He's got a leg to stand on

MADISON, Miss. -- This is where the young place-kicker unraveled, his right leg betraying him like never before. There were three field goal attempts in one game. All misses.

He lost his job that day under the Friday night lights. Lost a handful of potential college scholarships, too. And most of all, he lost the desire to swing his powerful right leg into the football, then watch as the ball turned in the air, hopefully splitting the uprights.

Stephen Gostkowski, then a senior at Madison Central High School in Mississippi, was a reluctant kicker to begin with. He always wanted more, like playing receiver or defensive back. He was a two-time defensive lineman of the year in Pee Wee football and liked being in control of the action from the pitcher's mound in baseball, or at forward in soccer games.

Kicker, for an all-around, all-state athlete like Gostkowski, was altogether different. There were only a few plays in which he was involved each game, and it felt like a secondary role to him. He didn't like how the kicker was often the target of teammates' jokes.

Then came that brutal night in the 2001 high school season.

A regular crowd for a Madison Central game is about 12,000, with almost 1,000 of those fans holding season tickets in a chair-back seating area. They come to see their Jaguars, dressed in orange and blue, at a sparkling facility that reflects the fact that Madison is one of the most affluent towns in Mississippi. The glistening green grass is neatly clipped, the sections of the stands are clearly marked, advertisements surround the scoreboard, a large track circles the playing field, and construction continues behind the field on a new wing of the high school.

Gostkowski had some special visitors that night, as his grandparents were watching him kick in a game for the first time. The three misses were bad enough. Failing in front of his grandparents topped off one of the worst football nights of his life.

``He crashed and burned and was taken out right away," said Gostkowski's mother, Cindy. ``It became a mental thing, a very big mental thing. He had to learn to deal with it in his own way."

Maybe in some other states the kid would have been thrown back out there the next week. But they take their football seriously in Mississippi, where Madison Central was two years removed from winning the 5A state championship -- a year in which Gostkowski handled all the kicks -- and ranked 12th in USA Today's national poll.

So Gostkowski, who also had missed a few kicks earlier in his senior season, was given the boot, called upon only for kickoffs and long field goal attempts.

``It hurt his feelings, which is tough for a 17- or 18-year-old guy," said Mike Justice, the team's coach that year. ``It wasn't that he couldn't kick, it was just a matter of him going through a tough time."

The performance cast uncertainty over much of Gostkowski's senior year. Many of the college football programs that had expressed interest with possible scholarships pulled back. Then, in the spring of 2002, Gostkowski helped pitch the baseball team to the state championship, finishing with an 8-2 record and a 1.40 earned run average, with a .395 batting average, three home runs, and 25 RBIs.

His heart was tugged in different directions. Would it be football or baseball?

``That was a tough period for him," recalled Cindy Gostkowski, ``because he didn't know what he wanted."

Had he completely walked away from football, the 22-year-old Gostkowski wouldn't be in the position he is today with the Patriots, replacing one of the greatest clutch kickers in NFL history, Adam Vinatieri. The irony is as thick as the humid air on a 102-degree summer day in Madison.

Gostkowski wasn't sold on kicking because it didn't feel important enough at times. Now he's landed with a team -- followed by a region of fans -- that might appreciate kicking more than any other because of what Vinatieri accomplished, such as helping deliver two Super Bowl championships with last-second kicks, and hitting arguably the greatest field goal in team history, a 45-yarder through the snow against the Raiders in the 2001 AFC divisional playoffs.

``The thing about why I wasn't too into kicking is that sometimes you're looked at as the worst athlete; I always felt like I was a decent athlete," said the 6-foot-1-inch, 210-pound Gostkowski. ``I had to suck in my pride. It's hard when people try to tell you that you can't do something, or you can only do this.

``I've definitely grown up over the years and gotten mentally to where I need to be as far as kicking. It's a very mental game."

There was a time when it looked as if Gostkowski was going to have his choice of colleges to attend. Rice, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State were among the serious suitors. Gostkowski had a box filled with recruiting letters from teams across the country.

He ended up at Memphis, receiving a partial scholarship for baseball and assurance from the team's baseball coach, current Los Angeles Dodgers minor league instructor Dave Anderson, that he could walk on to the football team.

Memphis football coach Tommy West remembers the first time he saw Gostkowski kick in practice. Gostkowski had kicked field goals off a tee in high school, but he had to do so off the ground in college.

``When he first got here, it was dangerous, you didn't stand in front of him when he was kicking field goals because he might take your head off with it," West said. ``He was about as erratic as anyone you'll ever see. But you knew the tools were there, it was just a matter of him developing a swing and consistently doing it."

