Griffith Doesn’t Reveal Pain of His Missed Kick

Sitting in welcome anonymity among the full house at Edison Field on Sunday was a 22-year-old Orange County native carrying the weight of Westwood on his shoulders.

The minute the Angels defeated the Minnesota Twins, Chris Griffith stopped applauding long enough to dial his mother’s cell number and leave a message: “We’re in the World Series!”

Yvette Griffith retrieved the message at the airport, where she and her husband were waiting for a flight home to Reno.

“I quietly said a little thank you prayer,” Yvette said. “What a wonderful distraction.”

And wishful thinking.

It quickly became apparent to Yvette and Chris Griffith Sr. that as hard as they might try, there was no forgetting their son’s missed field-goal attempt that might have cost UCLA a victory over Oregon on Saturday.

Not for them, or for him.

A man at the airport saw the UCLA cap Chris Sr. was wearing and said, “Great game -- except for the end.”

“That was like a dagger in the heart,” Yvette said.

The man then saw the No. 14 stenciled on the cap and asked if Chris Sr. knew the kicker.

“I’m his dad,” Chris Sr. replied.

“You must be proud,” the man said. “Your son was so mature in the way he handled the whole thing.”

Griffith’s parents are feeling a disorienting array of emotions. But, yes, pride is at the top of the list.

They are proud of the way their son responded to the reporters crowded at his locker, answering every question about not only the missed 46-yard field goal attempt with 1:54 left, but the blocked PAT kick that provided the margin of victory in the 31-30 loss.

They are proud of the way he emerged from the locker room with his head up and shared a plate of carnitas at a post-game tailgate party with a large group of family and friends.

And they are proud of the way he stoically accepted condolences and quickly changed the subject, unwilling to burden those closest to him with the intensely personal disappointment of missing a potential game-winning kick against Oregon for the second year in a row.

“We have a tailgate after every game, win or lose, make the kick or miss the kick,” Griffith said. “I wasn’t going to ruin it for everyone else. I appreciate all the support but I didn’t want to talk a lot about it.

“I can deal with it myself. I don’t need them to try to feel my pain too.”

The traits that please Griffith’s parents also concern them. They know that because he doesn’t display anguish, it doesn’t mean he isn’t feeling any.

“I’m hoping he doesn’t develop an ulcer by internalizing this,” Yvette said.

Griffith’s measured reaction was the opposite of another kicker whose miss was prominent Saturday.

Xavier Beitia was unable to talk to reporters and cried for hours after his 43-yard attempt that would have enabled Florida State to upset No. 1 Miami was wide left. The Florida State team chaplain said Beitia was inconsolable.

He cried in the locker room, cried in the trainer’s room, cried as his parents and police officers escorted him to the team bus.

If Griffith shed a single tear, it was in private.

“Sunday night I was reflecting on it and I was glad I didn’t act inappropriately after the miss,” he said. “It’s one kick. I was one for two in the game. I’ve kicked many balls like that one and many have gone through.”

Griffith, a senior, has been the UCLA kicker since winning the job as a redshirt freshman walk-on. He has made 41 of 57 field goals and ranks fourth among kickers on the all-time Bruin scoring list with 257 points.

He was a stellar all-around athlete at Douglas High in Minden, Nev., near South Lake Tahoe, where his family moved from Tustin when he was an adolescent. He played quarterback and defensive back, and also lettered in track and baseball.

Among the Bruins, Griffith is hardly an ostracized kicker unable to relate to regular football players. His roommate last year was receiver Brian Poli-Dixon and he is one of the boys, often socializing with the guys in the trenches.

“He felt like he let the team down, he feels horrible, but he has a lot of friends on this team,” quarterback Cory Paus said. “We are going to need him to make kicks the rest of the year.”

Nobody can diminish the pain with words, though. Mistakes by most players are swallowed up in a sea of plays mere moments apart. A kicker must live with a miss until the next kick.

“You’re a kicker and that’s your life, it’s just the way it is,” Paus said. “Quarterbacks go through similar things, but we have the whole game to bounce back.”

USC kicker Ryan Killeen missed a PAT kick and two long field-goal attempts in a 30-27 overtime loss to Washington State on Oct. 5. He rebounded to make three field goals in a victory over California on Saturday.

The key to bouncing back, he said, was to get on the field with his teammates and start swinging his leg at footballs.

“I tried to put the game behind me, [but] it’s always in the back of your head,” Killeen said. “Until practices started, it really bothered me.

“A lot of players were saying we’ve got a new team to beat, so don’t let it bother you. The team was very supportive. If it wasn’t for them, I would have been a mess.”

It’s difficult to tell how tough Griffith is on himself because he reveals so little. Growing up in Tustin, he was coached by his father. Chris Sr. was a deputy sheriff who regularly dealt with crisis. But he didn’t bring his work home with him.

“He dealt with juvenile crimes and gang intervention, and many of his days were incredibly rough,” Yvette said. “In our house you talk when you need to.”

Yvette, meanwhile, spent countless hours at home talking with Chris and his younger brother, Brandon.

“We talked about everything and if there was a problem, he’d tell me,” she said. “I’m still in constant communication with Chris and have invited him to share problems in his life.

“He doesn’t like to do that anymore. He’s a lot like his dad, but how strong can a 22-year-old be?”

It is the nature of kickers to be introspective. The mechanics are subtle, the fundamentals arcane. They tinker with their approach and fiddle with their footwork.

And they dream of the day the obsessive attention to detail and numbing repetition of the same swing of the leg results in a game-winning field goal.

Griffith doesn’t verbalize much, but he whispers to his holder before practice kicks.

“This is to win the game, we have to make it,” he says to Garrett Lepisto.

Those flights of fancy are usually followed by the flight of the ball through the uprights. Griffith knocks them home from more than 55 yards in practice.

He hasn’t had many opportunities to make pivotal kicks in games. He beat Washington in overtime with a 22-yarder as a freshman. His longest field goal came last season against Ohio State, a 49-yarder.

And his first devastating miss came last season against Oregon, a 50-yard attempt on the last play of a 21-20 Bruin loss. He made his next try, against Arizona State in the season finale.

This season, he started slowly, missing two attempts against Colorado State. He missed another the next week, but then came on, making six of seven. Against Oregon, he made one from 37 yards in the third quarter and trotted on the field for the potential winning kick brimming with confidence.

“I hit it hard,” he said. “I didn’t hit it straight but I thought it might be good. Then I looked up and watched it sail wide.”

On Monday, Griffith faced reporters again, answering hard questions with straight answers. At the end he politely made clear what his parents and friends discovered over the weekend -- he really didn’t want to discuss it again.

“We have six games left and maybe a bowl game,” he said. “I have to be part of that. I can’t be thinking about missed kicks.”

Staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this report.