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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 2000)
Small town, big dreams for Doerr .rTm~^Wy--wcr 'XF&z Courtesy of Oregon Media Services Oregon punter Kurtis Doerr’s accuracy and strength are reasons why the Ducks’ defense is ranked No. 1 in the conference. NEWLY REMODELED SPECIAL EVENT Saturday, October 14, 2000 9:00 am to 4:00 pm Free Coffee, Hot Dogs and Pop! Enter to win a free 19" Color TV (raffle at 4:00) Free Box of Soap To The First 50 Customers "We will have the Pucks game an TV" tr* EMERALD LAUNDROMAT2***##** 165 East 17th, Eugene • Behind Safeway and Hirons ?-uiOLS>-w-QdCkHbOwQ,iCk X^o-c.-QciCL J.Di,0-o.-qaC^ -V4Cl<nr jj? x)f THERE’S A NEWLY REMODELED COIN LAUNDRY NEAR YOU! Come to the newest, cleanest, most energy efficient laundromat in Lane County We've installed the best washers ever made with reverse action to provide you the cleanest, brightest, whitest wash ever! When you want the best wash, use our coin laundry and our special washers! Come in and try our Wascomat professional washers. You'll love the results. Guaranteed! Our washers are less money per average load than our competitors' top loaders and ours use less soap. Limit one free wash per family ■ Kurtis Doerr keeps baseball in his heart but football in his life during his senior season with the Ducks By Scott Pesznecker Oregon Daily Emerald Don’t ask how it happens, just ac cept it as fact — small towns breed great football players. Just ask Kurtis Doerr, punter for the Oregon football team. Here’s a guy who never set foot on a football field to compete before his freshman year of high school in the little town of Waterford, Wis., and even then, he didn’t actually play football. And now, here he is, named Pacific-10 Conference Play er of the Week for Oct. 2, following one of his best performances ever against Washington. “It’s my job,” Doerr said, opting not to pat himself on the back. “It’s what I’m supposed to do.” A program called “Punt, Pass and Kick,” which measured skill in those areas in terms of distance and accuracy, was Doerr’s first experi ence playing football as a high school freshman. With help from his father, some practice and a little luck, Doerr punted, passed and kicked his way to the Wisconsin state tournament. Then, he won it. Needless to say, he turned some heads. Doerr continued to command at tention in his next three years at Waterford Union High School, tak ing after his father, Kurt, by shoul dering quarterback, punter and kicker duties for his prep football team. After graduating, he enrolled at Glendale Community College in Glendale, Ariz., where he intended to start a collegiate athletic career. But not in tootball. Not in football, even if sportsuni versity.com called Doerr a punter “who specializes in distance, accu racy and hang-time”? The multi-sport athlete has al ways been a baseball player at heart. He never considered his fu ture as a punter when he was young: “If a team’s going to punt, it’s always a good time to run for the fridge and grab a beer or soda,” Doerr said. Someday, he even hopes to be back in the diamond, making a re turn to competitive baseball. However, Doerr put his baseball plans on hold in his first fall sea son. One of the football coaches happened to see him kicking and approached Doerr about joining the team. He did, and again, it didn’t take long for a couple of other coaches to notice his powerful punts. Doerr made a verbal commit ment to go to Arizona during his sophomore season. That was before he talked with Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti, who persuaded the punter to take a trip out to Eugene. Doerr was blown away by Oregon’s facilities and Bellotti’s profession al-yet-relatable demeanor. “The next thing I know, I got home and called Arizona and told them I wasn’t going there any more,” Doerr said. Fittingly, the Ducks hit the road to play Michigan State last year on Sept. 2. Making his Division I-A de but in front of family and friends, Doerr proceeded to break the school single-game record with a 51.2-yard punt average against the Spartans, including one 75-yard blast. I just wanted to make sure that I caught the ball and kicked it,” Do err recalls. “I was nervous, I’d never seen that many people in the same place at the same time.” After ascending the ranks from high school to junior college to Ore gon, more people began to notice the punter from small-town Water ford. His stats — 59 punts, 2,460 to tal yards and an average of 41.7 yards per kick — ranked him 38th nationally and earned him a spot on the Pac-10 coaches’ second con ference team. Then, the 2000 season arrived. Picked in the preseason to finish third in the Pac-10 race, the Ducks packed their bags for Madison, Wis., to face the No. 3 Badgers. For Doerr, it would be his second homecoming in as many years, and he was eager to repeat his best-ever performance. Unfortunately, the second-time around was not as sweet. Doerr had probably his worst game ever, having one punt blocked in the end zone for a touch down and averaging 28.3 yards in his seven attempts. “I tried doing too much and I can’t do that,” Doerr said. “It’s like baseball. If you try to smash it out of the park every time, you’re going to strike out. “You’ve got to write it off. You can’t ponder on it too much or you’ll get what kickers call ‘the mind screw.’” The senior lived true to his words, regaining form and posting solid numbers against Idaho, UCLA and Washington. If anyone got “mind-screw” from Doerr’s kicking, it was Husky coach Rick Neuheisel, who blamed his team’s loss partly on poor field position throughout the game. “He’s the best kicker we’ve seen this season,” a befuddled Neuheisel said after the game. Doerr gets plenty of support from fellow Duck kickers, as well as the Oregon defense, ranked No. 1 in the Pacific-10 Conference. Defensive end Jason Nikolao said that Doerr has something to do with the de fense’s strong showings. “It’s a lot easier when we have to defend 90 yards, rather than 60 or 70,” Nikolao said. “Kurtis is doing a great job, I think we’ve got the best punter in the nation. “I tell that guy he’s our best ally, our best friend. As long as he keeps them as far back pinned in their ter ritory as possible, that helps us a lot.” Doerr also talks fondly about Bel lotti, who he says is “not too big for anybody,” and about his strong minded girlfriend, Duck softball player Missy Coe, who keeps him focused, he said. And no longer does Doerr have to travel halfway across the country to see his family. His mother, Betsy, and 8-year old sister, Anna, moved to Eugene at the start of this season. His father flies to every game from Waterford. “I look up in the stands [at my dad] and I can tell what he’s telling me to do,” Doerr said. Ironic that a baseball player from Waterford turned down a collegiate career in sunny Arizona to kick the football in rainy Eugene. Must be a small-town thing.
