He Faces Lofty Expectations : College football: Oregon’s Brooks calls Thompson the most talented kicker he has coached.

Oregon kicker Tommy Thompson decided that he wanted to be a kicker after attending his first NFL game in 1986. He was 14.

“Tommy was playing youth football and the team that sold the most candy got to go to a Raider game,” said Thompson’s father, Rick. “I sold 45 cases of candy at Vandenberg Air Force Base, where I work, and his whole team got to go see a Denver-Raiders game.

“He saw (former Bronco kicker) Rich Karlis kicking in that game barefooted, and from then on kicking is all he talked about. He’s got pictures of Rich Karlis all over his room.”

Named to the All-State team in 1989, Thompson set state records for extra points (63) and scoring (99) in helping Lompoc High win 13 games before losing to Serra, 34-31, in the Southern Section Division II championship game.

At the time, Lompoc also had running back Napoleon Kaufman, now at Washington. The Lompoc offense was so prolific Thompson punted only 11 times as a senior, averaging 38.6 yards. He also put 53 kickoffs in the end zone.

Although he had hoped to attend USC, Thompson wasn’t offered a scholarship because the Trojan coaches wanted him to walk on.

“I’ve never figured out the philosophy some of the colleges regarding kickers,” said Dick Barrett, who coached Thompson at Lompoc High. “I know kicking is one-third of the game, but most college coaches try to get kickers to walk on. I sent kicking tapes of Tommy to SC and he wanted to go to SC because of their pharmacy program. But (Oregon Coach) Rich Brooks was the special teams coach of the Rams and he saw the tape of Tommy and gave him a scholarship.”

Thompson averaged 39.1 yards punting in his first two seasons at Oregon. After averaging 40.6 yards as a freshman, he was named to the All-Pac-10 second team. He was honorable mention all-conference last season after averaging 37.9 yards punting.

Thompson also became Oregon’s placekicker this season. He has made 18 of 26 field-goal attempts, including 14 of his last 16, and 19 of 20 extra points. The leading scorer in the Pacific 10, Thompson says he made a 67-yard field goal in practice. He made a 56-yarder in a 24-3 loss to Washington last month.

Field-goal kicking hasn’t hurt Thompson’s punting. He’s the Pac-10’s second-leading punter behind Josh Miller with a 43.02-yard average.

“When I was being recruited everybody wanted me to place-kick, nobody wanted me to punt,” Thompson said. “But Coach Brooks thought he could make me into a punter because he liked my form. When I got here the placekicking job was taken and they needed a punter.

“It was tough to start placekicking again. I had a tough spring and started out the year a little rusty (missing his first two field-goal attempts). But I stayed in Oregon all summer and all I did was kick and work out, and it’s paying off.”

Brooks said Thompson is the most talented kicker he has coached in his 30-year career, which includes stints with the Rams and San Francisco 49ers.

“The things that he does still astound me,” Brooks said. “In the pregame warm-up last week, he had four punts that had a hang time of over five seconds. Five-second hang time is like hitting a grand slam in the last inning to win the World Series.

“He’s just an astounding talent. It’s very difficult for most people to make the transition between soccer kicking and punting because the two motions are not the same. But he has good technique in both of them.”

Thompson, who will face UCLA Saturday at Eugene, Ore., is a semifinalist for the first Lou Groza award, which will be awarded to the nation’s top kicker.

Forced to wear a shoe when kicking in high school because CIF rules forbid barefoot kickers, Thompson doesn’t wear a shoe on field-goal attempts and kickoffs at Oregon.

“I experimented kicking barefoot when I was in high school, and I thought I kicked better that way,” Thompson said. “It allows you to get the ball off the turf quicker and it also allows you to get better height. I tried punting barefoot so I wouldn’t have to put the shoe on and off. But I was more consistent punting with a shoe.”

Doesn’t kicking barefoot hurt?

“When I first started out it was very, very painful,” Thompson said. “I know my parents definitely didn’t want me to do it because my foot really looked terrible when I first started out. But it’s gotten a lot better. It still stings once in a while, but I’ve adapted very well to it.”

Thompson, a 5-foot-10, 185-pound junior, also has excelled on kickoffs. Kicking off from his 20 because of a penalty in the Ducks’ 34-17 victory at Washington State last month, Thompson kicked the ball 80 yards in the air. The ball landed on the goal line and bounced out of the end zone.

“I’ve never seen a guy kick the ball 80 yards without having a hurricane behind him,” Brooks told the Portland Oregonian.

After a 76-yard punt in last week’s victory over Cal, Oregon fans began chanting “Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!” Thompson, who averaged 48.3 yards on four punts against the Golden Bears, made three of four field-goal attempts, all 40 yards or longer, and barely missed a 54-yarder.

“He’s one of the best kickers I’ve ever seen,” Cal Coach Keith Gilbertson said of Thompson.