Archdeacon: ‘Hefty Lefty’ has explosive foot for Dayton Flyers

It was 4th-and-9 from the RMU 35-yard line, which meant his attempt would be a whopping 53 yards.

Webster’s parents, Mark and Liz, were in the stands with other family members and friends. Mark had his video camera trained on his son.

Behind them, the UD fan saw the unconventional-looking kicker, who’s now listed on the roster as 5-foot-10 and 265 pounds — “he looks like a guard out there,” said Flyers coach Rick Chamberlin — and feared he was watching failure in the making.

“I don’t think the guy wanted us to go for it,” Webster laughed. “He probably thought it was stupid. If I missed, it would give them the ball in great field position.

“On the video you can hear him screaming in the background: ‘You know this is a 50-somethng yarder, right?!!!’

“And my whole family screams back, ‘Right!’

“And, sure enough, I made it.”

By the way, the Flyers ended up winning that day by a three-point margin, 34-31.

Chamberlin understands the fan’s misread: “I’m sure some people, the first time they see Sam, they might chuckle a little bit because of his physique. He doesn’t have the build of typical kicker.

“But it’s like that old saying: ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover.’

“It’s like that with everything in life. You give a person a chance to show what they can do. And the thing that struck me right off with Sam was what you heard when the ball came off his foot. You heard the explosion. It was power.

“Right off, you know that’s a strong leg. That this kid can really kick!’”

That’s the way it’s gone for Webster throughout his brief kicking career.

Until his junior year at Revere High in northeast Ohio, he was known strictly as a soccer player and dreamed one day of playing college soccer, just as two of his uncles had for the Dayton Flyers.

A high school friend who played both sports convinced him to at least try kicking a football and when he did, Webster said, “It went well.”

Webster played both sports as a junior and senior, was named a first-team All-Ohio kicker and made a real name for himself when he kicked a 67-yard field goal at a camp in Michigan. The effort also was caught on camera by his dad and Webster now has that video pinned at the top of his Twitter page.

It has over 5,200 views.

The longest field goal in an NFL game was 64 yards by Denver’s Matt Prater in 2013.

Webster said before every UD game — and that will include today’s Pioneer Football League opener against Presbyterian at Welcome Stadium at 1 p.m. — he watches that video just to see how he did it and to get himself pumped up, knowing what he’s capable of doing.

In 2019, he made 8 of his 9 field goal attempts for UD, 58 of 60 extra point attempts and won second team All-PFL honors.

The 2020 season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. and this year he made a 31-yard field goal in the opener against Eastern Illinois and last Saturday he provided about the only bright spot in a 55-3 rout at Southern Illinois.

Although his first attempt was blocked, he nailed the next try from 28 yards. That kept alive the Flyers’ NCAA-best 489-game streak without a shutout.

Where he wants to be

Webster said he’s the eighth member of his family to go to UD. Both his parents — Mark’s from Centerville, Liz (Smola) from Brecksville — are Dayton grads. His paternal grandfather went here too, as did his dad’s three brothers and his mom’s younger brother.

“As a kid I visited UD many times,” he said. “My club soccer team would play at Old River and afterward we’d stop by campus. I remember going to some UD soccer games with some of my dad’s college buddies. So I loved it around Dayton.”

As a young soccer player he said he sometimes was called “Tank,” and later when he began to boom kicks, he said football coaches called him “Legatron.”

But because Webster hadn’t started playing the sport until his junior year, he wasn’t heavily recruited. A few Power 5 schools — including Maryland and Washington State  — showed interest in him as a walk-on and the University of Albany, an FCS school in New York, brought him in for a visit.

UD was in need of a kicker and began to recruit him.

Interestingly, Webster said after his first visit in the recruiting process he said: “I couldn’t see myself at UD. I kind of wanted to go do my own thing rather than just follow what the rest of my family did.

“But then I came back for a game-day visit and I knew right off: ‘This is where I want to be.’

“I love the atmosphere. It’s a great school and has a good football program. And I love the people here. The 120 or so guys on our team are all my brothers.”

How he got healthy

While the cancellation of the 2020 season was a blow to everyone else, Webster admitted it was “a blessing in disguise” for him.

He had to undergo his second hip surgery of the past few years and he knew it would lay him up almost eight months. With the season mothballed, he had time to rehab and not miss a college game.

“I’ve torn both of my hip labrums” he explained. “After my junior year in high school, I tore the right one, and at the start of 2020, I needed surgery on my left one.

“They hooked a lot of little metal posts — they’re maybe an inch or so long — to my pelvis and then they wrapped the muscles around them. It keeps them tight so it doesn’t happen again.

“But about four months ago, I think I tore the capsule again, so I feel it.”

When Webster was recovering from surgery last year, Chamberlin admits he was “worried.”

When he was a star linebacker for the Flyers in the mid-1970s, Chamberlin’s roommate for two years was kicker Hartmut Strecker, who set the UD record with a 59-yard field goal against Iowa State in 1977.

“I thought he was the strongest kicker we ever had,” Chamberlin said. “He signed with the Dallas Cowboys as a free agent, but during exhibition season he hurt his hip and was released. Seattle picked him up, but I talked to one of their scouts — I was already coaching then — and he said Hartmut just wasn’t the same kicker they had seen in Dallas. After he hurt his hip, he wasn’t the same.

“I worried about Sam for the same reason, but the medical technology is so advanced since the ‘70s and Sam worked hard (Sam said he now weighs closer to 240) and came back strong.

“When he kicks, the sound of his ball has not changed at all. He’s still powerful.”

Webster was a preseason, first-team All-PFL pick this year, but admits the buildup hasn’t made for marquee status on campus.

“Nope, nobody knows me,” he laughed. “Every once in a while a teacher may say something, but otherwise I’m just a regular student. I’m pretty much a nobody.”

But like Chamberlin said, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

Sam Webster is “Tank.”

He’s “Legatron.”

He is the “Hefty Lefty.”