Beck finding new life

KU kicker leaving last year's struggles behind

Johnny Beck worked in triple-digit temperatures this summer in hopes of putting a nightmarish sophomore season behind him.

Extreme heat would have been better than what greeted Kansas University’s junior kicker last Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

“I hate the rain,” Beck said. “It’s never fun.”

Northwestern defeated Kansas, 28-20, in a steady rain. The wet conditions made life difficult for long snappers, holders and kickers — both teams missed 20-yard field-goal attempts.

KU snapper Tony Coker and holder Curtis Ansel had their moments with the wet ball. Coker skipped his snap to Ansel on the missed field goal, and Ansel later bobbled the ball on an extra-point attempt that would have tied the game in the fourth quarter.

“Northwestern had to operate in the rain as well,” KU coach Mark Mangino said. “We’ve got to snap the ball no matter what the conditions are, whether it is snowing and 20 degrees, 60 degrees in a downpour or a 110 degrees and the sun is out. We have to be able to execute in all conditions.”

Not that Beck was pointing fingers.

Not this year.

New attitude

Kansas University kicker Johnny Beck boots a field goal in the Jayhawks' 45-3 loss to Iowa State in their 2002 season opener. Beck, who struggled mightily last season, has a revamped attitude and hopes to improve in 2003.

Mangino stood by Beck last year when the sophomore — a preseason candidate for the Lou Groza Award — struggled. But the kicker wound up in the coach’s doghouse when he started blaming others for a lengthy slump.

“He has matured a lot,” Mangino said. “Last year if he missed a kick, his arms would be flapping and he would mope around. He would yell at the holder and yell at the deep snapper, but this year he’s not. He understands that everyone is doing their best and he has to do the best he can.”

Scott Webb, a freshman from Tulsa, Okla., was brought in to give KU insurance in case Beck couldn’t regain the form he showed as a freshman. He made 14-of-20 field goals and 16-of-17 extra points in 2001.

Mangino would like Webb to take a red-shirt year, but the coach won’t suffer through another year like 2002, when Beck made 7 of 17 field goals and 23 of 27 extra points.

“We have to see what the season brings,” Mangino said. “If we could go a whole season and not have to use him I think it would be a plus for us to have a guy like him for four more seasons. If we need to use him, he is ready and we will.”

The drought

Kansas didn’t have a kicker who could beat out Beck last year, though he missed eight straight field goal attempts in a five-game stretch.

“If you go out there and you miss eight straight kicks, there’s not much you can think about except, ‘I hope I don’t miss another one,'” Beck said.

Against Baylor, Beck missed a 34-yard field goal and an extra point in a three-point loss. The drought was unlike anything he had experienced as a football and baseball player at Kansas City Piper High.

“You’re just like, ‘What is going on? What did I do wrong as a child? What is God doing to me?’ I go out there to practice and hit from 50, 55 yards, come in and hit from 20 yards and not have a problem,” Beck said. “It’s like the littlest things that could go wrong would go wrong.”

And it snowballed.

Beck lost his kickoff duties to Chris Tyrrell, was mocked in KU’s student newspaper and saw his team’s confidence in him shaken.

His streak finally ended when he made 2 of 3 field-goal attempts in the season finale against Oklahoma State.

A clean slate

It didn’t take Beck long to get over his sophomore slump.

“I think it happened right after the season,” he said. “You look back and think, ‘Wow. You can’t hit extra points. You can’t hit field goals. What can you do?’ You don’t laugh it off, but you do laugh and think, ‘That’s no my potential. That’s not what I can do.'”

Beck appeared to regain his old form during spring drills. In June, he was a counselor at Ohio State’s kicking camp.

He also has had some counseling of his own. Two former Youngstown State kickers — St. Louis Rams kicker Jeff Wilkins and former NFL kicker Paul McFadden — ran the camp, and Ohio State All-American Mike Nugent also was a counselor.

“They all knew exactly where I was coming from,” Beck said. “They’ve all been there. It was good to go there and get their side of the story. It’s not like I’ve lost everything. It’s a confidence thing. You have to know you can go out there and make the kick.

“It’s not that each kick is going to make or break your life, but you just have to go out there. You get 20 to 25 opportunities a year, and you have to make the most of them.”

Two tackles

Beck worked hard the rest of the summer, kept his starting job after battling Webb in preseason and also reclaimed his kickoff duties. That allowed the 6-foot-1, 215-pound Beck to make two tackles against Northwestern.

“That’s part of the game I love,” he said. “I screwed up last year on kickoffs and didn’t get the opportunity to make tackles like that. I’m not going to sit back and wait for some guy to run over me.”

And Beck isn’t going to let that one missed kick against Northwestern get to him.

“I’ve just matured in the sense that the next one is the most important one, not the last one,” he said.