Football: Points for Perfection

The game has changed a lot since the days when a field goal was worth five points and a touchdown only two. But the name is still football-as the folks in Green Bay, Wis., are learning, to their everlasting surprise.

Green Bay is the home of the Green Bay Packers, heavy preseason favorites to win their ninth National Football League championship. It is the home, too, of Paul (“Golden Boy”) Hornung, 28, who set an N.F.L. record in 1960 by scoring 176 points-86 of them with his toe. But this year the gold has turned to brass. The first time the Packers played the Baltimore Colts, Hornung missed an extra point and Green Bay lost, 21-20. Next time he missed five field goals in a row and the Packers lost again, 24-21. Two weeks ago he tried another field goal against the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams blocked it; Safety Man Bobby Smith scooped up the loose ball, scampered 94 yds. for a touchdown, and the Rams won, 27-17.

Toeless & Barefoot. In the pros, extra points and short field goals are supposed to be automatic. Not this season.

Don Chandler of the New York Giants was the N.F.L.’s top scorer in 1963 with 106 points; this year he has missed two extra points and eight out of 15 field goal attempts. Things are no better in the American Football League. After they barely edged Houston, 20-17, missing three field goals in the process, the A.F.L. Champion San Diego Chargers started looking around for a new place kicker. And whom did they come up with? Ben Agajanian, 45, a toeless wonder (he lost four toes on his kicking foot in an elevator accident) who had bounced around 14 pro teams before retiring for the third time last year.

Last week old Ben kicked a field goal and four extra points as the Chargers beat Oakland, 31-17, then flew off to Green Bay to moonlight as a doctor for Hornung’s ailing toe.

The most exciting kicker of the year does everything wrong too-but makes it work right. A Hungarian refugee who boots the ball soccer-styleoff the instep of his right foot-Pete Gogolak of the Buffalo Bills has hit on 31 out of 32 extra points, 11 out of 18 field goals.

He insists that he gets “more distance, more power, more accuracy,” and he may signal a whole new fad in kicking.

Princeton and Maryland have soccer kickers too, and Coach Duffy Daugherty at Michigan State has imported a barefoot kicker from Hawaii named Dick Kenney. Kenney kicks the ball off the end of-his bare toes. “I can tell if it’s good by the way the shock goes up my leg,” he says. He tied a Michigan State record by booting a 49-yd.

field goal against Southern California.

Says Daugherty: “We’ve got an electric sock for Kenney when the weather gets cold. If he makes the field goal, he gets to put his foot back into the sock.

If he misses, we’ll make him stick it in a snow bank.” Laces Front, Head Down. Such newfangled notions do not impress an old pro like Cleveland’s Lou (“The Toe) Groza, the dean of place kickers and top point scorer (with 1,404) in football history. At 40, Groza cuts a comical figure as he waddles onto the field -belly hanging over the waist of his practically padless pants. But the players don’t snicker. A proud perfectionist who boots 30 or more field goals a day in practice, Groza hit on 15 out of 23 field goals last year.

“Timing is the key,” says Groza. “I put the ball into the air exactly 1.3 seconds after the center snaps the ball.

If we take 1.5 seconds, chances are the ball will be blocked.” That is only part of it. Agajanian, for instance, wants the ball placed precisely 7 yds. behind the line of scrimmage; 6 yds. and a big lineman can reach up to block it, 8 yds.

and the ends have an extra split second to reach the kicker. Groza insists that the center spiral the ball back so the holder receives it with the laces pointing away from the kicker. “Kicking into the laces cuts your distance,” he explains. The instant the ball is snapped, Groza starts forward, lands on his left foot exactly 5 in. behind the ball, locks his right ankle and knee into a rigid position, keeps his head down-and thump! Arnie Palmer should have a wedge shot like that.

Because the kicking specialist plays only a few minutes a game, shudders at thoughts of bodily contact (“They used to laugh when I’d kick and run for the bench,” says Agajanian), there is practically no limit to how long he can collect his tidy $15,000 or so each year.

Besides, there is no great rush of eager youngsters panting after the kicker’s job. “Nobody learns how any more,” says Groza. “The trouble is that somebody has to hold the ball for you-and what kid wants to hold the ball for somebody else?”