Tynes and Gostkowski didn’t aspire to the heart-pounding role when they were growing up.
Win a Super Bowl? That wasn’t in their plans.
“You’re never going to get it out of your mind completely,” Vinatieri said this week, after making some kicks at an NFL fan event in town. “I’m sure when I was out there on the Super Bowl kicks, my heart was racing.”
In the 11th grade, his team needed a kicker. A coach urged him to try out, knowing he was a good soccer player.
Gostkowski was a three-sport star in Mississippi, going 16-2 with a 1.00 ERA as a pitcher who led Madison Central High to a state title in 2002. He also kicked a 55-yard field goal that is a school record. Baseball was more his style, though, and he went to Memphis on a partial baseball scholarship.
“Whenever they throw a highlight on, I stop what I’m doing and watch it victor cruz superbowl jersey cheap,” Vinatieri said. “It’s kind of a surreal feeling.”
Such extremes of emotion simply come with a job that neither aspired to while growing up.
Those daydream moments become otherworldly when they come true.
“I am glad I did, because the only reason I did it was to hang out with my buddies in practice,” he said.
Tynes is the NFL’s first Scottish-born player wes welker jersey, his father a U.S. Navy officer who met his mother abroad. They moved to Florida when he was 11 years old. Football wasn’t appealing, with all the bashing and bruising.
All because his friends talked him into trying out in high school.
“They’re like walk-off homers,” Tynes said. “Those are fun, that’s the only word to describe it. You get to turn around and see 52 grown men acting like kids again. That’s the best part.”
“So I went out to the baseball field, he throws his keys down in front of where I was going to kick and he said cheap hakeem nicks jersey, `Kick the ball and pick my keys up,’ just to keep my head down,” Tynes said. “Ironically enough, I went to spring football going into my senior year. I went to spring training, and I haven’t stopped since. It’s pretty weird how it worked out.”
Like basketball players who dream of hitting the winning shot for the NBA title or baseball players who pretend they’re at bat with two outs in the ninth and the bases loaded in Game 7 of the World Series, kickers grow up pretending they’re lining up in the final seconds of the Super Bowl.
Miss? Well, that’s something entirely else. For the two kickers, there’s no hiding in this game.
As a freshman, he tried out for the football team as a walk-on and earned a full scholarship that changed his career. The Patriots drafted him in the fourth round in 2006 to replace Vinatieri. Gostkowski turned into a Pro Bowl kicker, but has yet to line up for a Super Bowl winner like the kicker he replaced.
Good deal. Tynes was on the Giants team that upset the Patriots four years ago. His 31-yard field goal in overtime of the NFC championship game at San Francisco got them back to the big game.
Tynes only joined his high school football team so he could hang around with his friends. Gostkowski was a baseball pitcher at college, decided to try out for the football team and never looked back.
“Kicking hasn’t been the only sport in my life,” he said. “I’ve dealt with difficult situations and I’ve struggled before in every sport I’ve played. I’ve had success in every sport. If you go into a game and think you’re going to screw up, you’re probably not going to be at a professional level. Stuff like that doesn’t cross my mind.”
He doesn’t worry about living up to Vinatieri’s legacy if he gets the chance.
Fair or not patriots customized jerseys, reputations are made or broken with one swing of the leg when everything’s on the line. Scott Norwood’s long miss in 1991 broke Buffalo hearts. On the other side super bowl black jerseys, Adam Vinatieri became the Super Bowl standard for clutch kicking by making two game winners with the New England Patriots in 2002 and 2004.
Vinatieri has seen his kicks replayed all week leading up to the game.
He became very good at it very quickly and went to Troy University as a kicker. He bounced between the Kansas City Chiefs and Ottawa Roughriders before the Giants got him from Kansas City for a seventh-round draft pick in 2007.
Scotland-raised Lawrence Tynes of the New York Giants and New England’s Stephen Gostkowski know one of them could be the first player celebrating—or hunched in anguish—in the final seconds at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Both Super Bowl kickers have taken uncommon paths to this Sunday’s NFL decider, essentially stumbling into a job that often decides titles and legacies for better or worse.
Now, they’ve got a chance for one of the ultimate thrills in sports—kick it through the uprights and go wild in front of a massive global audience.
No comments:
Post a Comment