Here’s the Kicker

The Oakland Raiders drafted Florida State kicker Sebastian Janikowski--who certainly fits the team’s outlaw image--in the first round Saturday.

If teams are drafting players to suit their nicknames in 2004, maybe Chris Kluwe will be the top pick of the Saints.

And if a kicker such as Janikowski, who’s facing felony charges for attempting to bribe a police officer, can be the No. 17 selection, surely Kluwe, a pitcher at Los Alamitos High who is better known for his epic field goals and coast-to-coast punts, has the chance to be a first-rounder.

“He’s got enormous potential,” said UCLA football Coach Bob Toledo, who received a verbal commitment from Kluwe last August. “I normally wouldn’t make an offer to a kicker that quick. But he’s just got a great leg and great mechanics and he really seems to have a passion for kicking and punting the football.”

Kluwe’s feats on the football field are well documented, but the untold story is about the senior’s maturation into one of the most unselfish and gracious kids an NFL psychologist could ever hope to meet.

Who else would take time out of his frantic senior year to spend an afternoon providing kicking tips to a freshman from a rival high school?

Yet, there was Kluwe, patiently showing the kid from Esperanza proper technique and answering every last one of his questions. They ended the session by exchanging phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

“That’s the kind of guy Chris is,” said Rob Wigod, Los Alamitos’ athletic director and baseball coach, who’s fortunate enough to have Kluwe on the varsity for the first time this season. “He was very nice with this young man and is willing to offer any advice or secrets or anything else to help.

“He’s a great ambassador for our school.”

Add Kluwe’s smarts (he scored 1,490 on the SAT), his ambitions (to be a computer programmer) and his looks (he’s been compared to James Van der Beek, theteen heartthrob who plays the title role on TV’s “Dawson’s Creek”) and you’ve got the prototypic All-American kid, right?

Right?

“Not really,” Kluwe says, laughing. “Maybe for sports, yeah, but not really as a role model for your children because I don’t study that much. I’d rather hang out with my friends, and we’re not really what you would consider All-American kids.”

Kluwe is being hard on himself. OK, so he is playful. He roots for the protagonists to get mangled in movies and empathizes with the antagonists because “that’s more fun.” And he sometimes forgets to do his homework because he’s playing one of his favorite computer games or is lost in a science-fiction book.

But who would hold little transgressions like those against him?

Long ago, there was a time in youth baseball when Kluwe did possess a sizable shortcoming.

He was so competitive that he often yelled at the other kids who came up short. “Try harder!” Kluwe would scream. His dad, the team’s coach, finally taught him to stop taking the games so seriously.

“What I’ve realized is that I can only do what I can do,” Kluwe said. “I can’t do what other guys do. They have to do that.”

Kluwe, a 6-foot-5, 200-pounder, is still extremely intense when he’s on the field, but he no longer lives or dies with every pitch or kick.

Off the field, Kluwe is friendly but basically shy. It didn’t take Toledo long to warm up to him, though.

“I took a liking to him real fast,” Toledo said. “He really has some personality and charisma.”

The craziest thing Kluwe ever did was hang onto the side of a truck as his friend wheeled the vehicle through a park.

That’s not exactly attempting to bribe a cop or missing curfew the week of the Sugar Bowl.

Anyone who doubts that Kluwe has talents similar to Janikowski--the first kicker drafted in the first round in 21 years--wasn’t in Glendale Nov. 26 for the Griffins’ playoff game against Loyola when Kluwe lined up for a 60-yard field goal in the last seconds that could send the game into overtime.

He believed he could make the kick because he had made several from that distance in practice two days earlier. Still, only four players in NFL history have ever kicked a field goal of 60 yards or longer and the conditions weren’t exactly favorable, a cold night with no wind at his back.

“I didn’t think he would make it,” Los Alamitos linebacker Nick Fitzgerald admitted.

Said Kluwe: “I was like, kick it as hard as I can. No one’s expecting me to make it, so there’s no pressure on me. Just let loose.”

He did. The ball went up. It had the distance, it had the accuracy--it was good.

Bedlam ensued before the Los Alamitos players realized they still had to try and win the game in overtime, which they did in the second extra period.

Kluwe may not have scored the winning points, but his Orange County-record field goal made him the hero. His teammates smothered him in a dog pile and a goofy, giddy scene ensued. When reporters finally got the chance to interview Kluwe, one of his teammates blurted out, “Will you marry me, Kluwe?”

For the season, Kluwe connected on 16 of 25 field-goal attempts (five were blocked) and 39 of 40 PATs. He also averaged 45.5 yards a punt.

This spring, though, his numbers as a third starter and long reliever haven’t been as impressive. In six appearances, he is 2-2 with a 6.67 earned-run average. His fastball doesn’t have a lot of pop because of past shoulder problems, so Kluwe relies on a curve that starts at batters’ eyes and drops to their knees.

Kluwe’s No. 1 pitching weapon may be his attitude. “When he goes out there on the mound, he’s an assassin,” said Ron Kluwe, Chris’ father. “His attitude is, ‘I’m throwing strikes by you.’ Same thing with the kicking. When he’s out there, it’s, ‘I’m making the field goal, I’m putting the kickoff in the end zone or the punt is going over your head.’ ”

It was Kluwe’s punting ability that first drew Toledo’s interest.

Last June, Kluwe and scores of other high school kids attended a kicking camp in Westwood. Kluwe, it turned out, had the good fortune of being “on” that day.

“They had the kids about 50 yards apart kicking the ball back and forth to each other and [Kluwe] was kicking 15, 20 yards on average over the other guy,” Ron Kluwe said. “And then he started unleashing some bombs. He kicked one from the goal line that hit between the 10- and the 15-yard line and rolled 15 yards out the other end of the end zone.

“When he hit that one, I could hear Coach Toledo at midfield turn to [one of his assistants] and go, ‘Who the hell’s the big guy?’ That’s when I was like, ‘Yes!’ ”

Kluwe expects to take over punting duties and compete for the place-kicking job in summer drills. He’s spending his spring break this week watching UCLA’s spring practice.

No word on whether the Saints plan to send a scout when he suits up this summe