{Kic K ing a nd Screaming}
you to let your eyes follow the ball in the air as you kick it. I want you to see and feel the kick, but let your eyes follow the ball and feel the skip of your [left] plant leg as you kick and move forward.” For many athletes, who have been
told all their lives to keep your eye on the ball, the advice is counterintuitive. “A lot of coaches know nothing
about kicking,” Zauner says. “They don’t know. It takes time to know. It’s not like I pulled this stuff out of my butt.” Stitser is a quick learner. He begins
by kicking 25-yard field goals, chip shots that he booms between and over the goal posts, over the end zone, over the green field, and over a running track in the dis- tance. The balls carom off a fence. Zauner moves the balls beyond 40
and then 50 yards, all the while deliver- ing his mantra: “That’s it. Feel the kick, eyes follow the ball, feel the skip, walk forward, grab a ball. Do it again.” At the end of the workout, instruc-
tor and student review the videotape of Stitser’s performance. After Stitser
leaves, Zauner says he has hope: “Clint has a chance to be a good steady kick- er. You need to be steady. Steadiness: That’s more important than distance. I told Billy the same thing.” Zauner is enormously happy for
Billy Cundiff, but still, he says, Cundiff has to be careful. “He works very, very hard, but Billy can be streaky,” he says. “It can turn pretty quickly, and it can be hard to figure out then. This is not like some perfect science. That ball some- times does funny things.”
A {
20 The WashingTon PosT Magazine | december 12, 2010
s Game 10 ended for the Ra- vens, Cundiff ’s 17 field goals placed him a highly respect- able ninth in the NFL in that category, and his field
goal percentage stood at 85 percent,
well above his lifetime average. He was showered with compliments from Ra- vens officials, including special teams coordinator Jerry Rosburg, who de- clared, “He has given us exactly what we had hoped for.” “Exactly what we had hoped for” did
not necessarily mean an extension on his one-year contract of about $1.2 mil- lion. The Ravens would still need to see more. What had made Ravens’ coaches
happiest about Cundiff ’s performance were his kickoffs. His 29 unreturnable touchbacks at that point led the league. His average kickoff of 72 yards — which translated to a ball landing two yards deep in the end zone — bested the av- erage of the next closest NFL kicker by about three yards. “That makes it so
“This is not like some perfect science. That ball sometimes does funny things,” says kicking consultant Gary Zauner.
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