Coaches Aid - Punting, Passing and Kicking their way to Phoenix

Punting, Passing and Kicking their way to Phoenix

By: Glen Rosales • 10/14/2009 12:00:00 AM

By Glen Rosales

CoachesAid.com New Mexico Content Coordinator

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- It seems so simple.

Punt a football. Pass a football. Kick a football.

It sounds so simple.

At least until you’re standing on the line waiting to do one of the three events, with all the eyes of the participants and spectators bearing down on you. And you get just once chance to perform each event with no mulligans allowed.

Competitors in four, two-year increments, beginning with age 8, vie for both distance and accuracy in an NFL-sponsored program started in 1961. It’s the oldest of the NFL’s youth football programs. The oldest age group is for high school freshmen and sophomores.

Shaydie Hernandez, a sophomore at Oñate High School in Las Cruces, watches her kickoff during the state championships of the Punt, Pass & Kick competition.

Recently a number of local New Mexico winners competed to earn the right of being state champion. They were among some four million kids around the country who competed in one stage or another.

At stake for the local winners at Milne Stadium was a chance to go to Arizona to compete in regionally, with then best athletes finally advancing to the national championship.

That’s what spurred on Oñate sophomore Shaydie Hernandez.

Locked in a close battle entering the final event, the kick off, she boomed off a decent kick of 67 feet, putting the pressure on her closest rival, St. Pius freshman Estrella Limón.

Disaster.

Limón’s kick went sputtering off the tee wide right.

“I think I went too fast,” she said with a cough, dejection on her face.

And that made a winner of Hernandez in her fourth and final try. She finished with a total 177-feet, 6-inches.

She credited her success with working out with her younger brother, Michael.

“I’d go to his football practices,” Hernandez said. “I’d practice throwing the ball and kicking.”

A basketball player who played on the Knights’ ‘C’ team last year and will be trying for the junior-varsity this season, Hernandez won’t be switching from the round ball anytime soon.

Barry Coffman, a Sandia freshman, unleashes his pass during the state championships of the Punt, Pass & Kick competition.

“Football’s just a hobby,” she said.

Her desire was pretty pure and simple: “I want to go to an NFL game,” she said with a big smile.

Sandia freshman Barry Coffman got to go to a Phoenix Cardinals’ game last season after winning it in his first try, and repeated thanks in large part to a monster toss of 151-7. That more than made up for a mis-hit on the place kick.

“I shanked it,” he explained of his kick off attempt.

Coffman, quarterback for the Matadors freshman team, said going to Phoenix was quite a treat.

“It was fun to go out there and see where the pros practice and play,” he said. “We got to do it on their actual field. I got a lot of autographs because where we sat was close to the field.”

Although the majority of the competitors came away without a medal, they still enjoyed the experience.

“It’s fun, a lot of fun,” said Abby Johnston, who is home schooled in Taos. “I don’t get to do a lot of stuff, so it’s good to try some stuff.”

Nicholas Kurtz, a freshman at Belen, said he was surprised at the difficultly.

“I tried it once before and I thought I’d try it again this year because it was fun,” he said. “The competition was tough. Tougher than I thought it would be.”