Kurz Relishes Being Peoria’s “Killer” Kicker
Steve Robinson
Friday April 19, 2002
Last Friday, against Memphis, Kurz, again, proved Cowdrey’s point.
A 34-yard field goal by Kurz, who kicked for in college for Illinois State University of the Gateway Football Conference, and then moved on to the NFL with the New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings, kept Peoria in the game as the final gun sounded.
Kurz’s shot tied Peoria with the Memphis Xplorers, 41-all, giving Peoria a chance to win their first home game at Carver Arena as members of af2. As it turned out, a penalty against Pirates defensive lineman Rasche Hill would doom Peoria from winning, giving Memphis penalty yardage to score one play later and win in overtime, 49-48.
But Kurz’s kick to tie the game was a boost to his teammates, and his coach knows it. “I know anytime we get within 50 yards, he’s got a chance,” Cowdrey said of Kurz’s abilities. “We were playing for the field goal (in the closing moments). I said, ‘get the ball in the middle of the field. We’ll call time out immediately…
“He got it done,” Cowdrey said. “His kick was there.”
And some 8,000 fans were there, too, screaming with joy at having another shot at winning.
You might think trying to kick a ball dead on so that it goes through goalposts that are only 8 feet apart might be nerve-wrecking the further out you are when you kick it. Kurz has often said that, so long as the laces of the ball are centered directly toward the goal, most kicks should go through the uprights with no problem.
Any variation of that, either with laces aimed toward the left or toward the right, will indicate the direction the ball will sail in. With Kurz’s kick Saturday, the young man who spends his weekdays as an insurance underwriter when he is not with the Pirates, said, “It was going for the left upright, and then in the last 10 yards, it just went right. I don’t know how. I didn’t feel I kicked it well, but we’ll take it.”
While that statement might sound like he was frustrated with being put in that situation it isn’t. In fact, Kurz thrives on that kind of situation.
“I love it. I love it,” Kurz said of finding himself in such a critical point in a game. “I’ve been waiting for that for a while. It feels good and there’s no other play like it.”
Statistically, Kurz is 5-for-8 on the season for field goals and has made 7 of 8 extra point attempts. That is statistically ahead of the teams the Pirates have faced this season, with opponents being 2 of 6 on field goals and 2 of 5 extra points made thus far.
Go Get ‘Em, “Killer”
While most kickers aren’t hesitant to help their team by making the occasional tackle, it seems opposing special teams players have usually found themselves being hammered by the kicker when they play Peoria.
Kurz thinks he has, by his count, 24 or 25 tackles in the last two years, in his career stats. From almost the first one, his teammates have nicknamed him “Killer.”
While it might have come off as a sarcastic comment at first, it has become a badge of honor Kurz wears proudly. When his teammates first started calling him that, “I thought it was a sarcastic slap in the beginning, but (now because of my stats), I’ll take the name.”
Steve Robinson, a freelance writer since 1984, has written about the Peoria Pirates since the Pirates were members of Indoor Football League, beginning in 1999. He covers the Pirates currently for the Bloomington IL Pantagraph.
