Affholter Is Resolved to Kick Stereotype

If Garo Yepremian’s nationally televised comic attempt to throw a football for the Miami Dolphins in the mid-70s didn’t cement the stereotype that placekickers are geeks, then player-turned-broadcaster Alex Karras did the job with this on-air comment a year later:

“The real football players who have just bled and broken bones for 60 minutes hate it when these little immigrant guys trot onto the field with three seconds left yelling, ‘I keek a touchdown, I keek a touchdown!’ ”

That sort of hyperbole has held up well over the years. Mention an NFL placekicker and doesn’t it conjure up an image of a short, balding man with a slight paunch, just one shoe and every consonant in the alphabet churned together into a last name?

And it was because of this stereotype that perhaps the worst thing Erik Affholter ever did in his sports life was to send a football booming into the Agoura Hills sky in 1982, on an incredible 64-yard flight that ended only after the ball had skipped off the left upright and dropped over the crossbar for a field goal.

It was the longest field goal ever kicked by a high school player. It made the 17-year-old Oak Park High junior a celebrity. All the Los Angeles newspapers and television stations--even the national wire services--rushed to Agoura Hills to find this kicker who had not only shattered the national high school record but also outdistanced the NFL mark. He was interviewed. He was photographed. He was asked to kick for the cameras. He was asked what made him tick.

And the brand Placekicker was forever burned into his hide.

At first, that didn’t seem so bad. The attention brought scouts from dozens of major football colleges scurrying up the Ventura Freeway, asking gas station attendants how to find this A-joora Hills place. And they couldn’t wait to watch young Erik kick and to wave scholarships under his young little nose. He tried to tell them that he also played wide receiver, that he could catch the ball as well as he could kick it. And all the college scouts smiled at him. Sure, sonny. That’s nice. But we’ve got a whole bunch of sleek guys with hands like flypaper and legs like a cheetah’s who can do that for us. What we don’t have is a guy who can line up in Elkhart, Ind., and knock one through the goal posts in South Bend.

“When I was recruited, everybody just wanted me to kick,” Affholter said. “Kick, kick, kick. That’s all I ever heard.”

Except from the folks at USC. They will never disclose whether they honestly planned to give Affholter a shot at playing wide receiver or told him that just to lock up the best kicker in the land. This might be hard to believe, but big-time football schools do, on occasion, lie in order to get good players. Whatever their intentions, the Trojan recruiters, led by then-head Coach Ted Tollner, told Affholter exactly what he wanted to hear.

And Affholter held them to their word.

On the first page of the players’ section in USC’s 1987 media guide, the face of Erik Affholter gazes out. Above his picture is this introduction: ERIK AFFHOLTER--Split end-Placekicker, 6-1, 190. Jr.

For veteran media guide watchers, this is funny. Split-end/placekicker is about as common a job designation as mud wrestler/concert pianist. But the really funny thing about it is that Affholter is a fine wide receiver. And a fine anything else you’d like to mention. In high school he caught 101 passes for 1,817 yards, gained 1,386 yards rushing and scored 323 points. He rushed for more than 100 yards in nine consecutive games as a senior. And in a three-game span as a junior he intercepted seven passes.

But always and forever, there is the 64-yard field goal, a record since broken by a lad named (take a deep breath here) Dirk Borgognone of Nevada.

Affholter might have been better off had he whiffed on the ball that fateful night. But then again, the scouts might have noticed the field goals of 58, 52 and 50 yards. Or they might have heard about the time he kicked off and sent the ball through the goal posts from 70 yards away. Or maybe even about the time one of his 33-yard field goals soared so far past the end zone that it floated over the school’s running track and conked the homecoming queen on the head.

One way or another, it seems, Affholter was destined to kick himself onto a major college football team.

“It’s not that I don’t like kicking,” he said, “it’s just that it’s so hard to get out from under that image that kickers have. Kickers aren’t looked upon as athletes. People remember Garo Yepremian and they see kickers trying to tackle a guy on a kick return and they trip and fall down and people laugh at them. I don’t want to be known as one of those guys.”

And so, when he reported for practice at USC as a redshirt freshman in 1985, he told everyone he wanted a chance to show his pass-catching skills. Recalling their promise to the young man three years earlier, Tollner and his assistants didn’t laugh. Well, they didn’t laugh too loudly. And they gave him a chance.

“When I got here everyone saw me as a kicker with an ego problem,” Affholter said. “They figured I was crazy, that they’d let me run a few plays as a receiver and I’d look silly and they’d tell me to go kick. But I caught the ball and I played hard. I showed them I could be a receiver at this level.”

Unfortunately, playing ahead of him was Hank Norman, who was on his way to becoming USC’s all-time leading receiver. In his freshman season, Affholter didn’t play a down as a receiver. And ahead of him in the kicking department was another star, Don Shafer. Affholter kicked off a few times but didn’t attempt a field goal.

As a sophomore, he was listed No. 2 on the depth chart at both positions, behind split end Ken Henry and Shafer. He caught 11 passes for 136 yards, a 12.4 average, including a spectacular 18-yard touchdown catch that lifted the Trojans to a 10-0 win over Stanford. He started in place of the injured Henry in the Florida Citrus Bowl and was named the team’s offensive MVP after catching six passes for 66 yards.

Heading into spring practice this year, Affholter had his sights set on both starting jobs. And it appeared he would be the starter at both positions when fall practice began. But on the second day of practice he suffered a separated shoulder. Henry got the split end job back and a freshman, Quin Rodriguez, was given the placekicking job.

“I thought I was going to be the top guy at both spots,” Affholter said. “At least I was competing very hard for both starting positions. But then I got hurt and that was the end of that. You can’t very well compete for a job if you’re not out there on the field. Now I just have to get ready again and go forward. I can’t dwell on what might have been. I’d like to be the starter at both jobs by the end of the season.”

If the impression that Affholter has made on his coaches means anything, and it does, he might very well accomplish his goal.

“Eric is my kind of player,” Coach Larry Smith said. “He’s a super all-around athlete and he’s very competitive. He’s a big-play type receiver who catches the ball in a crowd, and he’s also an excellent blocker. He’ll be on the field a lot this year, maybe catching passes, maybe kicking, because he’s a legitimate starting candidate at both spots.”

Ron Turner, the receivers coach, said this week that Affholter might be on the field for as many as 40 plays a game, beginning with Monday night’s season opener at Michigan State. And Smith said he will only use Rodriguez on field-goal attempts inside 30 yards. Any longer than that and Affholter will get the call.

“He’s a very tough kid and he’s a winner,” Turner said. “He’s smart, and he finds a way to get open and catch the ball. He’s just a good athlete. He had a fabulous spring for us and then he got hurt.”

If Affholter, who blasted that 64-yard field goal five years ago, had to choose one position or the other, he makes it clear which one he’d pick.

“I like to kick. It comes so naturally for me,” he said. “But if I had to pick I’d take wide receiver. That’s a dream of mine. It’s something I really had to prove to everyone I could do, and I think I’ve proven myself.”

And there’s another dream. The big dream.

“I see myself in a big game coming down with a big catch in the closing seconds to set up a field goal, and then I stay on the field and kick the field goal,” he said. “It happened several times in high school, and I hope to make it happen at this level, too.”

Quite a lofty dream for a lowly placekicker.

“Kickers tend to be, well, kickers ,” Turner said. “Placekickers, well, they kick. That’s about all you can say about them. But I’ve never seen anyone as good as Erik at both of these positions. It’s very, very rare.”