Hayden Siddhartha Finch studied yoga in Tibet and mastered the French horn before, as he elucidated to an old baseball coach, “I have learned the art of the pitch.”
The mythical and mystical “Sidd” Finch could throw a baseball, unfathomably, 163 miles per hour. Swiftly swooped up by the New York Mets, he became a prodigious prospect, too good to be true … until, alas, he was. Finch wasn’t true; he was created by the late Sports Illustrated writer George Plimpton, in 1985, as an April Fool’s joke.
Which brings us to this next fellow, who’s indeed real, I promise. And they say he’s mastered the art of the kick.
Born and raised in Bermuda, he came to the states at 16, playing half of one high school football season, never punting. He bounced from college to college, claiming to play one lone season at Jacksonville University, which, upon research, does exist. He moved home to a posh St. Louis suburb to work at a tapas restaurant, while inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s masterpiece “Outliers,” a book about dedicating 10,000 hours to a task. And so, he kicked and kicked and punted and punted, sometimes at 2 a.m., alone, on a field lit only by the lights from his Volkswagen.
in NFL circles of this 6-foot-4 chiseled specimen, calmly kicking a 70-yard field goal, followed by punts that seemed to skim the sky. And last week, at a free-agent combine in Arizona, he caught the eye of Denver Broncos assistant Tony Coaxum. After a redeye back to St. Louis, and another redeye to DIA, there was Karl Nicolaus Schmitz, booting punts at Dove Valley for John Elway. Later that same day, Elway signed the 28-year-old rookie punter to a futures contract.
“On the flight home I had this moment — holy (bleep)!” Schmitz explained by phone on Wednesday. “It was a dream. This didn’t really happen.
“But at the same time, I was confident in my abilities. I just had to get someone to believe in me. … And now, the work starts.”
OK, before we get too carried away — we might have already gotten carried away — he’s never punted in an NFL game. Shoot, his last in-game punt was seven seasons ago. It’s quite possible that Schmitz will be the equivalent to, say, a basketball playground legend, one who struggles in a stint with a professional team, because his skills and experience don’t translate to the pressures of the pro game.
But our imaginations can wander, right? Especially in March, so far from the first kick of camp. And the reality is Broncos punter Britton Colquitt stunk last season, and his contract gobbles up cap space with a frightening voracity. And, it appears, Schmitz can boot kickoffs, too; last season, Denver had three men under contract — a kicker, a kickoff specialist and a punter. Perhaps Schmitz, at a low cost, could fill two of those roles.
But even the fact that his story took us from headlights-lit workouts here, to a tryout in Denver for Elway, is storybook.
“He has one of the biggest legs I’ve ever seen,” explained David Brader, who owns and coaches at St. Louis’ Elite Special Teams Academy. “Hang times in St. Louis of 5.73 seconds. Can you imagine what he’ll do in Denver? He might not be the norm as far as paths to there, but he’s got everything it takes to warrant the opportunity to kick in the league.”
If anything, we know that Schmitz is well-educated. Similar to Sidd Finch, who dabbled at Harvard University, Schmitz attended Clayton, the Harvard of high schools, with such legendary alumni as Benjamin Hochman, Emily Hochman, Jere Hochman and Jules B. Hochman.
Schmitz played soccer in his junior year, his first in the St. Louis suburb, and later that school year, was noticed by the school’s football star, Jairus Byrd, who went on to become an All-Pro safety in the NFL. Byrd and some buddies were enamored by Schmitz’s size, so they encouraged him to try wide receiver.
That summer, though, Schmitz was in a motorcycle accident in Bermuda. He missed half the season for Clayton, but eventually kicked field goals for the Missouri state champions.
Then his odyssey really began — Arizona State to Jacksonville to St. Louis again, where he reunited with his girlfriend at the time, earning a degree at University of Missouri-St. Louis in 2011. For the next four years, he continued to work on his punting and kicking, working out with numerous former NFL players, and on his own, trying to grow his leg and his legend.
And this led him to the Arizona combine, where Coaxum realized this was no Sidd Finch hoax. Maybe, just maybe, it was a talent not too good to be true.
CHEW ON THIS
• The masterful Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated about former Nugget Alonzo Gee, who has played for every team ever.
• With a buzz this week about Christian Laettner, following Sunday’s “30 for 30” about the Duke legend, here’s a YouTube clip of the late Chris Farley .
• Grantland’s Jonah Keri, a Denver-based writer and friend of the Lunch Special, went down to spring training to .
• Former Denver Post writer Lindsay H. Jones .
• After losing to the pathetic New York Knicks, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich
• And happy 43rd birthday to Dane Cook. Yes, yes, I know Cook lost some of his cool over time, but his bit is legendary, I say.
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or
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