COURTNEY STEWART/Daily Bruin Nate Fikse,
UCLA’s punter, takes a moment from his day to reflect on his
practice.
By Scott Bair
Daily Bruin Reporter
Nate Fikse is bored. He’s really bored almost every day.
The weird thing is that he bores himself voluntarily.
Fikse, UCLA’s punter and kickoff specialist, stands around
during football practice and entertains himself. While everyone
else on the team is occupied, Fikse plays one of the many
technique-enhancing games he has made up for himself while waiting
for his name to be called.
When it is finally called, Fikse goes to work.
Fikse goes through a rhythmic, systematic approach that he takes
before every play he’s involved in. He cycles through the
same warm-up exercises and routines before every punt.
Once he is in punting position, the ball goes from the long
snapper’s hands to his own in .8 seconds. Fikse then has
another 1.4 seconds to get the ball in the air to avoid the
oncoming rush. From there, the ball goes into the air, and with
Fikse’s talent, it goes a long way. The ball normally travels
an average of 44 yards, but it has traveled as far 76 off of his
powerful leg.
“The drop technique that gets the ball from the hands to
the foot is the key to being a good punter, and Nate is as
consistently good as it gets,” kicking coach Ron Caragher
said.
Fikse does one thing so well and so consistently that he has
become one of the best punters in college football.
But punting is about the only thing that Fikse does with any
type of consistency. He can’t even stay with the same hair
color for too long. Whether it is dying his hair (which is
currently jet black), growing sideburns, piercing his ears, or
adding to his large collection of tattoos, Fikse is constantly
changing his image.
“Sometimes he’ll come home with baggy shorts and a
punk rock shirt, and other times he’ll come home wearing
cowboy boots,” Fikse’s roommate, cornerback Ricky
Manning, Jr. said. “He’s done those types of things for
as long as I’ve known him. No matter how many times he does
it, he never ceases to surprise me.”
When Fikse is walking around in street clothes, he looks more
like a skateboarder than a football player. In reality, Fikse is a
punk rock kid stuck in shoulder pads. The 5-foot-9 self-proclaimed
“sports punk” is unlike anyone else on the UCLA
football team.
“The guys know I’m weird, and I’ll admit,
I’m a weird guy,” Fikse said. “They used to
always ask me, “˜What the hell is wrong with you, why
can’t you just be normal?’ My answer is simple.
Changing things up is just an aspect of my life. It allows me to be
myself.”
Fikse is himself when he’s active. That’s why
practice is so excruciatingly boring for him. He could leave the
practice field, but doesn’t want to separate himself from his
teammates more than the nature of his position already does. So
Fikse stays on the field and throws the ball around with long
snapper Jeff Grau, uses a football as a spring, or does cartwheels
around the field to keep him from going insane when he’s not
involved in the practice.
Punters do not receive the same accolades and publicity that the
other skill positions do. But that does not mean that Fikse
hasn’t gotten his share of attention, with his combination of
on-the-field skill and atypical off-the-field behavior.
This behavior begins with Fikse’s physical reinvention
process, which occurs every six months or so. Only someone with
this kind of attitude could play soccer for 15 years, win high
school All-American honors, and then just walk away from it to play
football. Sometimes Fikse will do something drastic for himself
like playing football, and other times he does smaller things to
see how people react. Fikse’s physical renovations are often
a silent challenge to the stereotypes that people carry regarding
athletes.
“I hate it when people judge me based upon their own norms
and values,” Fikse said. “I’m not normal, but
then again what is normal?”
Fikse also spoke about his unusual, unshakable addiction to
tattoos. He currently has nine different tattoos and has plans to
add to his collection. Whether it is the Chinese circle of
friendship on his chest or his Netherlands family crest on his
shoulder blade, all nine represent an aspect or stage of
Fikse’s life.
On the other hand, they also provide Fikse’s fix of
adrenaline. He gave up skateboarding and surfing to focus on
football, so getting a tattoo is the safest way to live on the edge
without getting injured in the process.
“It’s like the feeling I get right before a big
game,” Fikse said. “You get all nervous, you get sweaty
palms, and your heart starts pounding when you hear the machine go
on. It’s kind of exciting.”
Fikse will show up in the box score of next week’s big
game against Stanford as the punter, but don’t expect to find
out everything there is to know about Fikse by how well he punts a
football.
Let his tattoos tell the story instead.