Yesterday I wrote a blog about Bill Renner’s resume and now I want to tell you how Bill became, and is, one of the
premier kicking and punting coaches in the country.
In high school, Bill lettered in five different sports and was a successful running back, punter, and kicker for the football team in Springfield, Virginia.
Out of high school, he signed a full scholarship with Virginia Tech. He was a running back and defensive end in his early college career, but was advised against further physical contact after suffering some concussions.
Bill loved football, and knew he couldn’t just quit the game. And though it wasn’t an easy decision, he decided to focus all his time into punting. Being the athlete he is, he was able to win the
starting punting job.
Bill finished at Virginia Tech in five years and was on the All Academic team and got his Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology. His thesis for his Masters was on punting
“Selected Physical Performance Factors and Football Punting Ability” on what makes the ball go high and far.
Over the next six years Bill took the
path of a free agent kicking specialist.
From 1983-1988 he was in NFL training camps with the New York Jets, Chicago Bears, and Vikings and in 1986 he finished the season as the punter for the Green Bay Packers.
Bill has always prided himself on being more than just a
kicking specialist and during his time on NFL teams, he was also made it a point to learn more about the game of football while he was actually playing the game.
While he was in camp as a
free agent punter, he would sit in on meetings with Defensive Coordinator Buddy Ryan of the Chicago Bears. He also learned a great deal from conversations with, and observations of, Tom Coughlin, head coach of the New York Giants, who was an NFL assistant coach at the time.
After six long years as a
free agent punter he decided it was time to transition to the next phase of his life; that of being a coach. Bill was hired at Tazewell High School in Virginia as an Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator. He became a head coach in 1989.
Over a 20 year period, Bill would be a head coach at 3 different high schools in Virginia, and would become the All Time Winningest Coach at two of the three schools.
During this time he also started his own kicking business called
4th Down Sports where he held
kicking camps for kickers from across the country. The camps were very successful and many of his students went on to have successful college careers.
Due to this success, Bill was asked to conduct an
NFL training camp. In one of his NFL camp he had
Neil Rackers, Shayne Graham, and Josh Brown as well as many other NFL punters who are still playing today.
His
kicking business was at an all time high, but he was presented a dilemma. His
kicking consulting was conflicting with his high school coaching. Also, his son Bryn (pictured above) was about to be the starting quarterback for his team. Bill knew he was at a crossroads in his professional life and decided to stick with high school coaching. He scaled back on his
kicking consulting and focused on his high school team and his son.
Over the next few years his high school team made an impressive run and won two District Championships.
His son took the team to new heights and was selected to the prestigious Elite 11 Quarterback Camp. All of his son’s successes culminated in a full scholarship at the University of North Carolina where he is expected to be the starting quarterback next year.
Also, his two starting kickers during this time,
Tyler Bitancurt (pictured below) and
Josh Czjakowski, went on to full scholarships at West Virginia and NC State.
Now that Bill’s son is a redshirt freshman at North Carolina, he accepted the head coaching job at East Chapel Hill High School so that he could be closer to his son.
Bill has decided limit the amount of time he spends as a
kicking consultant. But because his passion for the game and because his desire to help kickers become better, still burns as strong as ever, Bill has created a series of
training manuals for kickers and punters.
Using the knowledge he developed from his Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology, his first book and his 30 years of experience either playing or coaching, Bill has built a series of workbooks for kicking specialists which gives them a specific schedule of how to train.
The training is detailed as how many balls to kick, what kicking drills to do, and the proper lifts to help a kicking specialist become more explosive.
This is the training program I will be following in hopes of making a professional team.
Bill and I believe it will be a great test to take his training, apply it to my skills, and track my progress everyday on my blogs.
Not only do I think this will be a fascinating way for me to track my progress while pursuing my goal, I also think it will be a very interesting an opportunity for other
kicking specialists to watch how Bill’s training program actually impacts a
kicking specialist in real time.
I only hope I can do his training program justice. I know I am going to give it my best.
So tomorrow, I’ll talk more about his training program and how I plan to incorporate it into my daily effort, while pursuing my
goal of playing professional football.
On Day 5 of my Specialists Path I worked on kicking from the right hash on field goals.
Since Akers is left footed he has more trouble from the left hash and unfortunately his two missed field goals factored in to the Eagles loss to the Packers.
