Nick Stoico
Prof. Sue Hertz
ENGL 622
Brad Prasky Profile
10/16/2013
The Natural
Brad Prasky and his rise to the top
His hands are dry. Too
dry to catch the ball on the snap and handle it properly for the drop.
So he licks his hands.
Right, left, right and then smacks them together. He shakes out his legs and
licks his hands one more time. It’s the same routine each time Brad Prasky
steps on the field with the special teams unit. He puts his hands out in front
of him, slightly above waist height and calls out, signifying he is ready.
The long snapper digs his
feet into the turf and suddenly whips the ball back through his legs 15 yards
to where Prasky is waiting. The opposing Rhode Island Rams across the line of scrimmage
charge. Pads smack, helmets crack as the blockers engage with the giant
defensive linemen.
Prasky has less than
three seconds to get the ball, drop it and boot the brown lemon down the field
before a swarm of light blue and white converges him on.
The ball hits hands, the
moisture sinking into the leather and he turns the ball laces up so quickly no
would notice. Prasky steps forward; one, two, kick! The football shoots up and
moves downfield, spiraling on a diagonal axis. The ball sails 29 yards across
the field and lands in the hands of the Rhode Island receiver, who downs it at
the 17-yard line.
The fact that the ball
landed inside the 20-yard line is satisfying for spectators, but Prasky knows
down to the tee what went wrong and what went right with the kick.
He walks off the field
and is greeted with a unique high-five from UNH placekicker Mike MacArthur, his
fellow comrade in the kicking game.
Prasky finds a spot on
the sideline and watches the game continue, awaiting to be called upon again to
perform his service.
Prasky is one of the top
punters in the nation and has been recognized with honors such as the CAA
Special Teams Player of the Week and the Sports Network Special Teams Player of
the Week. He currently leads the conference in average punt distance (43.8
yards) and seven punts within the opponent’s 20-yard line. Not bad for kid who
started playing football as a sophomore in high school. Prasky’s success stands
on a foundation comprising several key aspects including his driven determination
to be the absolute best and a chance encounter that made all the difference in
his life.
At six-foot-one and 191
pounds, Prasky has slim and tall body with a long and clean-shaven face. At
first glance, he may not look like a football player, but then what does a
football player necessarily have to look like?
Prasky may seem like the
odd man out when standing alongside the big and burly linemen that watch his
back as he boots the pigskin 55 yards down the field. He looks like something
Seamus O’Neil and Mike Coccia might have for supper. But his role on the team
is critical and head coach Sean McDonnell is happy to have one of the best
punters in the nation wearing UNH blue and silver.
Finding football
Prasky’s parents didn’t
want their son to play football at first. Although he is a well-built college
athlete now, Prasky was a tall and skinny high school kid weighing around 160
pounds – not exactly the prototype for a football player. But by the time he
was a sophomore, Prasky was able to convince his parents to let him throw on
the shoulder pads and try the game out.
The only problem was
Prasky’s high school, Groton-Dunstable Regional High School, did not have a
football program. The idea of starting a program at the school had been a topic
in town council debates, but as it stood, Prasky and other Groton-Dunstable
students would have to play on the Ayer, Mass. high school team a town over.
Although Prasky was a
sophomore, he played on the freshman team at Ayer because he had not played
football before. Freshman football is a period where every player finds their
niche on the team; what position fits them best. Prasky had always been good at
kicking, “for some reason,” he said, and the day before the first freshman game
in the fall of 2007, the coaches had the kids line up to take turns punting and
see who would be good enough to do the job the next day.
“Every kid lined up and I
went up and kicked it and I was actually good at it,” Prasky said.
Just how good he was
didn’t hit Prasky until the following Monday when the junior varsity game came
around and he was informed by coaches he would be punting in that game as well.
“I wasn’t expecting to
get any action,” Prasky said.
Between Prasky’s
sophomore and junior year of high school, a resolution was found and his home
school was able to get a team together.
According to a Boston
Globe article from Feb. 29, 2008, the issue that was keeping football from
Groton-Dunstable Regional was funding. A proposal to use local taxpayer’s money
to fund the program was denied and sports boosters in the community decided to
take matters into their own hands.
