Boom.
Every ball, every rep, kicked high, far and straight.
Perfect rotation.
Great height.
Great sound.
The kind of ball contact off the foot that you feel inside your chest - no WAIT a second - in your soul.
The kid was on fire. Kicking his heart out. College coaches whipped their iPhones out to record. Murmuring, raised eyebrows (and a lot of beard stroking).
There was no way this kid couldn’t be recruited now. It’s one thing to kick well on Twitter. It’s another to do well at a camp.
But in speaking with a coach afterwards I found just because this kicker made every single kick with near perfect ball flight, they had managed to find a flaw in this player’s swing.
“Ah, I don’t know there’s just something off…,”
“OK, like what? He made every kick. Killed it.”
“Yeah, but - ah - I think he’s got a little hitch in his swing.”
“OK, can you show me what you mean?”
“See right here?”
“Where?”
“HERE, right THERE, he’s got a little pause a little hitch right there.”
(Still having not a clue what this guy was talking about I nodded in faux agreement).
I didn’t want to torpedo this player’s shot with this college program by telling him he was out of his mind and had no idea what he was talking about.
But something about this interaction has been gnawing away at me.
This kid made every single kick under pressure a coach could ask him to do and one coach still found something to complain about in his technique.
If a player produces results should it matter the process they use to achieve it?
Should aesthetics really take priority over production?
This happens to kickers, a lot and all athletes, really.
What one coach sees as unorthodox another sees as orthodoxy. But, couldn’t it be that it is the very quirk the scout doesn’t like that helps a player achieve a high level of performance on the field because it’s what they like?
Athletics always toggle between trying to find a balance between what works individually verses what works universally. Which I get. But, perhaps the frustrating part of dealing with this in kickers is that when you press a college scout for a clear answer as to exactly why they feel this kicker’s technique - which just let them make every single kick in front of you - is flawed? And, when you do, inevitably, the answer comes down to “Well, that’s just what I like to see.”
Coaches, especially football coaches, like what they know. Especially for kickers. If a coach experienced success at a high level with a kicker who looked, acted and swung a certain way, every kicker afterwards will be unfairly held to replicate this mold.
Adam Vinatieri set the mold for what an NFL kicker was supposed to be for a few years - sharp angle to the ball, crunch, but straight swing. Then, Jason Meyers for the Seahawks had a perfect season for the Jets with a totally upright upper body technique that then became the standard. Then, Justin Tucker repopularize the sharper angle to the ball, and crunch. What’s “in” for kicker aesthetics comes in cycles like the latest Louis Vuitton or NYC Fashion.
It is possible to not fit the mold of what a “typical” kicker looks like and still experience wild success on the field. The problem is having a coach who will give you enough leash to prove what you can do in a game in the first place. And, there is no one on the planet more risk adverse that the average college special teams coordinator (don’t even get me started on the NFL ones)
You might need to do what I’ve heard some NFL kickers do with unorthodox swings: have two swings. One swing for when you’re being evaluated that you know will tick every technique box a college coach is looking for. Then, a second swing, which is your normal swing you use once you’re on the team. Efficient? No. But you’ve got to do what you got to do to get on the team.
The skill of getting offered onto the college team, or getting signed by the NFL team is closely related to but not exactly the same skill of getting onto the field once you are on that team.
Love it or hate it, you may need to sometimes sacrifice what feels more natural for your swing to appease the uninformed opinion of what a quality specialist looks like to a scout charged with whether or not to sign you.
Getting on the team, aesthetics wins, production be damned.
Getting on the field once you are on the team, production wins, technique be damned.
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