Placekicker - Shoes

Shoes

Placekickers in the modern game usually wear specialized shoes (soccer boots), but in very rare circumstances some prefer to kick barefoot. Tony Franklin was one such barefoot kicker, who played in Super Bowls for the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots. Another was Rich Karlis, who once shared two kicking records - the record for longest field goal in Super Bowl history, kicking a 47-yard field goal in Super Bowl XXI and also for the most field goals in a game, seven for Minnesota in 1989, tying Jim Bakken's record of the time, a record since broken by Rob Bironas. More recently, Englishman Rob Hart kicked barefoot during his 7-year NFL Europe career. John Baker also used the style in the 1990s in the Canadian Football League, as did José Cortéz in the XFL.

A unique shoe was worn by New Orleans Saints kicker Tom Dempsey; Dempsey had a deformed kicking foot that left him with a flat kicking surface at the front of his foot, and he wore a shoe that accommodated it. After Dempsey kicked a record-setting 63-yard field goal using the special shoe, the league instituted a rule change establishing standards for kicking shoes. This eventually ended Dempsey's kicking career.

Barefoot kickers are banned in the vast majority of high school games, due to a rule by the National Federation of State High School Associations, which requires all players to wear shoes. Massachusetts and Texas play by NCAA rules, and therefore barefoot kickers are legal in those two states.

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Famous quotes containing the word shoes:

    “Light she was and like a fairy,
    And her shoes were number nine;”
    —Percy Montross, U.S. poet. Oh, My Darling Clementine (attributed to Montross)

    “A man cannot make a pair of shoes rightly unless he do it in a devout manner.”
    —Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)

    “Boots and shoes are the greatest trouble of my life. Everything else one can turn and turn about, and make old look like new; but there’s no coaxing boots and shoes to look better than they are.”
    —George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)