Boulder – The footballs cleared the goalposts and sailed out of the stadium, putting windshields and human heads in danger.
Nets were installed behind both goalposts. Something had to be done to reel in Georgetown (Texas) High’s Paul Bunyan-legged kicker, Mason Crosby. At the very least, something had to be done to save the footballs.
“We were losing pretty good balls,” said Stan Mauldin, Crosby’s prep special-teams coach.
Money was raised. Nets were installed. The plan worked. Sort of.
“For Mason, the goal wasn’t the crossbar, it was the top of this tall net,” said Crosby’s mother, Karen. “Mason’s goal was to get the ball over the net and out of the stadium. And he did. I don’t know if he ever hit the stupid net. It just went over.”
Field goals are nice, but they’re more interesting from far away. Crosby, now a junior at Colorado and a finalist for the Lou Groza Award, has turned the long field goal into an art form. Ten of his 45 career field goals have come from 50 yards or longer. CU crowds urge coach Gary Barnett to put him in on fourth- and-anything inside midfield.
“I guess it’s kind of like in baseball – chicks dig the long ball,” Crosby said. “Being able to kick the ball a long way, people like that.”
Barnett certainly does.
Georgetown – just up Interstate 35 from Austin – loves it, too, and has become a small slice of CU in an otherwise burnt-orange area of Texas.
“We can’t go anywhere without people stopping and talking about the CU games,” Karen said. “Apparently, people get together to watch ballgames. And we’re right here by the University of Texas.”
Roots in soccer
Behind every great kicker is soccer. Powerful legs run through the Crosby family, where soccer was a love of both parents, Jim and Karen. The two played in coed leagues and toted the kids, letting Mason, his older sister Ashley and younger brother Rees kick balls around on the sidelines.
“Soccer was a big social event for us,” Jim said. “We wouldn’t allow him to play football until he was in seventh grade, so soccer was pretty much it.”
Crosby started playing soccer at 4, in an indoor league in Lubbock, Texas, where he was born. From there he progressed to more competitive leagues and added a packed schedule of other sports as well. He played basketball and baseball, and then in seventh grade Crosby was granted his football wish.
That led to his first kick.
Crosby played for a middle school team called the Benold Eagles. His friend was the kicker, and Crosby wasn’t going to step on his buddy’s toes to get a shot at booting the ball. But one game, his friend was hurt and the coach asked if there was anyone on the team who knew how to kick.
A shy Crosby finally spoke up. His first kickoff landed inside the 5-yard line. The coach stood wide-eyed.
“He was like, ‘Why didn’t you say something before?”‘ Crosby said.
No one else handled kicks after that.
Soccer, for Crosby, ended after two knee surgeries and his junior year in high school. Football was front and center. Not only did Crosby kick, he was a free safety who loved to hit and also was available as a receiver.
“He was a very fine defensive back for us,” Mauldin said. “He was an excellent player. Real good instincts as a player, and an unusual talent for kicking.”
Stover helps build star
The first time Crosby saw Matt Stover in person it was at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes assembly, and he was just a fledgling kicker.
The Baltimore Ravens kicker, who has a house in Georgetown, represented everything Crosby knew he could become. He just couldn’t find the words to ask for advice.
“Mason didn’t want to bother him,” Karen said.
So she provided the link.
“We just talked to our friends and said, ‘Do you think (Stover) would be open to it?”‘ she recalled.
And he was. In fact, Stover finally broke the ice and invited Crosby, then a sophomore in high school, out to kick in the summer. All Crosby could really do was watch, because he’d injured his leg at the Texas football camp a few weeks earlier.
Kicking technique, however, wasn’t what Crosby needed. First, Stover provided a friend in the kicking business. It’s never the most popular position on the field, but Stover brought a star quality to kicking that Crosby had not seen.
“He pretty much made me love kicking,” Crosby said. “He made it something I finally saw as a glorious position. At that point, I wanted to kick but I didn’t look at it as something to get me somewhere. I realized at that point that I could do something with kicking. I just needed someone who was involved in it to show me how.”
This is what Crosby learned that summer: focus.
“The things he told me about mentally focused me,” Crosby said. “Always pick a spot. Go for that spot. Don’t even think about the uprights. That mental aspect of kicking I never really thought about it until then.”
NFL up next
Crosby shakes his head in mild disbelief at the prospect of playing in the pros.
Only five kickers have been taken with a first-round pick in NFL history, and Crosby is making a strong case to be the sixth. Analysts predict he’ll go anywhere from first round to the third round, most certainly a first-day selection if he chooses to leave CU before his senior season. Stover, who gave Baltimore a win over Pittsburgh on Sunday with a field goal in overtime, has been on record saying, “We’ll see him in the NFL. He’ll be good enough.”
Crosby tries not to think about it.
“It’s hard to talk about,” he said. “It’s crazy to think that someday it might happen.”
Might happen? Nah.
Will happen.
The question is when. To that end, in one breath Crosby says his intention is to play his senior season with the Buffs, yet in the next breath he says he’ll take a look at all of his options when this CU season ends.
“I look at the guys on the team, and I always feel that I want to be here and graduate with a lot of the guys that I played with for four years,” Crosby said. “It’s weird to think that a kicker can leave early.”
Florida State’s Sebastian Janikowski was the most recent college kicker to be taken in the first round, the 17th selection in 2000 by the Oakland Raiders.
Iowa State coach Dan McCarney compared Crosby to Reggie Roby, the longtime Miami Dolphins punter whom he coached while at Iowa.
“He’s amazing, just absolutely amazing,” McCarney said of Crosby. “He’s as good as I’ve ever seen.”
Staff writer Chris Dempsey can be reached at 303-820-5455 or cdempsey@denverpost.com.
