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Just for Kicks: Swank, ex-kicker for Wake Forest, to try out for Eagles
Journal File Photo
Ben Wooster (85) and Sam Swank (38) follow the flight of Swank’s game-winning field goal against Old Miss in 2008.
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Published: May 6, 2009
Worrying about what might have been doesn't keep Sam Swank up at night.
Buoyed by a free-agent contract with the Philadelphia Eagles, he's too busy dreaming about what might still be.
"It's definitely a dream of mine to play in the NFL," Swank said Monday. "And I feel as long as I am capable of doing so, and I have the talent, I'm going to keep pursuing that dream."
Heading into his senior season at Wake Forest last August, Swank appeared well on his way to adding fortune to the fame that comes with setting school records for points scored and field goals made over the first three years of a four-year career.
He was productive enough to have made more field-goal attempts (60) than any other active kicker in college football. He was dependable enough to have been named the team's most-valuable player as a sophomore, when he kicked three field goals longer than 50 yards to help beat N.C. State 25-23.
Plus he punted, well enough to be named honorable mention All-ACC as a sophomore.
Since the ACC started in 1953, Wake Forest had produced three punters (Chuck Ramsey, Harry Newsome and Ryan Plackemeier) who were drafted by NFL teams, but never a kicker.
Swank was on target to be the first. Then he got injured.
Swank could have bemoaned the pulled quadriceps muscle that cost him six games of his senior season, turned his swan song into a dirge and probably had as much as anything to do with the decision of 32 NFL teams to pass on Swank on draft weekend.
But those who know Swank know that's not him. He signed with the Eagles the day the draft ended, attended an offseason camp last weekend and is primed and ready to do whatever it takes to land a spot on the roster when training camp starts in earnest on July 26.
"I have no way of knowing," Swank said, when asked if the injury was the reason he wasn't drafted. "So therefore I don't really think about it.
"The thing that's reassuring is that not getting drafted was not that big a deal. I just wanted a shot, and I got my shot."
Swank has as much going for him going in as 22 of the 37 kickers who kicked at least one field goal last season in the NFL. That's how many signed their first contracts as free agents after not being drafted.
NFL teams have long been reluctant to invest prized draft picks on kickers, a mentality that hardened when the draft was reduced from 12 rounds to eight in 1993 and then to the current format of seven rounds in 1994. This season, only two bucked the trend -- Dallas chose David Buehler of Southern California in the fifth round, and Kansas City chose Ryan Succop of South Carolina in the seventh round.
Swank said he had free-agent offers from three teams, the Eagles, Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers. His decision to sign with Philadelphia was largely geographical -- he had lived in nearby Allentown, Pa., for seven years before his family moved to Jacksonville Beach, Fla., when he was 10, and Philadelphia is on the East Coast and thus only a two-hour flight from his family.
"San Francisco is way out there, and Cleveland is Cleveland," Swank said. "Since I had the hometown ties to the Eagles, I thought it would be a lot of fun to give them a try."
The Eagles, like most NFL teams, have an established kicker and an established punter. Kicker David Akers is an 11-year veteran who last season made 33 of 40 field-goal attempts. Punter Sav Rocca has averaged 42.7 yards a punt in his two seasons with the Eagles.
Akers, who signed as a free agent himself, missed a 47-yard field-goal attempt and an extra-point kick in his last game, a playoff loss to Arizona. Two seasons ago, he lost his range and was only 1 for 6 from between 40 and 49 yards. Rocca's net gain on punts last season was 37.9 yards, which ranked 14th in the NFL.
Perhaps more important, Akers is 34, and Rocca is 35.
Swank spent three days in Philadelphia going through two workouts Friday, two Saturday and one Sunday. He said he wasn't asked to kick any field goals, but he did punt and kick off.
The most encouraging part of the weekend was that Swank punted and kicked pain free. He said he had healed by the time he returned to kick for Wake Forest against Navy in the EagleBank Bowl, and hasn't felt any effects from the pulled quadriceps since.
"The ol' quad is great," Swank said. "It's not giving me any kind of problems. It's holding up quite well. I've been healthy since the bowl.
"I feel like I have a very strong leg, and when it's 100 percent I can kick it as far as anyone. Knowing that, it's just really just technique. To be able to just concentrate on technique and knowing that the leg strength is there, it's great to have that sense that it's all there and it's all going to work."
By Monday, he was back in Jacksonville Beach, where he and his wife, Michelle, are splitting time with their parents until he returns to rookie camp May 17. Backed by a degree in communications from Wake Forest, Swank hasn't put all of his footballs in one bag. He does have a Plan B.
"I'm still on Plan A," Swank said. "Plan A is to kick in the NFL."
■ Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.
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