Specialist's Path Stephen Stansell

As I traveled across the state of Tennessee this Summer doing kicking lessons, I worked with the majority of the top college and high school kickers in the state of Tennessee. As I worked with talented kickers at places like MTSU and Carson Newman I began to wonder who was the best kicker that currently kicks in the state of Tennessee? Outside of Rob Bironas, you can make the argument that Austin Peay kicker Stephen Stansell should be at the top of that list.

Stephen has always been a talented kicker but he really seems to be hitting his stride this year. He was just recently named Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Week for this 4 field goal performance against Tennessee State University.

In this blog you will learn how Stephen became interested in kicking and how he decided on Austin Peay State University.

This is Stephen Stansell On ‘A Specialists Path’.

Like most kickers Stephen started becoming interested in kicking after starting out in soccer.

“I have played soccer since I was four years old and always naturally had a strong leg”, Stephen said. “I decided I wanted to kick my eighth grade year. My brother was playing for the high school that I would be playing at and his best friend was the kicker at the time and was graduating. Jared Price was the kicker and I have always wanted to follow his footsteps so I decided I wanted to be a kicker like him.”

Stephen played high school ball at McMinn County, which has had a great history of talented kicking specialists including former Georgia kicker Andy Bailey and now current junior punter Conar Roberts. The kicking history at his school along with many other factors has led to his success as a kicker.

“My biggest influences were first of all my family”, Stephen said. “They always supported me. They took me to camps and took me to work with kicking coaches and they never missed any of my games. This is not only my parents, but my brother, aunts and uncles, and my grandparents. So they were always a positive influence on me.”

“Andy Bailey was another influence I had”, Stephen said. “Andy kicked at my high school and received a full ride scholarship to the University of Georgia. He would occasionally come back to the high school and work with the kickers and give us some advice.”
Stephen went to numerous camps in high school and worked with a few kicking coaches including Marc Feuerbach from Georgia. He credits Marc for much of his kicking development in high school along with helping him as a mentor. Marc is now a high school principal in Georgia.

“Marc Feuerbach was the kicking coach I worked with me junior and senior year of high school”, Stephen said. “He helped me get to where I am from the football aspect and the spiritual aspect.”

Stephen has also had other mentors that have helped lead him on his path.

“Another huge influence on me was Brad Bennett”, Stephen said.” “Brad was a football coach at my high school and a gym teacher. I would talk to him everyday because he was my coach and my teacher. He changed my whole life around spiritually. He was a strong mentor to me and still to this day is. Without him I doubt my life would be how it is today.”

Stephen was an All Conference player for four years at McMinn County but he still went fairly unnoticed in the recruiting process. I became aware of him after some people were talking about his performance in upsetting top ranked Dobyns-Bennett in the first round of the 2008 playoffs. Even with his high school success, the major Division 1 offers just didn’t seem to materialize for him.

“The recruiting process was a different experience for me”, Stephen said.” “I didn’t know the steps on how to get recruited or what I needed to do. I made a lot of highlight DVDs and sent them out to many different coaches. I never heard any feedback from any schools except Austin Peay.”

This is not uncommon for kickers and punters to go unnoticed as that is the last position that most football coaches will recruit and offer scholarships.

“I was open to any school if it was division 1 because I thought I could play Division 1 ball”, Stephen said.” “The only thing I knew to do was to pray about it and trust that God would lead me to the school he had planned for my future.”

“So by December Austin Peay was still the only school I had talked to so I committed”, Stephen said. “Signing day was in February and I signed on a Wednesday. Exactly one week before I signed I received many phone calls from the University of Memphis coach and he was talking to me about being a kick off guy and compete for that job. Along with Memphis, University of Nevada called my kicking coach and was interested. A little bit of contact was made with Georgia also, but all of these schools wanted me as a walk on kick off guy. So I continued to pray about it and I knew Austin Peay was the place I was being led to go so I signed with APSU on signing day in 2009.”

Stephen had solid freshman year at Austin Peay making 9 of 15 field goals and added four touchbacks last year but he was not completely satisfied with his performance because he has aspirations to make the NFL.

After this past season Stephen and I began to work together. He booked lessons in Chattanooga with me in June and once I saw him kick I knew that he had serious talent. What I also knew though was that he needed a lot of work to reach his potential.

He had some issues with his kicking mechanics which had led to some injuries last season and they also were leading to some inconsistencies. Stephen was already very talented but what I was most impressed with was how willing he was to learn and improve. He came to me with an open mind and was determined to be the best. We did 5 lessons over the Summer and I could see improvement after each lesson.

The final lesson I conducted with him was over at Austin Peay and we worked on game-like situations to prepare him for the season. His hard work and dedication has certainly paid off as he is 7 of 8 on field goals and already has 5 touchbacks on the season! His only miss was a 46 yard goal last week against MTSU.

Stephen has had great success so far this year but that is certainly not going to his head.

“My goals for kicking is to first of all have fun all the time and never get to the point where kicking is no longer fun for me”, Stephen said. “I plan to help my team in every way possible and make us as a team better. I plan to use my ability to kick to glorify God and nothing else. My dream is to kick in the NFL and this is what I will try to do if given the opportunity. I plan on being the best kicker that I can physically and mentally be.”

Stephen is certainly on the right track to get an opportunity for the NFL and if he is not the best kicker in the state of Tennessee right now than he certainly has a great shot to be over the next two and half years of his college career!

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