YSU's Nowicki getting his last kicks

By Pete Mollica

For Youngstown State senior punter Ben Nowicki, life after football might involve becoming a sports agent, since the Gilbert, Ariz., native had was successful selling himself to the Penguins.

After the 6-foot, 170-pounder graduated from Mesquite High School, he enrolled at Mesa Community College where he had a great freshman season, leading the nation in punting with a 44.2 yard per average and earning first team All-National Junior College Athletic Association honors.

Nowicki didn’t want to spend two years at Mesa but the NCAA Division I programs he contacted wanted him to spend another year in junior college.

So he made a list of the top-25 Division I-AA football teams in the country and began sending out his films and resumes to everyone. Luckily (for them) Youngstown State answered.

“I was determined to play Division I football as a sophomore,” Nowicki said. “So I just made my list and went right down it. I think YSU was in the top 10 or 12 teams at the time and they answered quickly.”

Nowicki came to YSU in the summer of 2007 and he’s been the team’s starting punter for all but one game over the past two seasons. He missed last year’s finale at Western Illinois with an injury.

He’s earned All-Missouri Valley Conference honorable mention both of the last two seasons and also was a second team Academic all-conference last fall.

As a sophomore he averaged 37.1 yards on 47 punts with 19 of them being inside the opposition’s 20 yard line.

Last season he improved his yardage average by 4 yards with a 41.1 mark on 44 punts, including a long of 66 yards at Southern Utah. His average was the third-best in school history.

He had nine punts that went 50 yards or farther and averaged 42.4 yards on seven punts in last year’s season opener at Ohio State.

He’s a guy that coaches really don’t want to see out on the field, but when he’s out there sometimes the game’s outcome can be determined by what he does.

“It’s definitely a pressure situation, but it’s one that I really love,” Nowicki said.

“It’s tough because you go out there and you really only have one shot to do your best and sometimes if you don’t do well you might have to wait until the next game to even get another chance,” he added.

“I really like performing under pressure,” he said. “I just think that it says a lot about your character, not only athletically, but also in life in general.”

Nowicki said that in high school he did a lot of things in addition to punting.

“I was a wide receiver and I also returned punts and kickoffs as well as doing the punting and kicking and I really enjoyed being out on the field all the time,” he said.

He said that the biggest difference between college and high school was the speed of the players, especially those rushing the punter.

“I think my first year in college at practice I had my first three punts blocked, before I realized that I was going to have to be a lot quicker,” he said.

Nowicki knows he still has room for improvement and what he needs to do.

“Just about any position in football requires great consistency, but probably none more than punting and kicking,” he said. “And that’s what any good kicker needs to work on all the time is consistency.

“I’ve been kicking for a long time and I know what I need to do pretty much with technique and style, but just getting and keeping consistent is the one thing that every punter wants,” he added.

mollica@vindy.com