Fred Bednarski is a retired placekicker in

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

. He is often credited with introducing the "soccer-style" kick to American football, setting a new standard for kickers in the sport.

Early life

Born in Poland during the Russian and then German occupation of the country in World War II, his family was taken to a Nazi labor camp outside of Salzburg, Austria in 1942, where they would spend three years. He considered himself fortunate for having been taken a "labor" or "concentration" camp rather than an

extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

, as was the fate for many other Polish families. At the camps, when they could find some free time, Bednarski recalls playing games with other camp detainees using makeshift soccer balls constructed from rolled-up socks.

Career

Bednarski's football career began with the

Texas Longhorns The Texas Longhorns are the athletic teams representing the University of Texas at Austin. The teams are sometimes referred to as the Horns and take their name from Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and a ...

in 1956 after Head Coach

Darrell Royal Darrell K Royal (July 6, 1924 – November 7, 2012) was an All-American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at Mississippi State University (1954–1955), the University of Washington (1956), and the University of Texas (1957� ...

of the

Washington Huskies The Washington Huskies are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Washington, located in Seattle. The school competes at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Pac-1 ...

was informed by his scout who had just returned from scouting Texas for the team about the "soccer-style" kicker named Bednarski. In contrast to the traditional football kick used at the time in which the kicker would approach the ball from directly behind and contact the ball with his foot, Bednarski approached the ball from roughly a 45-degree angle and made contact with the ball with the side of his foot, swinging his leg in a "golf club"-like motion. On October 19, 1957, Bednarski kicked the first-ever "soccer-style" field goal in American football history, giving the team a 3-0 lead against

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

with the 38-yard kick.

Early life

Career

See also

References

Further reading