LEE KICKS BACK : They Said Ex-Bruin Couldn’t Miss, but He Did, Too Often to Suit Cardinals

It’s pretty easy to go from Westwood to Oxnard.

Unless you’re John Lee. He had to go through hell to get here. By way of St. Louis.

Lee still shudders at the memory.

The Cardinal football team would be on the move, gulping down large chunks of yardage on each snap of the ball.

On one sideline, the team’s kicker would pace nervously, anticipating his entrance into the game.

Most kickers have mixed feelings at such moments. They hate to see a good drive stall but, on the other hand, they hate to stand around all day and never get to do their thing.

Not this kicker.

He didn’t care if he never kicked another field goal. Heck, he even dreaded a touchdown because it meant he would be called on for the extra point.

The season was 1986, and it was John Lee’s winter of discontent.

“I didn’t even want to get on the field,” said Lee, now on the field for the Raiders, trying to win a job.

These tales of horror may be pretty hard to believe for those who watched Lee kick at UCLA, where he was the epitome of confidence.

This was the kid who would calmly trot onto the field at the Rose Bowl, the Coliseum and a number of other places and, with perhaps a conference title or a bowl game on the line, nonchalantly and seemingly effortlessly kick a crucial field goal.

He did it often enough and well enough to set a college record for consistency, making 79 of his 92 field goal tries, 85.9%. He also holds the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. percentage record from 40 yards or longer, 69.4% on 25 of 36. And he was nearly perfect on conversion kicks, making 135 of 136 while a Bruin, including 108 straight.

A can’t-miss kicker? The Cardinals thought so, making him the highest drafted kicker in seven years when they selected him in the second round in 1986 and gave him a 4-year, $900,000 contract.

The great expectations got even greater when he put on a Cardinal uniform.

“I began with Scott Brunner as a holder,” Lee recalled. “He was great. As soon as we started, I felt like I had played with him for 10 years.”

Lee made his first six field goals attempts. Up in the stands at Busch Stadium, he spotted a sign that read: “John Lee is a Godsend.”

Not for long.

The Cardinals cut Brunner just before the season began and with him went Lee’s confidence.

Lee started missing and his coach, Gene Stallings, started yelling.

“Everything went wrong for me,” Lee said. “Mentally, I collapsed. I had no confidence. I did good in practice, but in a game, I couldn’t make a kick from 30 yards out.”

The strain became obvious. Lee, normally 180 to 190 pounds, dropped to nearly 160.

Born in South Korea, Lee came to the United States with his family when he was 12. They settled in Downey and there he stayed, never venturing out on his own.

Suddenly, here he was in a strange town without the support of his family or the Korean community, shuttling between the depressing four walls of his hotel room and the depressing environment he found on the club.

“I felt like I was not wanted,” he said.

And the worst part, worse even perhaps than missing those kicks, was not being allowed to miss team meetings.

“All they would do at the meetings was criticize the kickers and punters,” Lee said. “If you don’t like your kickers, get rid of them. But there is no reason to criticize them. It doesn’t make any sense.

“We would be told that the game was in the hands of the kickers and punters and we didn’t deliver. We were made to feel like we had lost the game. My teammates told me to laugh it off, but it was pretty difficult for a then-22-year-old guy to take.

“Gene Stallings is a good person, but he is so intense. Maybe he was doing it to motivate me, but it didn’t work. He killed my confidence.”

Lee found himself trotting onto the field for a 30-yard attempt thinking, “What are people going to say if I miss this one?”

So, naturally, he did.

In the last third of the season, Lee finally started to get his act together, only to wind up knocked out for the year when a ballcarrier fell on his right knee.

He wound up making 8 of 13 field goal attempts for St. Louis after starting with just two successes in his first six tries.

Lee was ready to give it another shot in 1987, but the Cardinals weren’t. They cut him just before the start of the regular season.

A St. Louis official asked Lee if he wanted his number given out to other clubs in need of help.

“No way do I want to play this game anymore,” Lee replied.

And he didn’t. For a while.

He didn’t watch a single game all season, spending his Sundays on the golf course. He returned to his native land to visit.

His footballs lay in a closet at home, under a pile of shoes.

It got worse before it got better. A national publication, Sport magazine, came out with a story that Lee had a drug problem in St. Louis.

“It’s been so frustrating,” Lee said. “I have never done anything like that. I do a lot of public speaking against drug use. I was donating $200 for every field goal kicked to a drug rehabilitation center in St. Louis. This killed my image. Why me? I consider myself a saint.”

Responded Peter Griffin, managing editor of the magazine: “We stand behind what we published. It was not our intent to highlight this information or make life more difficult for John Lee, but we have double-checked the facts and are satisfied they are accurate.”

In March, Lee’s agent, Leigh Steinberg, told him the Raiders were interested. The old fires burned anew.

Lee signed a 1-year deal for $100,000 plus bonuses and incentives. But the money was secondary for Lee, who is financially involved with his father, Kyou, a successful businessman.

“I can make many times more in business than I can in football,” the younger Lee said. “But I’m taking this as a personal challenge.”

It’s a formidable one.

Lee hasn’t missed in two weeks on the practice field, but in the Raiders’ first exhibition last Saturday, he missed his only attempt, thanks to a high snap. He doesn’t have a lot of time left to unseat the incumbent, Chris Bahr, still considered No. 1.

“He’s not a big, strong guy who can kick it from 57, 60 yards out,” said Pete Rodriguez, Raider special teams coach. “But he has real natural kicking ability, a smooth stroke and he’s accurate and consistent. I’ve told him I think he can be an NFL kicker.”

Words Lee has longed to hear.

“Whatever happens, I want to go out on a positive note, rather than just fading away,” he said.

Raider Notes

Defensive lineman Greg Townsend, suspended by the NFL for thirty days for testing positive for drugs in a routine physical, was still in camp over the weekend while the Raiders attempted to get a league ruling on whether or not he could still practice. Monday, they got their ruling: no practice. . . . Defensive lineman Howie Long, sidelined with a neck injury, went through drills and did some running Monday, but he still wasn’t ready for contact during workouts. . . . Center Don Mosebar, recovering from off-season back surgery, was ready Monday and took his place in team contact situations.