San Diego Player of the Week : He Has Come a Long Way From Inauspicious Start

Joe Lane’s first high school football game had the makings of a heroic ending.

In a season opener last year, he was called on to try a 20-yard field goal for Bonita Vista with 20 seconds remaining in a scoreless game against Mount Miguel.

Just as he kicked the ball, a Mount Miguel defender dived in front of him and blocked the kick. Another defender fielded the ball and ran 90 yards for a touchdown, which gave Mount Miguel a 6-0 victory.

This was not the ideal greeting for an overanxious soccer player in his first organized football game.

“There are a lot of kids who would have been destroyed by something like that, but he worked harder, maybe because of that,” said Jim Wilson, Bonita Vista coach.

The extra work has paid off. Lane put aside the memories of his first game and has become quite reliable for Bonita Vista (1-3-1). Friday, against Monte Vista, Lane kicked field goals of 45, 41, 36 and 25 yards in a 19-19 game.

The performance places him in a tie for second in the San Diego Section for the most field goals in one game. Joe Nikodem of Helix kicked four in 1983 against Montgomery, and Helix’s Scott Webb kicked five in 1982 against Granite Hills.

This season, Lane, The Times’ Player of the Week, has made all three conversion attempts and five of seven field goal attempts. One of his misses was from 56 yards against Mar Vista, a kick that was on target but about two yards short.

Lane, who still plays soccer at Bonita Vista, said he didn’t begin to enjoy kicking until after the Sweetwater game last year.

At the time, Sweetwater had eight consecutive shutouts and needed one more to tie its own county record. Lane kicked a 38-yarder to end Sweetwater’s shutout streak.

“Before then, I was always looking up at the line when I would go to kick,” Lane said. “But when you look up, that’s when you get nervous seeing those big guys coming in to kill you.

“In the Sweetwater game, their linemen were totally coming hard, that’s when I started to block it out of my mind. Since then, I have really enjoyed kicking.”

Wilson said he has noticed Lane’s developing confidence. Part of it has to do with completing the transition from soccer to football.

“It’s vastly different kicking a ball with 11 angry people rushing toward you,” Wilson said.

Said Lane: “I’m just planning on not missing any more field goals, because when you make it, you get a lot of glory. If you miss it, the crowd feels it’s your fault. But I’ve adjusted to it.”

Wilson, however, has had a tough time adjusting to some of Lane’s training habits. Jerry Holmbs, the special teams coach who is also Bonita Vista’s soccer coach, often has to send Lane in early from practice because he tends to kick too much.

“If you’re not careful with him,” Holmbs said, “he’ll go out there and kick 300 or 400 times during practice.”

And he wants to do more than kick, at least in practice.

Lane usually helps the team during scrimmages, jumping in at linebacker or defensive back “because he doesn’t want people to think he is just a kicker,” Wilson said.

Said Lane: “If I’m not kicking in practice, I don’t want to be just standing around. I want to be doing something.”

During games, though, Lane has been busy enough to put the memory of that opening day a year ago behind him.

Joe Lane

Bonita Vista High School

Position: Kicker.

Height, Weight, Class: 5-8, 160, Sr.

Last Week: In a 19-19 tie with Monte Vista, he kicked field goals of 45, 41, 36 and 25 yards to become the third player in San Diego Section history to kick four or more field goals in one game.