West was forced to find out if Gostkowski could do it sooner than he wanted when Memphis's projected kicker, Patrick Byrne, suffered a slight groin pull. Instead of handling just kickoffs, Gostkowski earned the full-time job. His first successful field goal was from 50 yards in the 2002 season opener against Murray State.

Gostkowski went 9 of 14 on field goals that year, making 32 of 37 extra points as Memphis finished 3-9. At the time, he still wasn't sure kicking was for him. Some of those old thoughts about wanting to do more were resurfacing, and they intensified after he had a solid freshman baseball season at Memphis.

Had the football program not stepped forward with a full scholarship, he probably would have hung up his football cleats.

``I wasn't going to be a walk-on for four years," Gostkowski said. ``I felt like I had the ability, but wasn't really into it."

That changed at the end of his sophomore season, in which he hit all 44 extra-point attempts and went 19 of 29 on field goals. The year ended with a 42-yard field goal, with 2:26 remaining, to help Memphis beat North Texas in the New Orleans Bowl.

``It really started clicking toward the end of my sophomore year. That's when I really was getting into it, wanting to be one of the best," Gostkowski said. ``Kicking was something I was fortunate enough to have talent and excel at, but I wasn't really passionate about it until I started figuring out it was a pretty big deal.

``All these guys depend on me. If I'm only going to do it halfway, then don't do it."

His new outlook came at a time when West devoted a coach, Tyson Helton, specifically to work with Gostkowski. It was the first time Gostkowski had someone to monitor his mechanics, to stay on top of him each day while stressing the mental aspect of the job, which he believes is 95 percent of any kicker's challenge.

Gostkowski, who was tested at times by the swirling winds of the Liberty Bowl, capped off his career by hitting 42 of 49 field goal attempts over his junior and senior seasons, setting Memphis's record for career points with 369. His powerful right leg, which consistently delivered kickoffs into the end zone, attracted several NFL scouts and coaches to campus for private workouts. The Bears, Cowboys, Dolphins, Packers, and Patriots were some of the more interested teams, and the Patriots -- perhaps sensing one of those other clubs was ready to select Gostkowski -- drafted him in the fourth round, 118th overall.

That immediately made Gostkowski a favorite to replace Vinatieri, and capped what West felt was a steady rise at Memphis.

``I think the biggest thing is the improvement he made," West said. ``Most guys are really good players when you get them and he had tools, but he hadn't totally mentally and physically put it together when he got here. He developed himself into an outstanding kicker."

Gostkowski was prophetic when he sent a text message to his cousin this offseason, shortly after Vinatieri signed with the Colts. The two pondered the possibility of what it would be like for Gostkowski to become the Patriots' kicker.

Aware of the pressure Gostkowski could be facing, the Patriots gave him two choices for his jersey number -- 3 and 5. Vinatieri, of course, wore No. 4.

Gostkowski is off to a strong start, converting all nine of his exhibition field goal attempts (the longest from 54 yards) and all 11 extra points, while also excelling on kickoffs. But one of the questions left unanswered is how he will fare in the weather conditions Vinatieri had mastered. Gostkowski's primary experience in the cold came as a youngster in Buffalo, where he spent most of the first 10 years of his life and developed his toughness by playing after-school sports in a nearby parking lot. One day in a street hockey game, he fell on the ground and sheared off most of his two front teeth, earning him the nickname Beaver.

When Gostkowski's father, Larry, was relocated for work, the family moved to Madison, a beautiful suburb with a high school that was built in 1990. Not long after Gostkowski arrived at Madison Central High, he was approached about field goal kicking.

Justice, the Jaguars' football coach who has 266 career wins and now coaches in Alabama, went to soccer practice and asked if there was anyone interested. Gostkowski raised his hand, and the rest is history.

``I didn't set out to be a field goal kicker, it just kind of happened, fell in my lap," he said.

His experiences ultimately resulted in a young man who was hardened by his on-the-job experience, specifically the times when things didn't unfold as he hoped.

``I think that's the thing that will help him the most, because there's a lot of pressure in kicking," Cindy Gostkowski said. ``He has a good quality of letting go."

There are a few things Gostkowski hasn't been able to let go, one of which he's particularly thankful he didn't.

``I almost gave up on kicking two or three times in my career," he said. ``There were times I thought I was too proud to be in that kind of position, because I still felt I could be doing more. I'm glad I stuck with it."