Luke Greer (84) celebrates field goal
Photo | Mike Kittrell
The debate still continues in coffee shops and restaurants, even among teammates at practices and among those around town, whether they were at the game or not. It seems everyone has an opinion on just how far Luke Freer’s field goal actually traveled.
The official length of the kick, which came on the final play of the first half in the Pirates’ important Class 7A, Region 1 game at Fairhope Municipal Stadium against Baker, is registered at 59 yards, quite the field goal for a high school kicker — heck, for any kicker.
The guesswork comes into play as to estimations regarding the length at which the kick still would have been good. Conservative estimates hover around 70 yards, while some insist it would have been good from 80.
The kick didn’t just clear the crossbar from 59 yards out, it sailed well above the crossbar, the ball crossing that threshold above the uprights — and right down the middle. One official who was part of the officiating crew for the game was in the back end zone and swears it almost hit the track that surrounds the field, which is located well beyond the goalposts.
Here is what is known about the kick: It is credited as a 59-yarder, it tied the game 10-10 going into halftime, and it gave the Pirates a huge burst of momentum, which they parlayed into an eventual 27-17 victory that kept them undefeated and in first place in the region standings. Fairhope now needs only to win one of its next two games to claim the region championship. A first-round home game in the state playoffs accompanies the region crown.
That’s all good for the Fairhope program, but that kick … Well, they’ll be talking about it for many years to come.
“Across the 50,” a happy Tim Carter, Fairhope’s head coach, said with a laugh when asked to pinpoint Freer’s range for a field goal. “He can kick ’em. He’s the best kicker in Alabama, I don’t care. He can do it all. He can kick off in the end zone, he can kick field goals, he punts. He’s phenomenal.
“Last week he had a little bit of a tough run and pushed a couple of balls from the right hash [mark]. You know what? We came back to him and he makes it — what was that? Fifty-nine yards? It would have been good from 69, he drilled it. He’s just a guy that we know what he’s capable of doing.”
Some on the sidelines believed Fairhope, which had called timeout with just a few seconds remaining in the half, might design a Hail Mary pass play to attempt on the final play of the half. Instead, Freer trotted out on the field with holder Ian Parrish and they set up to attempt the field goal that would tie the game.
“I love Coach [Carter] and I know he trusts me,” Freer said after the game. “I hit a 62-yarder in practice so I knew I could do it. I just kicked the crap out of it, to be honest with you. In practice, I’ve hit a 66, so this one was 59. … I kicked the crap out of it.”
Indeed, he did. He would add a 38-yarder in the second half and as a punter, he averaged 51.5 yards a try on the night. And each one of his kickoffs sailed into the end zone (or beyond), forcing Baker to start each of those possessions on its own 20-yard line. And that was the case on all of Baker’s possessions in the second half.
“We thought we were going in the half and we’d have some momentum,” Baker head coach Steve Normand said. “… It was a heckuva kick. I’ve never seen one like that before. … That’s a huge asset, having a kicker like that. He doesn’t miss and he puts it in the end zone [on kickoffs] every time, so you’re starting at the 20 every time. I swear, it would have been good from 70 yards, easy.”
While some may have been surprised Carter called for a field goal attempt there instead of taking a knee or attempting a Hail Mary play, holder Parrish wasn’t surprised in the least. Nor was he surprised when the kick was good.
“I had 100 percent confidence,” Parrish said. “Luke actually hit a 65-yard field goal at practice the other week. He had full confidence, so I had full confidence. Owen, our long snapper, he was confident. So I knew it was good the second he hit it.
“There wasn’t really any [pressure]. I’ve been doing this for three years now, so there wasn’t any pressure. I just put it down and he kicked it. As soon as I heard it, I knew it was going in. I saw it curve and I said, ‘It’s going in.’ That would have been good from 70. It was perfect. It’s just a lot of trust; I trust him and he trusts me.”
Freer is a soccer player and hadn’t considered playing football until Carter approached him one day at the urging of another coach at school.
“Coach [Vaughn] Messina came to me one day and said, ‘I’ve got a guy in my P.E. [class] and I want you to see him kick.’ So, I have to give Coach Messina the credit,” Carter said.
Upon watching Freer make a few kicks, his comment was simple: “Son, you need to come out for football.”
“I’m a soccer player, so I guess I got my kicking power from that,” Freer said. “I’ll never forget the day Coach asked me to come out and kick and I did it. He trusts me and that’s where we are now.”
Almost as soon as Freer’s kick made its way between the uprights at the end of the first half, social media began buzzing about the kick. Fans of several different college teams suggested their favorite team should sign Freer to a scholarship right now. In truth, only one college team, Army, had made a scholarship offer to Freer prior to that kick. Soon afterward, Air Force offered a scholarship, as noted by Freer on his Twitter page. Others are expected to follow suit before signing day approaches.
For now, he’ll settle for being the talk of the town.
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