A few seconds of panic: Writer tries kicking field goals at Broncos camp

Courtesy of The Penguin Press

By Stefan Fatsis, Special to SI.com

Excerpted from A FEW SECONDS OF PANIC by Stefan Fatsis. Reprinted by arrangement with The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Copyright Stefan Fatsis, 2008.

Drawing on rare access to an NFL team's players, coaches, and facilities, bestselling author Stefan Fatsis trained to become an NFL kicker, joining the Denver Broncos for training camp before the 2006 season. In the recently released A Few Seconds of Panic: A 5-foot-8, 170-pound, 43-year-old Sportswriter Plays In The NFL, Fatsis unveils the mind of the modern pro athlete and the workings of a storied sports franchise while trying to gain respect in the locker room and on the field.

The fifth day of training camp is the first to include "FG/FG Rush" on the schedule: field-goal practice, with a live rush from the defense. In the training room, I rub Flexall, a mentholated aloe vera gel, on my quadriceps, hamstrings, and groin (a little too close to the private parts), and I slather my neck and face with sunscreen. A training staff summer hire stretches my legs. To make the environment I might encounter feel familiar, I close my eyes and visualize the full assemblage of Broncos watching me kick, the thousand fans gathered on the berm, my technique. I imagine good plants and solid hits.

Still, I don't think head coach Mike Shanahan will let me kick with the team. It's too early in camp. Jason Elam hasn't even kicked yet. Special teams coach Ronnie Bradford won't give me a straight answer on whether I will. We have 40 minutes before FG. We stretch, punt, loosen up. I ask Jason the plan.

"We're going to kick field goals," he replies. "The idea is to kick the ball between the tall yellow things."

Jason will kick 10 balls, two apiece with the ball on the 10-, 15-, 20-, 25-, and 30-yard lines, or field goals of 28, 33, 38, 43, and 48 yards. With 20 minutes to go, I pace back and forth on the turf field. When a rabbit runs across, Ronnie, assistant special teams coach Thomas McGaughey, punter Todd Sauerbrun, and the gang joke that Jason the big-game hunter should keep a bow and arrow in our duffel bag to take advantage of such opportunities. I need to pee. Inside a Port-O-Let, I hear fans talking about me.

"He hit four in a row the other day," one says.

"But they were 10 yards out and didn't get 10 feet off the ground," another replies . Everybody's a critic. I jog back and kick a dozen balls from 25, 30, and 35 yards. Good plant, solid hit. When I connect from 35, Ronnie says, "That's going to be your distance." This isn't casual stand-around-and-schmooze kicker talk. Ronnie is dead serious. Under the lights. Bullets flying. If Shanahan summons me, Ronnie is saying, I'll be kicking from 35 yards.

"One kick?" I ask.

"One kick."

I have to pee again. Two more fans are standing near the sideline of the kickers' field.

"Jason was kicking from here," one says. "Number nine's pretty good, too," the other says before I trot by. "Way to go, nine!" he says.

I scoop up the orange duffels and we migrate to the empty grass field. Paul Ernster snaps and Micah Knorr holds. From 40 yards, I strike with foot sideways, skip through directly toward the goalposts, and land with my toe pointing straight ahead. Perfect execution. "Way to go, dog!" a fan screams. But I'm growing visibly nervous. I ask Paul to hold my Broncos cap and my notebook. "Relax, dude," he says. "Just do what you do. You make a hundred out of a hundred if you do what you do. No sense making it harder on yourself."

I nod. I'm hungry. Inside my helmet, I feel perspiration form beneath my forehead and burst through the skin. We walk to the sideline. General manager Ted Sundquist mimics John Facenda's voice-of-God baritone on the classic NFL highlight reels: "The hot breath of the defensive end. The beads of sweat pouring down his cheek . . ."