Northwestern University Athletics
The Art of the Field Goal
10/8/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 8, 2009
By SKIP MYSLENSKI, NUsports.com Special Contributor
He flips the switch when the ball crosses midfield. That is when Stefan Demos, the 'Cats' place-kicker, the 'Cats' latest hero, starts preparing himself for a possible call. Normally gregarious, he now eschews conversation and moves alone to the kicking net and starts driving ball after ball after ball into it. Always, without fail, he ends with a solid hit.
Now he looks for his coach, Pat Fitzgerald, and it is near him that he lingers in anticipation. "I like to be alone right before I kick," he says. "So I stroll near midfield, get away from everybody. I don't like people talking to me before I kick.
"If there's another kicker saying something to me, that would be OK. He knows what you're going through. But a guy saying, 'Make it. Make it?' You never want to think about making kicks. That's something maybe people don't understand. I never go back there thinking, 'I want to make this' or 'Don't miss this.' It's always, 'Just put a good swing on it.'"
John Henry Pace, the long snapper, the second part of the trinity that triggers any kick, lingers a little longer before starting his own preparation. Not until the drive reaches the opponent's 40 does he collect a ball and go to the net and there, even before squatting down, he checks his feet to be sure they are properly placed. On punts, which he also snaps for, they are spread wider than they will be here.
Only now, after he is certain that his base is correctly set, does he bend over and himself start sending balls into the net. "It's not the velocity that's important," he says, relating what he is looking for here. "I want to make sure the ball is where it needs to be and it's a spiral." Finally, that routine complete, he collects either his backup Pat Hickey or the backup place-kicker Steve Flaherty and snaps even more to them. "I try to get it," he says, "so the ball's at their kneecap. That's the perfect place for him."
That "him" is the wide receiver Zeke Markshausen, who as the holder is the third person in this trinity. He, unlike Demos and Pace, is involved in the offense at moments like these and has no time to prepare for the duty that might be thrust on him. So when that moment arrives, when the drive stalls and Fitzgerald barks out "Points" and holds three fingers in the air, he must quickly calm himself and simply react. "I'm not," he says, "thinking of much as I run out there."
Pace, in contrast, is thinking and looking and computing as he runs, and then he is screaming. "Right, right, right," is one thing he might scream.
"Left, left, left," is the other.
This call indicates the strong side of the field, which will determine the positioning of the line spread on either side of him, and then he is standing over the ball. Again, as he had in front of the net, he checks his feet first, sees that his feet are placed properly, and then he leans over and, without touching the ball, looks between his legs at Demos and Markshausen.
"All right. Here we go," the holder says to the kicker when they meet on the field, and then they exchange a high five and move into their own routines. Markshausen goes down. Demos aligns his feet with the middle of the uprights even while banishing those posts those from his sightline. "I don't even want to look at the uprights. I just want to pick a spot behind them," he says.
"When we go to stadiums (on the road)," says Markshausen, "he says, 'Oh, there's a lot of good things behind it you can point to.'"
Now, his point in the distance selected, Demos sets the plant spot. Markshausen notes it with his finger and takes a deep breath. Demos too breathes deeply and, his eyes still on that distant point, takes three steps backwards. Once more he checks that he is lined up correctly and then he looks down at his feet, takes two steps to his right, makes sure he has moved at a 90-degree angle, looks down at his right foot, makes sure it is aimed at the plant spot, and finally rocks back and forth.
In front of them, as their choreography unfolds, an official is standing over the ball, both guarding it and offering up fair warning. "Stay off the long snapper. Stay off the long snapper. I'll be watching," is the warning he offers.
"I'm in a very vulnerable position, bent over, head between my knees, looking back," says Pace. "So especially on field goals, he'll say it a lot. There's a lot of chaos on a field goal attempt."
But now, still, it is calm and, the official departed, Pace bends down and embraces the ball and tenses his body and takes a deep breath and again looks back at Markshausen. "All right, catch the ball. Catch the ball," Markshausen is telling himself and then he looks up at Demos.
Demos nods and takes a deep breath.
Markshausen checks the plant spot, looks up and extends his arms toward Pace's rear.
• • • • • •
Stefan Demos has anticipated this autumn since 2006. That was the year he landed in Evanston as an acclaimed kicker, but that season he redshirted and then, in the next two, the extra-point and field-goal duties belonged to Amado Villarreal. When he himself kicked a 20-yarder early in the fourth quarter against Eastern Michigan, it was the first he had made since his senior year in high school and later that afternoon, when he nailed a 49-yard game-winner with six seconds remaining, it was the first time he had done that since September of 2005.
