Monday, November 25, 1996
FOOTBALL:
Fishing helps kicker keep cool and collected under pressureBy
Brent Boyd
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Senior place kicker Bjorn Merten faced the biggest kick of his
life Saturday, but all he could think about was … fishing?
Trailing 41-38 in the first overtime, Merten was sent in to
attempt a 40-yard field goal try. A kick on target would send the
game to another overtime. A miss, on the other hand, would equate
to a Bruin loss and the end of a collegiate career.
But head coach Bob Toledo planned ahead for such a
situation.
Back in August, Toledo told Merten that sometime this season
there would be a time where Merten was going to have to kick the
winning field goal.
"I (told Merten) ‘I’m going to pull you off to the side because
they are going to call a time-out and we are going to talk about a
fishing trip (that the two are planning),’" Toledo said. "And
that’s what we did (Saturday) Â talk about the fishing
trip."
Toledo turned out to be a prophet. The plan worked out to
perfection. Trying to ice Merten before his game-tying field goal,
USC called a time-out immediately before he was to kick.
The plan backfired for Troy.
"I think it really did (help that they called a timeout),"
Merten said. "It allowed me to take my time, relax, and focus on
what I had to do instead of worrying about getting set up. It gave
me extra time to look at my aiming points and just go with my
kick."
Earlier in the game, after hurrying onto the field and rushing
his attempt, Merten missed a 52-yard field goal try.
But, this time he was able to relax.
"It was unbelievable how calm I was," he added. "I couldn’t
believe it. I was sitting there going ‘why aren’t I nervous?’"
Toledo helped by mentioning the upcoming fishing trip.
"I said ‘Don’t worry about (the field goal), picture yourself
fishing," Toledo said. "He’s out there, he loves to trout fish and
he did just that for awhile, and then he went out there and kicked
the field goal."
The kick put an exclamation point on a career that has been a
rocky one for Merten. He earned first-team All-American status as a
freshman, but connected on only 22-of-38 attempts the next two
seasons. But this season, he reverted back to freshman form,
hitting on 14 of 19 field goal attempts.
"This year has been totally amazing for me," Merten said. "The
fans didn’t like me much, the media was all over me, the preseason
books said I was horrible. And to come back and have a great senior
year like this is totally amazing.
"If I never play a down of football again in my life, I’ll know
that you’ve got to not worry about what other people say about you,
and just think about you."
As for the fishing trip, he won’t give out any secrets. "It’s a
secret stream in California," he said. "I just don’t want anyone to
know about it."
Think he’ll be forgiven? A game-saving field goal against USC
may just be enough to forgive anything.
Click here for a color photoessay of the game at the
Sportszone
SUSIE CHU/Daily Bruin
Skip Hicks runs for the winning touchdown in the second overtime
period of UCLA’s 48-41 comeback victory over USC.SUSIE CHU/Daily
Bruin
Bjorn Merten (r.) gets a pre-kicking pep talk from Bob
Toledo.