Ray Guy

 

Punting a football is turning into a lost art. Coaches have discovered that the prettiest and longest of kicks are not the best in terms of net yardage gain. Topflight
punters are now told to not kick the ball too long, or they will out kick their coverage, allowing for a long return. The rugby style punt has become very popular, at all levels of today’s football. The ball is punch kicked on the run with a sideways swing of the kicking leg. The low, line drive end over end kick, almost impossible to block, will normally hit the ground before a return man can catch it in the air, often then rolling in the direction of the receiving team’s goal line. The roll on many kicks is longer than the distance the ball was in the air. Because the ball is bouncing, the timing of the return team is thrown off and blockers have a hard time setting up in an organized manner for the return.

The rugby style kick is very productive. It is also ugly as hell.

It is July 1970, and the location is Hattiesburg, MS, on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi. The New Orleans Saints are holding their pre-season training camp, utilizing the practice fields at USM. I am 13 years old. In the midst of a family vacation, I find myself, along with a handful of other boys my age, shagging footballs for a group of four would be Saint’s place kickers. The Saints are not a very good team, a recent expansion franchise, now entering their fifth year of existence and still over a decade away from their first winning season.

One of the field goal kickers we chased balls for that day, the incumbent, was Tom Dempsey who wore a unique kicking shoe. Dempsey was born without toes on his right foot and no fingers on his right hand. He wore a modified shoe with a flattened and enlarged toe surface. This club like device would help Dempsey in 1970 to set the record for longest field goal ever kicked in an NFL game, a 63-yard game winner. The NFL eventually outlawed the type of shoe Dempsey wore for his record kick.

On an adjacent practice field, I became fixated on a lone player practicing his punting skills. With four balls at his disposal, he systematically lifts one booming punt after another, all spirals that seem to cover the entire length of the practice field. After four punts, he will jog down to the end of the field, retrieve the balls, turn the other direction and give a repeat performance. I watched in awe for a good 15 minutes. He never mishit a kick. They were all perfect. His form was breathtakingly beautiful. With a whip like motion, his right kicking leg would raise in follow through above his head - as straight as a gymnast - the right kneecap almost making contact with his nose as if he had no hamstrings to limit his flexibility.

For several years I attempted repeatedly to mimic what I had seen that day. It looked so simple, yet I never came close. I finally gave up, accepting that God had only blessed a few with such a gift for punting a football and I was not one.

Later I learned the name of the punter was Ray Guy. He was not even a member of the Saints, but a college player for the Golden Eagles of Southern Miss. He was spending the afternoon working out on his own, preparing for the upcoming college season. Guy would go on to become a six time all pro punter with the Oakland Raiders and the first and only punter to ever be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The image of a young and still unknown Ray Guy, alone on a barren rock-hard practice field perfecting his talented gift, is a favorite feel-good memory forever etched in the mind of a 13-year-old boy; the perfect punt, majestically spinning into the endless Mississippi sunlight.