Uwe Detlef Walter von Schamann (born April 23, 1956) is a former professional

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 ...

placekicker. He played for the

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team p ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

, from

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

Early life

Von Schamann was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. He moved to

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. Accord ...

at the age of 16. After graduating from

Eastern Hills High School Eastern Hills High School is a four-year public high school in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. The school is educating students in grades 9–12, as part of the Fort Worth Independent School District. In an historical footnote, the band from ...

in 1975,Uwe Von schamann
, database Football. Accessed October 25, 2007. he received a football scholarship to the

University of Oklahoma , mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State" , type = Public research university , established = , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.7billion (2021) , pr ...

College career

During his college football career, he was a member of the 1975

National Championship A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the best team, indi ...

team, and was later voted the all-time, All-Big 8 kicker. In 1999 von Schamann was named the All-Century Oklahoma Kicker. He was most noted for making a clutch game-winning kick in the final seconds of the 1977 game at

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

, after leading the crowd in a "block that kick" chant. In Sooner lore, this play came to be known simply as "The Kick."

Professional career

After college, the

drafted von Schamann, for whom he played for six seasons. Von Schamann finished his NFL career with 101 of 149 field goal attempts (67%) and 237 of 250 extra points (94%), for 540 total points. In the 1984 season he set an NFL record, with 70

extra point The conversion, try (American football, also known as a point(s) after touchdown, PAT, or (depending on the number of points) extra point/2-point conversion), or convert (Canadian football) occurs immediately after a touchdown during which the sc ...

attempts, converting 66 of them, records that stood until they were broken by Patriots kicker

Stephen Gostkowski Stephen Carroll Gostkowski ( ; born January 28, 1984) is an American football former placekicker who played for 15 years in the National Football League (NFL), primarily with the New England Patriots. He was selected in the fourth round of th ...

in 2007. A clip from the 1984 season of von Schamann kicking is used in '' Ace Ventura: Pet Detective''.

After football

After his retirement from the NFL, he worked in the securities and insurance business. In 2001, von Schamann was named Director of Development and Fundraising for the J.D. McCarty Center, a treatment facility for children with

developmental disabilities Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions, comprising mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, espe ...

References

External links

career stats

"The Kick" Video
Miami Dolphins players Oklahoma Sooners football players 1956 births Living people German emigrants to the United States Sportspeople from Berlin People from Fort Worth, Texas American football placekickers German players of American football German expatriates in the United States {{Oklahoma-sport-stub