JEFFREY REINHART jreinhart@LNPnews.com
The first time Virginia Tech kicks off in its season opener on Aug. 30 against East Carolina in Charlotte, a kicker from Manheim Central might be doing the honors.
Central senior Justin Myer has accepted Virginia Tech’s offer to be a preferred walk on, and he’s headed to Blacksburg, Va., this weekend for an official visit – and to finalize the plans that will allow him a chance to handle the Hokies’ kickoff duties as a true freshman later this year.
Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer, who also coaches the special teams, likes to have one kicker handle the extra points and field goals, and another kicker handle the kickoff duties.
He’s giving Myer a shot to win the kickoff chores. And if the former Barons’ kicker – who booted a school-record 47-yard field goal last fall — wins the job, a scholarship could be in the offing.
“I feel like I have a really good chance to win the kickoff job,” Myer said. “They said if I win the kickoff job, they’ll put a scholarship up. Not having a scholarship going in will help me with training and preparation. This is a big goal so it’ll drive me. It’s a great driving force knowing I’ll have to earn it.”
It is a golden opportunity for Myer, who kicked four field goals for Central last fall, and was the lone unanimous First-Team All-Section 2 All-Star selection. Myer, who also kicked field goals of 42, 36 and 27 yards last fall, was also the First-Team Section 2 kicker in his junior season.
Virginia Tech’s two primary kickers from last season were both seniors. Jud Dunlevy, who hit 21 field goals and 45 extra points, and Jared Develli, who shared the kickoff duties with Dunlevy, will not be back this fall.
There were four other kickers listed on Virginia Tech’s 2007 roster:
Rising juniors Brent Bowden, Dustin Keys and Matt Waldron – a Penn State transfer – and rising sophomore Tim Pisano.
“My goal is to be the kickoff guy this season,” Myer said. “That would be amazing. This opportunity was too much to turn down.”
Myer, who will kick for the East team in the PSFCA East-West All-Star Game on June 21 in Altoona, started gaining national recognition last summer when he participated in three Kohl’s Kicking Showcases.
In a competition camp in Wisconsin, he finished second out of 160 kickers in kickoffs, and he also competed in Texas and in a fundamental camp in North Carolina.
He made unofficial visits to Temple and Lehigh last summer but did not have any scholarship offers.
Then Virginia Tech, which competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and fell to Kansas in the Orange Bowl in January, came calling.
“I never thought I’d get a shot at the highest Division 1 level,” said Myer, who will major in either business or engineering at Virginia Tech.
“I was mostly looking at I-AA colleges. That’s where I was leaning. Then Virginia Tech came in out of the blue, and it’s a great opportunity.”
Myer, a 6-1, 195-pounder, is currently working with Central kicking coach John Phillips and with Lee McDonald, who runs a kicking program in central New Jersey called Special Teams Solutions.
McDonald kicked for Rutgers University, and Myer said after just one 1-on-1 session with him, his accuracy and height on kickoffs improved dramatically. And he’ll need to be better in both of those departments because he’ll be kicking off from the 30-yard line in college, 10 yards deeper than the 40, where he kicked off in high school.
Myer said he hopes to have a few more sessions with McDonald before he heads to Virginia Tech this summer. In the meantime, he’s practicing outside in Central’s football stadium with Phillips, and he’s going to kick in a new facility, In the Net Field House, near Palmyra, later this winter.
Then it’s off to Blacksburg for his big audition.
