Southlake Carroll senior Kole Ramage joins club just for kicks

The Fort Worth area has been a boomtown for kickers, as rich as the most plentiful fields of black gold.

The newest eye-opener is Southlake Carroll’s Kole Ramage, who didn’t realize it at the time, but joined some very exclusive kicking company with the missile he fired off his foot and through the Dragon Stadium uprights during the opening week of high school football.

In fact, among the few who have done it here are two guys who went to the NFL. (Another, the son of a newspaper publisher.)

“I didn’t actually hit it very well,” Ramage said. “Kind of fat, so I didn’t have the height I usually do. It didn’t jump off my foot very well. It did barely sneak in.”

There is not a place in the stat book for the word “barely.” If it goes 55 yards, it’s a 55-yard field goal.

With it, Ramage is now mentioned among the greats of high school football kickers from the Fort Worth area.

There have been some good ones.

Fort Worth Arlington Heights’ Tony Franklin, Eastern Hills’ Uwe von Schamann, Arlington’s Ali Haji-Sheikh, Hurst L.D. Bell’s Cary Blanchard and Carroll’s Kris Brown and Garrett Hartley all kicked in the NFL.

Franklin, Von Schamann, Haji-Sheikh and Hartley all kicked in Super Bowls.

Good kickers again abound in the area this year, including Patrick Grady at Arlington Martin and Josue Munoz, who last year booted a 58-yarder for Mansfield Summit.

“There are pockets around the country where you have kickers that come from,” said Von Schamann, a 1975 graduate from Fort Worth’s East Side. “Most of them with soccer backgrounds.”

Von Schamann, who played at Oklahoma before taking over for Garo Yepremian with the Miami Dolphins in 1979, worked with Hartley when the future New Orleans Saints kicker went to school in Norman. Von Schamann also coached another OU standout, Scott Blanton, who runs kicker schools in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Von Schamann’s kicking toils with Franklin, who played at Texas A&M and later for Philadelphia and the Patriots in the NFL, in early 1970s Fort Worth are the stuff of lore with lots of embellishment.

What is true is that four games into the 1974 season, Von Schamann set a city record with a 52-yard field goal, eclipsing Franklin’s 51-yarder in 1972.

Cue Irving Berlin … Anything you can do I can do better.

In November of the same season in a Class 4A bi-district game — in those days that game was also known as the city championship — against Eastern Hills, Franklin limped onto the field after a recurring foot injury reappeared in the first quarter.

Aided by what the newspaper report termed a “good breeze” he unleashed a 58-yarder that cleared the uprights by a good five feet. (That record was challenged a few years later when Amon Carter Jr.’s son George booted a 57-yarder at Country Day, according to the archives.)

The Heights loss was Von Schamann’s last game in high school, a career that didn’t start until the 10th grade. He was solely a soccer player until he moved with his mother from West Berlin and a football coach scouting P.E. sniffed out ability.

“My first year we were playing flag football in P.E.,” Von Schamann said. “I punted the ball, and coach Cecil Newton — who I just spoke with recently — he asked me if I could do that again. I did it again. He said ‘you need to come out for football.’

“I was the starting kicker the first practice. I guess I was just good at it. From the start, I didn’t think it was that hard to do with my soccer background.”

In college, Von Schamann kicked a 58-yarder, though missed on a 64-yard attempt against Texas. Against Baylor in 1976, Franklin kicked a 65-yarder.

“He was a good one,” Von Schamann noted dryly.

College and pro football are not in Ramage’s plans. As a star baseball player, he’s headed to Arkansas and the pitcher’s mound, though his football coach, who saw Brown and Hartley at Carroll, insists as a kicker he has “it.”

“He’s right there,” Carroll coach Hal Wasson said, when asked to compare the three. “He has real focus and great confidence. He’s a gamer. He’s one of ‘those guys.’ He could have a great future.”

“If I were the Arkansas coaches I’d see if he could kick an hour a day” during football season.

Chatting with … Kole Ramage

What’s the longest you’ve kicked in practice? I’ve kicked one 64 yards in practice.

How confident would you be going beyond 55 yards in a game? It’d have to be a pretty windy day … the conditions would have to be perfect. That one barely snuck in [on Friday]. (Coach Hal Wasson said he would consider lining up beyond 55, depending on the situation and conditions.)

You’re going to Arkansas to play baseball. Any thought of walking on to kick for the football team? As much as I love football, I think baseball is my sport. I think I’m just going to stick with baseball. It would be fun, but it would be difficult to do both.

You knew Kris Brown? His brothers were family friends. I grew up with them. I kind of knew Kris and got to be around him. Definitely someone cool to be around and he taught me some stuff.

Numbers

67 Yard field goal kicked by Russell Cowsert of Dallas Christian against Nolan Catholic in 1987, 1 yard short of the national high school record. The Chargers intentionally took two delay-of-game penalties to move back 10 yards in a 67-0 victory.

Games to watch

Mansfield at Cedar Hill: The visiting Tigers and their star running back get a playoff primer in the second game against one of the most talented teams in the state.

Martin at Carroll: Early season area powwow gives each an idea of where they are and where they might be headed.

Carter-Riverside vs. North Side: A clash between two storied Fort Worth neighborhoods.

This story was originally published August 31, 2016 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Southlake Carroll senior Kole Ramage joins club just for kicks."