"It's like riding a bike on a two-by-four a-hundred feet above the ground. That's what I'm learning," he says, smiling, when asked if it all came back to him that easily. "You get a routine, that's kind of where the analogy comes from. If you do the same thing in practice every single time, when I get out there on the field, it'll just take over and repetition will pay off."
He would celebrate the game-winning payoff against Eastern so ardently that, when he got home that evening, his nine roommates (they share a 10-bedroom place) ragged him, told him that he looked like some crazed soccer player running around Ryan Field. But the next week, at Syracuse, he missed an extra point and followed that with a poor kickoff, which turned into a learning lesson he carried with him into Purdue last Saturday.
There, under the scrutiny of a hostile crowd, he ran his season-long streak to eight with four field goals that failed to quiet the boisterous Boiler fans. "The 'Demos sucks' chant went on for about half the game," he recalls. "I had sweat pants on, it was kind of cold, every time I put them on or took them off, they'd hoot and holler. I'd kick into the net, they'd chant 'Wide left, wide right.' They tried to get into your head a little bit. It's one of those things. It's part of the college football experience. I love it. But you just can't let them win. I refuse to let that happen."
He, clearly, cannot let that happen and so, in anticipation of moments like that, Stefan Demos begins preparing himself as he lies in some hotel room on Friday night. There, in bed, he sleeps little, filling his time instead by visualizing all possibilities or reading three chapters from a book called, "Mind Gym: An Athlete's Guide To Inner Excellence." (One chapter he always goes over is called, "Trust Your Stuff.")
The next morning he rises, showers, stretches, dresses and goes down for breakfast, where always he has scrambled eggs and two bowls of Cheerios. He grabs a Gatorade on his way out of this room, attends a team meeting, hops onto the bus and, while on his way to the stadium, listens to an eclectic blend of music and drinks his Gatorade. Now, in the locker room, he undresses, soaks in a hot tub, suits up, stretches and prepares to head out to the field. But first, as he will do later just before game's start and again at the end of halftime, he listens to "King Without A Crown" by Matisyahu. ("It relaxes me," he explains.)
Seventy-five minutes now remain until kickoff and, after stretching once again, Stefan Demos begins a warm-up routine that is nothing less than ritualistic. He starts with four one-step field goals from the extra-point spot and moves to a true extra point. Then there is a 26-yarder from the left hash and a 34-yarder from the right, a 41-yarder from the left and a 48-yarder from the right. On it goes, through some kickoffs, through some work with Markshausen, but always this warm-up ends on the 28th kick, not one more, not one less, not even if he hasn't gotten in any punting (which he also does for the 'Cats). "It's the number I came up with," he simply says. "I don't want to over kick, especially with the number of times you have to kick into the net during the game."
Now, his preparation complete, he lolls until it is time for the team to return to the locker room. Then comes a field goal, a punt and he is inside, where he takes off his cleats, puts a towel over his head and listens to music until Fitzgerald gives his final pre-game talk and it is time to exit again. He and safety Brendan Smith are always the last to leave. "I," explains Demos, "like to stay as relaxed as possible and the further up in the locker room you get, the more hootin' and hollerin.' A lot of the guys, they have to get hyped up that way. I don't want to get hyped up. I want to relax and get focused on what I have to do.
"So I'll stay back in the locker rom and once everyone starts going, I'll sneak out a different door and head down not too late. Fitz always gets mad about that. Hopefully, he understands."
• • • • • •
"Ready," says Markshausen and then that chaos referred to by Pace begins to unfold.
"I'm looking at him (Markshausen)," says Pace, who snaps on that signal. "But I'm more focused on where I want the ball to go. His kneecap. If I aim at a small point, I'll miss small, so the ball will be around where I want it to be."
Demos, on the signal, begins moving. "That's when I've got to go," says he. "You can't worry about the snap or the hold. You've just got to go and put a good swing on it."
"When I catch it and I start bringing it down," says Markshausen, "I can see where the laces are and I can tell if I need to spin it in or out. I try to make it as quick as I can. I try to get it as close to the spot, laces out."
Pace, after snapping, stays low to keep from getting knocked back and extends his arms to feel the pressure. If it is equal, he stays centered. If it is greater on one side, he slips that way.
This happens, all this happens, quicker than a hiccup, and now Pace glimpses the ball overhead and Demos already knows. "Usually," he says, "right away. Every field goal I've made this year, I've known I made it right away. There wasn't much of hold-my-breath at all."
Now, again, Demos and Markshausen exchange a high-five and then the kicker taps his holder on the helmet.
"How was the snap?" Pace asks both.
"Good snap," Markshausen replies.
"Thanks for blocking," Demos tells each of his linemen.
"Thanks for making it," is what he hears back.
