The contestants:
Sam Baker, 6'1", 230 pounds, 35 years old, of the Philadelphia Eagles. A 12-year pro veteran who started his career as a fullback. Baker played for Cleveland, Washington and Dallas before being traded to Philadelphia, where he also punts. He is an extrovert and an independent thinker who does not hesitate to speak out, a trait that not all coaches find desirable. Working with Ringo and Scarpati, Baker got off his kicks in an average of 1.3 seconds last season and kicked one in a fantastic 1.1 seconds. A time of 1.5 or 1.6 is good enough. Last year Baker had the best percentage of any kicker in the league. He made 18 of 25, including 14 without a miss from inside the 40. From the 40 to the 49 he kicked three of seven. He kicked one of four from beyond the 50, was the only kicker in the NFL to score from that distance. The league average on field goals was .557, with .73 accuracy inside the 30. Bruce Gossett of the Rams set a record by kicking 28 field goals, but he missed 21 and finished with .571.
Mike Mercer, 6', 220 pounds, 31 years old, of the Buffalo Bills. Mercer started last season with Oakland but wound up kicking for Kansas City, which won the AFL championship and played in the Super Bowl, where Mercer kicked a 31-yard field goal. Over the last three years Mercer has kicked 45 of 68 field goals. Until last season he was also a punter. In one four-year stretch he kicked 147 consecutive extra points. Last season Mercer kicked 21 of 30 field goals, including three from 47 yards, and one from 50. Of his misses, two were from 48 yards and one from 50. He had a streak of seven in a row and 12 of 15. Son of Ken Mercer, who played pro football for New York and Philadelphia in the 1920s, Mercer says that "the secret for the kicker is relaxation. You must meet the ball square. It's like golf, in that when you try to kick too hard you tend to hook the ball. You can always tell when you've hit a good kick. It makes a sharp sound like ping! A bad one goes bloomp!"
Len Killeen, 5'11", 182 pounds, 28 years old, of the Rugby League Club of St. Helens. Rugby League is the tougher, professional version of Rugby Union, which is sort of a cross between soccer and American football. Killeen, a South African who was imported to England four years ago to play Rugby, is a wing three-quarter who must stay on the field for the entire 80 minutes of the no-substitution Rugby League game and must do much of his team's ballcarrying. The dark-haired, left-footed Killeen is his team's best kicker. He punts on the run and considers a good punt as "50 to 70 yards, although there are days I can't get 'em out of the 40s." As a field-goal kicker, Killeen uses the classic North American style, but he can kick soccer style when he needs to place the ball at a certain point to gain an advantage under Rugby rules. For a field goal he has no center or holder. Killeen heels out a small divot in the ground, stands the ball on end and kicks it. In the Rugby League Cup Final at Wembley Stadium in London last May, he kicked a 70-yard field goal from an angle five yards in from the sideline, despite the hooting of fans who thought that it was impossible. He was voted Man of the Match.
Bobby Charlton, 5'9", 161 pounds, 29 years old, of the Manchester United Football (soccer) Club. Charlton, who is as well known in England as Mickey Mantle or Johnny Unitas in the U.S., played on England's World Cup championship team last summer. He is one of the best soccer kickers in the world. Charlton learned to play soccer by kicking a bundle of rags around the back alleys of the mining town where he was raised. The object in soccer is to kick the ball under the crossbar rather than over it, which makes the U.S.-style kick unnatural to Charlton. Like all right-footed soccer-style kickers, Charlton must plant his left foot hard to get a power base, and that handicaps him on a muddy field. Also in common with soccer-style kickers, Charlton kicks the U.S. ball with a hook. A superb athlete, he can kick almost as well with his left foot as with his right. "The soccer style should be more accurate with any kind of ball, at least from shorter distances," says Charlton, "because if the kicker misses the center of the ball he still gets more foot on it with his follow-through. But from far out, a ball kicked soccer-style floats instead of shooting forward, and therefore it drops earlier."
The balls that were used in the contest were six American Football League regulation footballs. Baker, however, brought three NFL balls of his own and kicked them exclusively. Mercer thinks the NFL ball is fatter and easier to kick, but in a pre-Super Bowl controversy Cleveland Quarterback Frank Ryan, blindfolded, could not tell the balls apart. Killeen and Charlton had kicked American footballs once before, during a practice session two months prior to their meeting with Baker and Mercer. Using a center and a holder from a U.S. Air Force team, they each tried 15 kicks from the 20-, 30- and 40-yard lines. Charlton missed once, from the 40. Killeen did not miss until they moved back to the 50. "The American football," Killeen said, "is a better ball to kick than the Rugby ball up to 40 yards, but it is harder at 50." Charlton agreed. "The big problem with our [soccer] ball is getting it off the ground," Charlton said. "The American ball is almost off the ground already when it's stood up."
The Rugby League ball is very similar to the American ball in weight, length and girth, but less pointed. Dr. Mike Judd, a British aerodynamics expert, studied both balls for SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. He found no significant difference in performance. "Theoretically, the rougher surface texture of the American ball could result in lower drag and greater distance," Judd said. "But the Rugby ball is slightly softer at the correct pressure than the American ball, allowing the toe or instep to sink in further at impact. The result is the Rugby ball rises more easily."
The four kickers met on a gray, rainy day at the 35,000-seat Rugby League stadium in St. Helens. The dressing room was small and cold, and there was a pit in the floor, crusted with old bars of soap, for communal bathing. Baker and Mercer looked around as if they had blundered into the room where the yard tools were kept, but Killeen and Charlton were already hanging their clothes on nails along the wall. The kickers shook hands and then examined each other obliquely. Mercer and Baker had never heard of Charlton and Killeen, and vice versa. Somebody asked Killeen if he had any idea what was happening in a football game when Baker or Mercer tried to kick a field goal.
"Yes," he said. "There's four chaps blocking."
It was explained that there were nine chaps blocking and, possibly, 11 rushing.
