Kicking Around

Former Chapman kicker Matt George laughs when he calls himself a vagabond.

He’s certainly used to living out of a suitcase.

Signed recently by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, George is being sent to play this spring for Amsterdam of NFL Europe.

It’s the latest of many stops for the former second-team NCAA Division III All-American punter.

Since finishing up at Chapman 18 months ago, he played briefly for the Pittsburgh Steelers and had tryouts with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Denver Broncos.

“If there’s one thing I have learned,” George said, “it’s to adapt fast.”

George grew up playing soccer in Granada Hills and began kicking for the Canyon Country Canyon High football team as a freshman. In 1993, he enrolled at Palomar College in San Marcos and kicked there for two seasons.

In 1995, he accepted a scholarship to San Diego State. He thought he was going to be the Aztecs’ primary field-goal kicker, but instead was assigned kickoffs and long field-goals attempts, which were long in coming.

So he transferred to Northern Arizona, where he quickly found more bad luck.

“They told me I would be the starter, but when I went up there they decided to redshirt me,” he said.

Frustrated and humbled, George left Flagstaff before playing a down. He was considering another transfer, this time to LaVerne. Then a friend told him about Chapman. When he relocated to Orange in the fall of 1996, it didn’t take him long to realize he had finally found a place he could stay awhile.

“I’m a really big fan of his,” Chapman football Coach Ken Visser said. “I’ve coached for 31 years and in that length of time there are a certain number of guys you really like. He’s one of them.

“He was a total team guy. Some kickers will root for the team to get stopped on downs so they can go in and make themselves look good. Not him. He was running up and down the sideline screaming for our guys to score.”

George made four of six field goal attempts his first season at Chapman and averaged kickoffs that went four-yards deep into the end zone.

Not long after the 1997 season began, All-American punter Mario Acosta was hurt. Visser asked George to fill in and was surprised by his response.

“A lot of place kickers that I have worked with would say no [to punting] because they thought it would take away from their chances as kickers,” Visser said. “He could have easily looked at me and said no. It’s a speech I’ve heard many times. He just looked at me and said, ‘Good.’ ”

George averaged 43.8 yards per punt and was named a second-team All-American.

“It gave me the opportunity to market myself better and it was also a nice change,” George said.

He wasn’t too bad as a kicker either. In 1997, he made nine of 15 attempts, connecting for a 53-yard field goal and two 52-yarders.

But he was passed over in the NFL draft and went to Jacksonville’s summer camp as a nonroster player. He was cut after five weeks, and after a short tryout with Denver, wound up in Pittsburgh, where he kicked a couple of field goals against Tampa Bay in the Hall of Fame game last summer.

The Steelers cut him three exhibition games later.

But when their regular kicker, Norm Johnson, was injured midway through the season, George got the call to replace him against Tennessee. He kicked a couple of extra points, but the Oilers blocked a crucial 36-yard field goal try.

Pittsburgh released George after the game.

“Tampa Bay had been watching me ever since that preseason game against them,” George said. “They called me up when the season was over. I’m hoping to take my rookie status and build it up by getting some more games under my belt. I think I’ll be more comfortable.”

George leaves next month for the 10-week NFL Europe season.

“I’m excited. I get an opportunity to play football and travel,” said George, who said he has never been to Europe. “It’s an all-around good deal because I want to get into the NFL next year.”