by Robert Preston Jr.
I have previously written in this space of my lack of understanding when it comes to soccer. I find soccer to be a fascinating game, but one about which I know very little. I never had a chance to play soccer growing up; in the 1980s and early 1990s, there was no soccer program in Coffee County. My childhood included a lot of neat and fun activities – some organized and some not. Soccer, however, was never one of them.
In the mid-1990s, soccer finally arrived in Coffee County. When it did, I was in college and not living in Douglas at the time. I do, however, remember not really caring for soccer when I came home and saw pages of the local papers devoted to soccer coverage. I, like many others in the area, considered American football to be the “real” football. Soccer was for little guys who couldn’t catch.
It did not take long, however, for me to notice that something began to change on the gridiron shortly after soccer started becoming popular in South Georgia. The kicking game in our area started improving. Soccer players are smart and several soon realized that they could take their kicking skills and put them to use on Friday nights in the fall.
When I was in high school, the kicking game seemed to be an afterthought. Coaches had to find someone who could kick, of course, but there were few – if any – kicking specialists at the time. Kickers – and that includes punters and placekickers alike – often played other positions and moonlighted as kickers/punters when the situation arose. I seem to remember offensive lineman – who 20 or 25 years ago weren’t the 300-pound monsters we have today – being particularly popular choices for kickers. Field goal range was limited; even extra points were iffy.
Then came the soccer invasion.
Kicking styles changed. Now, every kicker in the area uses a soccer-style approach. Field goal range expanded. Extra point percentages have improved dramatically. Coaching strategies have changed. Kickers are graduating with scoring records. And games have become more exciting.
Take, for example, the 2012 Winnersville Classic. Gustavo Gonzalez, a former featured athlete on the pages of this magazine, kicked a 40-yard field goal to win the game. Gonzalez was primarily a soccer player who decided to play football for the first time in the 2012 season. Then he found himself front and center on the biggest stage of his life. Twenty years ago, a field goal in that situation would have been out of the question. Forty yards? With the ball on the 23 and the game on the line? No way the kicker went out there. You had to go for it. Few, if any, kickers in the region back then were good for a 40-yarder with the game on the line. Fast forward two decades later. Gonzalez trots out on the field and calmly drills the 40-yarder, little more than a chip shot for him, and adds another chapter to the storied history of Winnersville. Gonzalez’s kick was but on example of kickers making a difference this year; all over the area during the 2012 football season, kickers came up big week after week.
Over 20 years ago, little did I know that futbol that I wrongly scoffed would make such a positive difference in the football. With soccer came sweeping, far-reaching changes on the gridiron. And those changes were very much for the better.
