To Fikse, It Doesn’t Matter If Ball Is Round

Esperanza’s Nate Fikse sees the irony in his situation, but he’d rather not dwell on it. So we’ll make it quick.

Fikse has spent his entire life kicking and catching a soccer ball. But his ability to kick a football--a foreign object until two years ago--will be his ticket to a college education and maybe a lucrative professional career. Go figure.

“I don’t know what to think about it,” Fikse said. “It’s too weird.”

What seems weirder to Fikse is that this is probably his last season of competitive soccer. The three-time Sunset League defensive player of the year will probably be kicking in the Pac-10 next season. He has recruiting trips scheduled to UCLA, USC, Washington and Arizona and his fifth might be to Oregon State.

Fikse would love to play college soccer too, but college soccer coaches have been scared off by his football success and his 5-foot-9 frame. Only Brown, Dartmouth and UCLA have shown interest in Fikse as a soccer player. Brown and Dartmouth don’t give athletic scholarships and UCLA has not offered a full ride.

Until about a year ago, Fikse was still planning on continuing his soccer career.

“A lot of things have happened in the last year,” Fikse said. “I went to UCLA’s kicking camp, I broke the [Esperanza] record for field goal [distance] twice and I broke the kickoff record.”

Esperanza soccer Coach Kino Oaxaca watched in amazement as Fikse broke the field goal record this season for the first time with a 55-yard field goal against Palos Verdes Peninsula. He broke it again the next week with a 56-yarder against Rancho Alamitos.

“As long as I get 2%, I don’t care,” said Oaxaca, making an early pitch to be Fikse’s agent. “I wish he could play both, but if football can give him a full scholarship and maybe a job later on, then he should pursue that. Right now, I think he’s the best kicker in the county and the whole [Southern Section]. It’s nice to know that’s one of my soccer kids. It gives me great pride.”

Oaxaca said he’s not surprised Fikse has excelled at kicking a football through goal posts.

“He can put it in on a line from almost anywhere on the soccer field,” Oaxaca said. “All he needed was for someone to show him the technique for kicking a football.”

Fikse said the technique was easy to pick up: “It’s like kicking a soccer ball. You just look for the soft spot and then kick the crap out of it.”

Which is what Fikse did at his first football practice. He lined up for a 48-yard field goal and hammered it through the uprights. That sophomore year, Fikse kicked off for Esperanza. By his junior season, he was the Aztecs’ full-time kicker.

Fikse picked up goalkeeping just as quickly. A midfielder and striker most of his club career, Fikse was thrown in front of the net when the starting goalkeeper was injured. That was more than five years ago.

“I went in and they kept me in there,” Fikse said. “I thought it was fun, but it does get kind of boring in there sometimes.”

How does he stay awake during the down times?

Well, sometimes it takes screaming at his defenders. Oaxaca said Fikse, the team’s captain, has never been afraid to tell a teammate where and how to play.

“He has a great ability to read the game,” Oaxaca said. “He’s like a second coach out there. He’s always been that way. He was yelling at seniors when he was a freshman.”

Fikse is one of only three seniors for the Aztecs, who return six starters from a team that won the Sunset League but was upset by El Toro in the first round of the Division I playoffs.

Fikse said he is eager to pass his knowledge on to younger players.

“I see things better than most,” he said. “I’m just a very analytical person.”