Fundraising efforts by
community members brought the program enough money to start the program (about
$70,000 according to a Boston Globe article published Sept. 25, 2008) and the
Groton-Dunstable Crusaders football team was born.
After a year of playing
on the freshman team at Ayer high school, Prasky was finally able to play for
his hometown.
The spiral
Punting is not just
kicking the ball as hard as possible and hoping it lands inbounds. That may be
how it is done in the schoolyard, but for a serious player, strategy plays a
substantial role.
If the offense is backed
up into its own endzone, the punter wants to send the ball deep, of course. But
if the punting unit is lining up on, say, the opposing team’s 40-yard line,
accuracy plays a much larger role in how the punter will kick. In this case,
the punter is hoping for the ball to land deep near the opponent’s endzone, but
the ball cannot bounce into that endzone or else the opponent’s offense starts
their drive from their own 20-yard line. Ideally, that punter wants the ball to
land and settle inside the 20.
By the time he was able
to dawn his hometown colors for the first time, Prasky had already bought into
his newfound talent. Working with coaches throughout his high school career,
Prasky improved his punting skills. With help from his high school teacher Colin
Murphy, who was also a football kicker, Prasky learned the key element to
punting: the spiral.
Mastering a consistent
spiral on the punt is the key to having command of the ball.
Once Prasky developed his
kicking motion to send the ball into a spiral, he gained a more significant
amount of control where the ball went and how it landed.
“Someone at one point was
like ‘If you get better at this, you could go Division-I,’” Prasky said. “I was
like, ‘no there is no way. Only the best guys go Division-I.’”
The call
In 2009-10, Prasky
participated in the National Camp Series, a national competition and combine
for high school football players trying to move to the college level.
Prasky, a native of
Graton, Mass. had competed in the regional round in Boston and then moved on to
the semifinals in Aberdeen, N.J. Prasky made it all the way to the finals in
Tampa, FL where his final score was good enough for 18th place in
the punting competition.
As he settled into his
seat on the plane returning to Massachusetts that January of 2010, a man
walking down the aisle noticed the t-shirt Prasky had on. The man, whose name
was Jack, was a coworker and friend of Jenny McDonnell, wife of the UNH
football head coach. Jack immediately took an interest in Prasky, asking the
17-year-old about how he did in the competition as well as which colleges he
was looking at.
Jack, who has since
passed away, took Prasky’s contact information and went on his way.
When Jenny McDonnell got
word about this kid from her friend, she notified her husband. Three weeks
after the combine, Sean McDonnell decided he would give Prasky a call.
“As most things in my
life, Jenny tells me I better follow up on something and I did,” McDonnell
said.
The McDonnells were
driving through northern New Hampshire near the White Mountains when the coach
pulled out his phone and made the call.
“It was pretty neat,”
McDonnell said. “I called him up and he thought I was kidding him, thought I
was one of his buddies and I told him ‘No, this is really coach McDonnell from
New Hampshire.’”
When Prasky thinks back
to the phone call he received from McDonnell, he laughs and recalls how he
thought it was just a joke.
“I was pretty taken aback because I didn’t
know who it was,” Prasky said. “It’s a guy calling up and he’s a pretty
assertive guy. He’s like ‘Hey Brad, its coach Mac from the University of New
Hampshire.’ At this point, I’m thinking like ‘Wow, he’s calling me up
already.’”
Prasky noted that when he
got the call he could hear Jenny McDonnell in the background exclaiming, “It’s
fate! It’s fate!”
Fate may be the perfect
word to describe it.
A week later, Prasky arrived
in Durham for a tour of the campus and a visit to the football offices at
Cowell Stadium. Another week after that, Prasky made the commitment to attend
UNH in the fall.
Prasky redshirted during
the 2010 season to tune up his skills and improve his overall strength and
fitness. With an extra year of eligibility, Prasky is currently a junior
although he is in his fourth year of college. Prasky didn’t see the field his
freshman year (2011), punting only three times in the annual Blue-White
scrimmage.
It wasn’t until the 2012
when Prasky started to play a minor role for the team. MacArthur, a good friend
of Prasky, was the punter for most of the season while Prasky continued to
train and be eased into game situations.
