Finalist: “Homemade Uprights” by Nick Reed
Nick Reed of Harrison High School (NY) celebrates after splitting the uprights last season
It was March 25th, 2020. School had been closed for two weeks and we had just received another notice stating we would be out of school indefinitely. We were all at home, the Covid pandemic was getting quite serious in our community in Harrison NY, only a few miles away from Covid ground zero “New Rochelle, NY”. Everyday we read news that more people were admitted to the hospital and many tested positive for the virus. In what seemed like an overnight decision, nobody was allowed out of their houses. I couldn’t go to school. I couldn’t see my friends or practice sports.
As a varsity kicker for Harrison High School, I would go to our football field a few times a week to practice kicking. On this day however, when my dad drove me to my high school, we saw a lock on the fence around the field. I thought it was crazy for the field to be closed and it took a while to take that in. That is when it hit home for me that Covid was serious. I had been unable to kick for two weeks, and now it became obvious I had to figure out a way for me to kick, as we were able to predict that Covid, along with the physical movement restrictions, was here to stay. I am an athlete that takes his craft seriously, I plan to kick in college and my dream is to be an NFL kicker. I knew I needed a solution in order to stay at the top of my game and continue improving. The way I saw it, Covid wasn’t stopping kickers in Texas or Florida, where restrictions were limited. As a kicker in New York I needed to do whatever I could to continue kicking during this unprecedented time.
My dad and I talked and realized we could try to build our own set of uprights to allow me to kick in our backyard. At first glance, it seemed pretty straightforward. Just put some pipes together and set them up straight. However we discovered it was not so simple. We sat down and looked up images of other “makeshift” field goal uprights. After getting a good idea of what we wanted to build, we decided to pull out pen and paper and drew down a few prototypes. While most people on the internet recommended getting materials from the local hardware store we decided to repurpose my old soccer goal. It had been a gift from my grandmother before she died of cancer. She had asked me to always keep it to remember her as I practiced soccer. First we took the goal apart. Progress. We then started to lay out the pvc pipes following our design. We were fortunate in that we had enough pieces and we were able to stand it up!
When I got to kick my first field goal at home it was such an amazing feeling. I still remember the perfect foot-to-ball contact and the end-over-end spin splitting the uprights. As the restrictions went on I continued to kick in my backyard. My parents and I made changes to our makeshift field goal in order to enhance my experience. We measured out up to 40 yards (as far as we could go before reaching the street) and spray painted the markers. I was able to improve upon my craft as I continued on working for that one end goal I had in mind. I was not going to let Covid stop me.