Jared CohenThere is an old saying that there is always somebody watching so you should treat every moment as if you are auditioning for the next big step in you’re life.
That could be said for the starting kicker for the Arizona Wildcats football team, Casey Skowron.
Back in high school while attending Brophy Prep in Phoenix, Skowron was a standout soccer player for one of the elite high school programs in the state. Word had got out that a kicker was needed for the Brophy football team so his soccer coach Marc Kelly mentioned to Scooter Molander that he had someone for the football team that could help kick. That person was Skowron.
“Word got out that I had a strong leg,” Skowron said. “By the last game of the season I was kicking so I played in three games in high school and I thought ‘hey, I’m pretty good at this!’”
Skowron wanted to carry this new found skill of his to the collegiate level and as a freshman, he went to the Arizona football tryout under then head coach, Mike Stoops. But it did not work out.
Instead, he became the Team Manager of the Women’s Soccer Team at Arizona while also playing some club soccer on the side. One member of the soccer team was Autumn Lockwood who is the daughter of Arizona Football’s defensive back coach, David Lockwood.
“I found out that she was Coach Lockwood’s daughter and I was kind of joking around one day and I was like ‘Hey! I kicked in high school a little bit so if the team needs a kicker, you should say something to your Pops!’” He explained. “She came back the very next day and said the walk-on tryout is really soon and I should go and try-out. So I was like why not?”
Autumn set Skowron up with Matt Dudek, Arizona’s Director of On Campus Recruiting/Player Personnel, and at first Skowron mentioned that Dudek didn’t think much of it. But after he saw him kick, he had a different tone.
Skorwon made the team as a kicker in 2012 and took a redshirt year. Last season, he served as the back-up kicker to Jake Smith. Now going into his redshirt junior year, spring practice and fall camp has consisted of him in a kicking competition with freshman Josh Pollack for the starting role on the team in 2014. On game week, it was announced that he has come away as the person listed in the number one spot for at least week one against UNLV.
Now it is one thing as a kicker to show off your leg during a workout and in practice, it is another to be able to convert kicks under pressure with 6-5, 300 pound lineman running at you and with 70,000 people watching. But Skowron is confident in himself and his approach.
“I try to pretty much lock in on what I am doing,” he mentioned. “It doesn’t mater for me if I am on the sticks or I have a whole line coming after me, as long as the ball is on the ground, I am going to do my thing.”
“I know the rules, they can’t touch me so if they do, I am going to go down screaming,” he joked. “I just do my thing. It doesn’t really bother me too much.
