HANG TIME : With Each New Day, Former CLU Punter Kent Sullivan Moves Closer to an NFL Job

Kent Sullivan, a former Cal Lutheran punter trying to make it with the Chicago Bears, almost gave up football at one point.

As a punter at Northridge High in Middlebury, Ind., Sullivan wanted to play college football. He went to his high school coach for advice.

“Do you think I can play in college?” Sullivan asked Ray Reid, the Northridge coach.

Reid said he wasn’t good enough.

Sullivan was crushed.

“He was an adult and I figured he knew what he was talking about,” Sullivan said. “So I took his advice and decided that there wasn’t much for me in Indiana, so I joined the Army.”

After completing basic training in 1982, Sullivan was stationed at a supply depot in Death Valley for three years. His duties included loading and unloading railroad cars.

While in the Army, his love for football was rekindled, so he started practicing again at Barstow High.

Chuck Hubauer, then the Barstow football coach, took an interest in Sullivan after seeing him punt.

Hubauer still remembers his first meeting with Sullivan.

“He came up to the field one afternoon and asked if I minded if he would kick,” Hubauer recalled. “He had one ball with him and we gave him some more balls.

“He was just kicking the daylights out of them. He was booming it. He came around real regular and my kicking coach worked with him.”

Hubauer thought Reid had erred in his evaluation of Sullivan.

“Some coaches are just horses . . . ,” Hubauer said. “Some coaches don’t know what they’re talking about. His coach obviously made a mistake with this kid because he’s got a very strong leg. In fact, he has one of the strongest legs I’ve seen in my coaching career.

“And he has a great work ethic. I’m thrilled that I had a small part in getting him into college.”

After failing to interest USC, UCLA, Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Fullerton in Sullivan, Hubauer arranged for the kicker to attend Cal Lutheran in 1985.

“It was more out of desperation than anything else,” Sullivan said, because Cal Lutheran had lost Bill Turner, an All-American punter.

Sullivan made the team and averaged 40.1 yards a punt in his first three seasons. Disappointed with his performance, Sullivan attended a kicking camp in Reno before last season.

Ray Pelfrey, a former National Football League punter who runs the Professional Kicking Service, changed Sullivan’s punting mechanics at the camp.

“Most college punters are just that,” Pelfrey said. “They’re a long way from being an NFL punter. Most of them don’t have the consistency in their drop-back action and we have to clean their mechanics up to a new level.”

Sullivan struggled to incorporate the changes into his punting last season.

“They changed everything I did in my technique--from the foot stance to the angle of the ball to the drop of the ball,” Sullivan said. “It was like starting over from square one and it took me a while to integrate the changes into my game.”

Sullivan continued to use his old technique in games while practicing the new style in workouts. After averaging 34 yards in the first half of the season, he switched to the new technique at midseason and averaged 44 yard a kick.

“It took him half of the season to get his new technique down,” said Kyle Tarpenning, an assistant coach at Cal Lutheran. “But once he got it down he was really consistent and he had good hang time on his kicks.”

Sullivan, 6-feet and 205 pounds, also handled long-range field goals, converting a 52-yarder.

After graduating from Cal Lutheran last spring, Sullivan, 25, dreamed of playing in the pros. While at Cal Lutheran, he ran errands for the Dallas Cowboys, who train at the Thousand Oaks campus.

“I used to compare myself to the Cowboy punters so I would know where I was at,” Sullivan said. “It was discouraging because they were always so much better than I was.

“But when Dallas was in camp last season I had changed dramatically and I was so much better. When I compared myself to them I could see that I was really close to what they were doing. I figured I could play in the pros, too.”

Sullivan returned to kicking school during spring break, spending three weeks at the camp. While he was there he met Chicago Bears special-teams coach Steve Kazor.

“I told him a white lie, that I was going to be in Chicago for a wedding and I asked him if I could have a tryout while I was there,” Sullivan said.

The ploy worked and Sullivan got a tryout with the Bears, who invited him to rookie camp along with Mike McCabe from Illinois State and Doug Robison from Stanford.

The Bears needed a punter because Bryan Wagner, a former Cal State Northridge punter who spent the last two seasons in Chicago, signed a free-agent contract with Cleveland.

After beating out McCabe and Robison, Sullivan was invited to training camp along with Maury Buford, a veteran punter who was released by the Green Bay Packers.

Although Sullivan has punted well in training camp and two exhibition games, it might take him a while to break into the NFL.

“Eleven kids who attended the Professional Kicking Service are kicking in the NFL,” Pelfrey said. “And we had 11 signed by teams this year. But most of them may not make it this first year.

“It’s tough to break into the system. The head coaches don’t usually look for a great young punter, they look for a veteran.

“The kids have got to prove that they’re more consistent and have greater hang time. The reason most of our kids have made it is that eventually they get into camp and they’re so dominating that they do make it.

“The Bears are going to have to make a decision if they want to go with an older punter or a great young punter. Kent hasn’t topped out. He hasn’t nearly reached his peak. He’s a very fine prospect for us.”

Sullivan is confident.

“I feel like it’s my job and he’s got to beat me out of it,” Sullivan said of Buford. “And I’m not going to let that happen.”