For the past eight seasons, the Ford City football program churned out more top kickers than any team in the Allegheny Conference.
Derek Kamis was the first when he was named all-conference after the 1997 season. He was followed by Casey Welch, currently on the roster at Purdue University. After that, 2004 all-conference selection Mark Troyan kicked for Ford City.
"We've been fortunate," coach John Bartolovic said. "We have a couple of people working right now and it really was a hidden part."
Over the years, Ford City has had extremely dedicated kickers. Welch had goalposts set up in his backyard. With Troyan, the team practiced away from the field while he set up a special tee to work on placements.
Now, though, the well for place kickers appears to have dried up, thanks in large part to the demise of the Ford City soccer program.
For years, the Sabers were able to coerce a soccer player to pull double duty and kick for the football team. But since the soccer program folded three years ago, there isn't a large talent pool of strong-legged athletes used to kicking for distance.
"I just tried to find an athletic kid who really didn't want to be a football player and asked him if he wanted to kick, and we don't bother them to do anything else," Bartolovic said. "That part's been great for us."
It has helped Ford City qualify for the WPIAL Class AA playoffs three of the past four years, and win the 2003 Allegheny Conference championship, the first in the school's 85-year football history.
The obvious benefit was that Ford City had a weapon on the sideline for field goals and extra points, but that was only a small portion of his impact. Because the kickers had such strong legs, they were able to regularly kick the ball into the end zone for touchbacks and force opponents to take the long field by starting at the 20-yard line.
Troyan and Welch were adept at putting almost 50 percent of their kickoffs into the end zone, a big number for high school kickers. It allowed the defense to make a mistake that could cost a first down, but it gave enough leeway that -- with a long field -- even a big play might not cost the Sabers points.
"You have field position and so forth and that may change what we do," Bartolovic said. "We'll just have to wait and see what happens."
This season, Ford City will use senior Nathan Kutsch, who has no experience as a kicker.
Of course, like anything else, there is a flipside that could benefit Ford City in the long run. Because special teams players were accustomed to kickoffs going into the end zone, they didn't overly exert themselves running down the field, which resulted in several long returns.
"Sometimes, it was just as bad when the kids didn't kick the ball into the end zone," Bartolovic said. "The kids weren't flying down there like they were supposed to and then, they said, 'Shoot, he didn't kick it into the end zone,' so it kind of worked both ways when it didn't go deep."
Now, without having to worry about a kicker putting the ball in the end zone every other time, Ford City could have a more aggressive special teams unit.
"If a kicker kicked it into the end zone the first two times and the third time he didn't, they ended up dogging it a little bit," Bartolovic said. "I know that, if they know they have to cover it every time, there's going to be a little different attitude."
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