Knott 'cleans up'

Posted: 11/18/2011 - by Charlie Narmi

by: Nick Rallis, St. Albert Junior, in the High School Newspaper,  - The Accipter

He takes nine steps backward, four steps to the left.

Then St. Albert kicker Zach Knott has one quick second to take in the moment before he does what he loves most, kick.

Knott has plenty of thoughts racing through his head in those 13 steps and the trot to the football that follows. He thinks about how deep to kick, where to kick, but most importantly, how he got into the position of being a kicker for the Class 1A No. 1 St. Albert Falcons.

At the beginning of the school year, Knott was not a part of the football team. Instead of going to football practice after school, he went to his job working as a custodian at St. Albert. While others donned shoulder pads and rammed tackling bags, Knott was pushing a broom and emptying trash in the abandoned school.

It’s not that Knott isn’t athletic. He has been a member of the State qualifying boys’ soccer team in the spring, which put him high on the radar of the St. Albert football coaching staff in its search for a kicker.

“We didn’t have much experience at kicker,” football coach Mike Kayl said.

When football season started, the Falcons’ kickers were senior Josh Cochran and freshman John Meyerring. Both are good, but coaches had some concerns.

Cochran was a starter on both offense and defense. Adding kicking duties might leave him worn out, which could be a factor if a game came down to a field goal.

Meyerring, just a freshman, lacked experience at the high school  level, and he had a groin injury that prevented him from kicking early in the season. That instability spurred the search for a safety net at kicker, and all roads led to Knott.

“Coach Kayl came to me looking for a kicker,” Knott said. “I decided to do it because I thought it would be a good experience.”

“It just kind of happened,” Kayl said. “Zach came to me and mentioned he had kicked before, but he didn’t get a lot of time with people in front of him. I asked him if he wanted to try it, and he did.”

Knott quickly fit into his role as a part of the Falcons’ special teams. He was inserted into the back-up place kicker role behind Cochran, who had a leg up with his football experience. Knott slowly climbed the ladder and began lining up for kickoffs in just his first game as a member of the team.

“He’s done pretty well,” Kayl said. “The nice thing is that he can just focus on kicking. He’s really improved his consistency, and he provides a lot of depth at kicker.”

Being a new member of one of the state’s most successful football  rograms hasn’t really fazed Knott. He chalks up the experience as mere training for his true love, soccer.

“Football helps you physically,” he said. “It helps keep the legs in shape.”

Knott says it takes different skills to kick a soccer ball and a football. But he still considers playing football a joy because of the similarities to his favorite sport.

Simply put, Zach Knott loves to kick. That’s why he pursued soccer and avoided playing football following a bad experience during his freshman year. Knott went out for football his freshman year and  wanted to kick, but he found himself playing line. He didn’t get a chance to show what he could do as a kicker. After that, he decided to hang up his football cleats and start his janitorial job.

It wasn’t until his senior year that Knott had his chance to kick for the St. Albert Falcons, and he definitely wants to make the most out of it.

“I’m really hoping to go to the Dome,” he said of the prospects of playing at State. “I also hope to maybe get recruited.”

Joining the football team keeps Knott extra busy. After practice, which can run as late at 6:30 p.m., he still has a school to clean. And if football and his custodial job weren’t enough, Knott joined the cast for the fall musical, which means he sometimes ends up  pushing his broom around school until 1 a.m. This doesn’t give Knott much time to reflect on his situation.

When he lines up for a kick, however, he finds a few seconds to reflect. With the crowd chanting his name, Knott gathers himself for his kick. As he approaches the football, he clears out all those thoughts, and only one thing goes through his mind:

“I better make this.”

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