Former Gavilan College player led DII in punting, earns
All-American honors
Gilroy – Those hot, lonely summer days kicking footballs on the East Central University field paid off for Curtis Lilly.
The former Gavilan football player was the top punter in Division II with a 45.2 average on 46 punts, and was selected to the first team of four All-American squads – Associated Press, American Football Coaches Association, Daktronics and D2Football.com.
That’s a long way from two years earlier at Gavilan when the 6-5, 225-pound Lilly was an adequate punter but nothing special – his average was less than 39 yards a punt. Perhaps it’s a tribute to what can be accomplished through hard work and dedication.
If there’s one position in football that it matters not where you perform, it is as a punter. Unless you’re kicking in altitude at, say, Colorado, Colorado State or the Air Force Academy, the numbers will accurately reflect your leg strength.
Lilly admits his leg strength was nothing special during his junior year at ECU in Ada, Okla. After all, he averaged a little more than 40 yards a punt. So how does one increase his average by more than 10 percent?
“My goal was to lead the nation in punting and I worked toward that goal,” said Lilly, who recently was visiting friends in Gilroy for several days. “I worked with our strength and conditioning coach (Travis Reust). All I did this summer worked out with weights, on my flexibility and punting four times a week. The one thing about punting is you don’t have to have anyone else available to be able to work at bettering yourself.”
Lilly, who punted for just one year at Riceville (Iowa) High while pursuing his first love of basketball, did have help. Besides Reust, there was ECU volunteer coach Dave Minchey. A cerebal palsy sufferer confined to a wheelchair, Minchey is a student of the game and quite knowledgeable about kicking. But he also gave Lilly a sense of perspective.
It was during a game during his junior season when Lilly had kicked a poor punt. He hung his head on the sideline and then approached Minchey, whose message was succinct – “relax Curtis. Have fun. It’s just a game.”
Lilly, a born-again Christian, was overwhelmed. He knew that Minchey would do anything to be able to have the opportunity to be a college football punter.
Lilly dedicated himself to being the best he could be. After his senior season after he had accumulated All-American honors, he worked at a camp in Dallas with Ray Guy and shadowed the legendary former Raiders punter. There is talk that Lilly could be drafted by an NFL team and he is in the process of hiring an agent.
The perspective that was missing that day during his junior season is more apparent now. Lilly is heavily involved with Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He is also a semester of classes and student teaching from gaining a degree in education. So if there is no NFL, there could be a teaching-coaching career in some form or another.
“What he has done doesn’t surprise in that he was always a hard worker,” said Ron Hannon, Gavilan director of athletics. “He’s smart, has very strong integrity and his decision-making skills have put him in the position that he is right now.”
Lilly still wonders how Tim McCarty, the former ECU coach and now assistant head coach at Kansas State University, heard of him while he was playing at Gavilan. He senses it had something to do with his overall athleticism (he started or was sixth man on the Rams’ basketball team).
“I think the coaches saw my potential and liked my athleticism,” said Lilly, an honor student throughout college and Academic Player of the Year in the Lone Star Conference North Division.
It’s an amazing story about an individual whose first reaction when ECU offered the scholarship was, “I get my schooling paid for to kick a football. I can’t pass that up.”
He won’t pass up the opportunity to better himself. Lilly said he can still improve his punting numbers, although having booted more than 30 percent of his punts 50 yards or better indicates he’s already one of the best in any classification.
