning kick, the press interviews the quarterback and gets a detailed summary of how he engineered the brilliant last minute drive to set up your 48-yard "chip shot."

22. When you miss a field goal twenty yards left, someone from the press will ask you, "Did you pull it?"

23. When your team loses on a missed field goal, the guys on TV don't replay all the missed blocks or dropped passes or poor decisions, or missed holes by running backs. They replay the scene of you looking at the goal posts and grabbing your helmet and the other team celebrating. Then they replay it over and over.

24. When you get benched or fired, the coach never blames you. He blames his own weakness of character that makes him unable to sustain his confidence in you, though he knows you are a good kicker and deserve a show of confidence.

25. When you miss an important kick, your mother will not accept your collect call home.

These pages are maintained by Jerry Pyle pyle@cord.edu. These articles are copyrighted © and may not be published or reproduced without the express permission of Jerry Pyle.

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