DALE HATCHER : Although Rookie Shuns Spotlight, Rams Want Him to Kick Up a Fuss

What do rookie punter Dale Hatcher of the Rams and his wife Lindley like best about Southern California? The weather? The beaches?

Neither. What makes them happy is being able to eat in public without being stared at.

Hatcher, the Rams’ third-round pick from Clemson, was the highest-drafted punter in the National Football League this spring. But even great college punters don’t normally draw much attention. So what’s with the Hatchers?

Dale Hatcher has spent most of his 22 years in Cheraw, S.C., population 9,000, and after he was drafted by the Rams, he and Lindley couldn’t go out for dinner without drawing attention.

“Well, suh,” Hatcher said--he says suh at least once a breath--”in Cheraw, everybody tends to everyone else’s business. People would start staring at us and whispering to each other, and I’d get so paranoid.

“I’d ask Lindley if I looked like I was from outer space or if my shirt was on inside out. I always think the worst.

“That’s why Lindley and I love it out here. Nobody pays you any attention at all.”

True enough. Hatcher’s drawl might turn a few heads in Anaheim, but his reputation as a punter hasn’t exactly preceded him.

Still, if things work out the way the Rams’ front office hopes, it might not be long before somebody walks up to Hatcher in a restaurant and asks for his autograph.

NFL scouts have been paying attention to Hatcher for some time. Gil Haskell, who coaches the Rams’ special teams, was sent to scour the country for the best punter in America and came back saying: “I’ve looked at the 12 punters our scouts think are the best in the country. Eleven are very good, and one is great.”

Hatcher is the one.

“He was by far the best, and I personally worked them all out,” Haskell said. “It wasn’t just his leg that was impressive, though. He has a tremendous knowledge of the fundamentals of punting and was obviously well coached.”

The question that arises, however, is why the Rams spent their third-round pick on a punter. They still have last year’s punter, John Misko, and they recently signed Russell Erxleben, a free agent and former first-round pick by the New Orleans Saints.

Hatcher is more than a bit puzzled himself, but he’s much too shy and too polite to say more than “I was kinda wonderin’ about that, too, suh.”

He’s pleased to have the opportunity, though. “Lindley and I had never been here, but Southern California was where we wanted to go,” Hatcher said. “Then I was reading the paper and saw that the Rams had signed Erxleben, and I told her our chances of gettin’ out here had gone down.”

Hatcher was pleasantly surprised by the Rams’ choice, though he wouldn’t mind if there were a little less competition for the job.

Coach John Robinson said that the Rams’ decision to draft Hatcher was calculated, and that it makes a world of sense.

“Erxleben gives us a proven punter in the NFL, just as John Misko gives us a proven punter, but neither are necessarily the answer,” Robinson said. “We were looking for the premier punter, and this guy has a chance to be just that.”

If a recent workout at Rams Park was any indication, the coaching staff may be flashing I-told-you-so grins at season’s end. And Misko and Erxleben may be seeking employment elsewhere much sooner.

Hatcher’s punting is eye-opening. He kicks the ball high--just when you’re sure it can’t go any higher, it continues another 10 feet--and his hang time in college was consistently more than five seconds. He also seems to be able to place the ball anywhere Haskell suggests, and nearly every punt travels at least 45 yards.

But it is Hatcher’s hang time that Robinson was after. Hatcher averaged 42.9 yards a kick at Clemson, but another statistic is far more impressive: Of his 191 punts there, only 59 were returned and for an average of only 2.5 yards a return.

“He’s obviously a very good punter, but what I like best about him is that he gets the ball up and he gets it up consistently,” Robinson said. “Even his bad kicks get up.”

Hatcher has planned this career for quite some time, and as a result, he signed with the Rams quickly, for less than his lawyer was asking. But he’s not complaining.

“It’s more money than I’ve ever seen before,” he said. “I just want to make a good living, pay the bills and play football. There’s nothing I’d rather do than kick a football.”

He’s been doing that for a long time.

“Mama says the first word I said was ball, “ Hatcher said.

He stayed out of trouble as a youngster because his mother constantly reminded him that if he mixed with bad company, it might jeopardize his football career. That carried a lot of weight, because Hatcher has been planning on being a pro football player since he was 11.

But then, everything his mother said was important.

He decided to go to Clemson because his mother was impressed with Coach Danny Ford, and the campus was close to Cheraw.

“I always wanted a car, but we could never afford one,” Hatcher said. “So, mama thought Clemson would be best ‘cause I could catch rides home sometimes. And she really liked Coach Ford. He seemed like he cared about me as a human being and would take care of me. And you know your mama and daddy like that.”

His mother has always been a strong influence.

“She never said I was a dreamer for wanting to be a football player, and she would always stop cleaning the house or ironing or whatever she was doing to drive me over to the high school to practice kicking,” Hatcher said.

His kicking career began on that high school field in a midget league. His first team was the Rams. A small fullback, he was punting the ball one day during practice when his coach noticed some talent.

“The coach said, ‘Who punted that ball?’ and everyone pointed at me,” Hatcher recalled. “He had me kick another one and then he said, ‘That boy’s gonna be our punter.’ ”

He competed in the national Punt, Pass and Kick competition for four years, reaching the semifinals twice. The second time, as a 13-year-old, he was one step away from the Super Bowl when he lost at the Superdome in New Orleans.

He already was a specialist by high school, doing all the place-kicking and punting at Cheraw High for four years.