He Makes a Living, and Nice One, Too, With Just Swift Kick

Mike Lansford was out with the boys one afternoon after work, having a beer. It had been a typically tough day at the office.

Mike is the Ram kicker, and what he does during the week is suit up in his practice uni, take about 25 kicks, then sit around on his helmet while the other Rams savagely beat one another into raw hamburger.

Then, on an average Sunday, Mike attempts 1.5 field goals and makes 1.3 field goals. Some people see this as an easy gig.

Anyway, a bar patron recognized Lansford. The man was about 40 and about as big as a jockey. He made Lansford an offer.

“I’ll go outside right now and kick against you,” the man said. “My paycheck against your paycheck.”

The man was dead serious. Lansford declined, but not without giving the offer consideration.

“Part of me wanted to take him out and crush him,” Lansford says. “I get so tired of hearing that stuff.”

Sure, Lansford is paid well for what looks like an cushy job, especially when you consider how few minutes a year he works. What, five or six, total? But he is a specialist. Brain surgeons don’t get paid by the slice, do they?

Lansford can tell you about the difficulty of becoming a great kicker. He was a great one in college, got drafted by the New York Giants in 1980, and couldn’t make the transition to kicking without a college tee. In Giant training camp, Mike kicked like Charlie Brown.

Some rookies come to camp with an attitude problem. Lansford had an altitude problem.

“I couldn’t get the ball in the air,” Mike says. “I couldn’t get it over the center’s (rear). I actually hit our center a couple times. It was embarrassing. The center was (ticked) off, and the guards and tackles were uneasy. Gary Jeter (now with the Rams) was in camp then. He blocked on special teams. He tells me, ‘It was scary up there.’ ”

Ray Perkins was the Giant coach. Lansford remembers how Perkins bade him goodby.

“Boy,” Perkins said, “I would not feel comfortable putting you in the game vs. the world champion Pittsburgh Steelers. . . . Frankly, we’re disappointed. Can you look me in the eye and tell me why you can’t kick?”

Lansford was also cut by the Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers. Then he discovered what he was doing wrong. Wearing shoes.

While working out one day, he developed a blister on his right foot. He took off his shoe and sock, and a star was born.

In five seasons with the Rams, Lansford is 79 for 110 on field goal attempts and has kicked his best kicks in pressure situations.

Remember his 50-yarder last year against the Bears, winning the game in the closing seconds?

During games, you’ll see Lansford lurking behind Coach John Robinson, shouting: “I’m good from 60 (yards) in, John!”

Robinson pretends not to hear, and never makes eye contact with Lansford. At the proper time, Robinson simply calls out, “Field goal!” and Lansford punches in.

Since the Rams tend not to steamroll opponents by 20 or 30 points, Lansford’s kicks all tend to be important. This season, they will be even more so. Lansford not only donates $100 a field goal to a cancer foundation, but he also heads the Mike Lansford Kick Out Cancer Fund. He solicits private and corporate pledges, and hopes to jack the pot up to $15,000 a kick.

“I had a contract problem earlier this year,” Lansford says. “I was tempted to change the name to ‘Hold Out Cancer.’ Every day of my holdout, people would donate money to the fund.”

A lot of athletes donate money to charities, but Lansford has an even more compelling reason to help out. His wife, Teresa, had Hodgkin’s disease when she was 15. After a year of care and treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, the cancer was knocked into remission. Now Lansford signs his pledges over to the hospital as a way of saying thanks for his wonderful wife.

Teresa delivered a healthy baby girl last Saturday morning. Mike helped out with the delivery, dashed home, got 45 minutes’ sleep, dashed to Anaheim Stadium and kicked field goals of 27 and 19 yards, thus proving just how easy this kicking job really is.

Furthermore, a couple of years ago, the Rams staged a halftime kicking contest among the players’ wives, and Teresa Lansford boomed a field goal from 30 yards out. Being a caring mate, she didn’t go home that night and challenge Mike to step outside and kick for paychecks.