Prasky punted nine times
in four games for a total of 333 yards in the 2012 regular season. He started
against Georgia State on Oct. 6, 2012 and then got the nod to start the NCAA
second-round playoff game against Wofford. He punted six times for 206 yards in
the game that ended up being the last for the 2012 Wildcats.
The 2013 season has been
Prasky’s. While MacArthur is responsible for kickoffs and field goals, Prasky
has filled the role of starting punter.
The hunt for perfection
Prasky was not satisfied
with how the 2012 season ended against Wofford. He did not play to the standard
he held for himself, which motivated him to focus more in the offseason.
“I knew that wasn’t the
punter I wanted to be,” Prasky said. “I didn’t just want to be the starting
punter. That was not the final destination… I’m really working towards being
the best.”
Summer 2013 was a
different one for Prasky. He opted to stay in Durham and train with teammates
and coaches rather than head back to Groton. Prasky, an economics major, said
he had an internship set up at home that he always returned to in the summer.
But this time, he wanted to put everything he had into football.
“I’m coming to my last
couple seasons here and I really wanted to give it all I could put in,” Prasky
said. “I always think of it as in the future, whether I am talking to my kids
or when I am talking to people who are interested in the subject, what I do
want to be able to tell them? Do I want to be able to tell them that I did
everything I could? That I worked as hard as I could to be the best player I
could be? Or be able to just tell them I had a good experience? So I decided to
stay up here.”
Prasky spent the summer
working out and lifting with the team then watching film and tweaking his
craft. On the field, Prasky set up his iPad on the turf to catch film of his
kicking motion and then study the film.
Through summer, he
prepared for camp when the entire team would return to Durham in August and
begin practicing for the fall season.
“As the summer progressed
and it got more and more closer to camp,” Prasky said. “[I tried] to simulate
what camp would be like and [kicked] almost everyday of the week. Although I
may be kicking well in the summer, you hit a lot of mental roadblocks in the
fall and in camp… You’re kicking day in and day out and it’s very easy to hit a
couple kinks in the road if it is something you are doing all day everyday.”
Kicking in football is
similar to golf or even pitching in baseball; the same motion each time with a
tweak here or there for a slightly different result. One small misstep or
delicate fault can drive Prasky insane to the point where he is a
self-described “headcase.”
“It’s kind of like this
hunt for perfection,” Prasky said. “You see your best punts, like in other
sports with golf shots or pitching [a baseball] and you know what you can do
and it is something that you want to do every time. What really sets the good
punters from the great punters is that the great punters can do it almost every
time and they can be counted on.”
Prasky’s hunt for
perfection is not a lonely journey. Prasky points to MacArthur as one of his
influences in his work ethic and team leadership. The two have competed for the
punting role on the team over the last few years and that competition has
driven Prasky.
“Watching him and the
level of competiveness and how good he is at what he does… People look up to
him,” Prasky said. “I think my competition with him has helped me as a player.
I really wanted to be a good kicker like him and I had to excel.”
Punting was not the only
skill Prasky he found in himself. He actually placed higher in the field goal
competition at the National Camp Series finals. Placekicking is not kind to
Prasky’s body, which he describes as “almost too flexible.”
“The guys sometimes make
fun of me when I do field goals because my heel kicks the back of my numbers
because it just goes way to far back,” Prasky said.
His enhanced flexibility
is not necessarily a blessing, but more of a curse. Prasky has run into many
roadblocks throughout his career with lower body injuries from kicking.
Placekicking requires a leg and body motion different than what is done when
punting. This motion puts more stress on the leg and has caused several quad
pulls in Prasky’s leg.
In eighth grade, Prasky actually
broke his hip while casually kicking a football.
“My leg [went] back too
far and [broke] a chunk of bone right off my hip,” Prasky said.
So, no more field goals?
“No, punting is treating
me okay right now,” Prasky said with a laugh.
With the history of
pulled muscles, Prasky has explored several different stretching methods and
equipment to stay loose.
“I’m the guy on all of
our road trips [who] brings the PVC pipe and rollers,” Prasky said. “I am
always trying to find the next best thing to roll out and stretch better.”
UNH will be able to enjoy
Prasky’s talents for a little while longer before he graduates next year. Until
then, Prasky will continue to work towards his main goal, which is simply to
look back on his football career and say he put everything he had into it.
“I don’t want any
regrets.”
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