Kick

It began as a "cool idea" three years ago in the backyard of a friend's house in tiny Shelby, Ohio, after Devin Barclay found in a closet an old football that needed to be pumped up. The Annapolis native, now 26, who played soccer at McDonogh before moving on to Major League Soccer in 2001, had never kicked a football before that night. On New Year's Day, he will be kicking for Ohio State before 90,000-plus fans in Pasadena, Calif., and millions watching on television, as the Buckeyes take on Oregon in the 96th Rose Bowl.

Snap. Set the ball. Kick. In 1.2 seconds - or less. That's the goal of Navy's field-goal unit. This week, getting the job done and done right was the emphasis of special teams practice as the Midshipmen (1-2) head into today's game against visiting Duke (1-2). The Blue Devils, who broke a 22-game losing streak last week with a 20-14 win at Northwestern, lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in blocked field goals with three. On most afternoons at Navy, the kickers work on their own. This week, they set up the ball about 6 yards from the crossbar to practice getting the ball higher into the air quicker.

ANNAPOLIS -- During his cruise out of Seattle last summer, Navy's Frank Schenk remembers how shipmates he didn't know would walk past him and whisper to a friend, "Hey, that's the guy who kicked it."That indeed was the guy who kicked it. Schenk's 32-yard field goal with 11 seconds left gave Navy a 19-17 victory over Army last year, breaking the Middies' three-year losing string."The scene on the sideline was wild," said linebacker Bill Bowling, now a Navy co-captain. "The brigade came out of the stands onto the field and seniors, the ones I knew, thanked me for giving them the chance to beat Army."

In football, where a team's offensive success is measured in yards, the difference between a win and a loss often comes down to just a foot.In soccer-rich Howard County, four first-year place-kickers decided the outcomes of several key games late in the season.County champion and 13th-ranked Howard (9-1), Hammond (7-3), Glenelg (8-2) and Oakland Mills (5-5) placed a much stronger emphasis on kicking by offering disenchanted soccer players a roster spot that requires only their legwork and plenty of it."

Glenelg's foreign-exchange program paid major playoff dividends yesterday when senior place-kicker Pierre Grenier made a 23-yard field goal in overtime for a 3-0 victory over visiting Hammond.Grenier, a native of France who missed a 33-yard field goal late in the second quarter, scored on the last play of overtime to drop Hammond (6-3, 4-2) out of contention for its first county title and a Class 2A playoff spot."They had the better [kicking] foot, but Pierre has no idea of what pressure is because he has no idea how important that kick was," Glenelg coach Ed Ashwell said.

The similarity was not lost on Steve Hauschka. Two weeks after narrowly missing a game-winning 44-yard field-goal attempt in the waning seconds of the Ravens' 33-31 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, the second-year kicker found himself staring at a 43-yard attempt with 56 seconds left in the first quarter of Sunday's game against the Denver Broncos. "It was almost the exact same 44-yarder," Hauschka said. "I learned my lesson, and I stayed down on that one and kicked it straight." The successful kick set the tone for Hauschka, who made all three field-goal tries in the Ravens' 30-7 victory over Denver.

Glen Burnie's Cliff McPherson finally is putting the hammer down on a local kick boxing show, and he's going full speed ahead.A national lightweight kick boxing champion and professional boxer on the side, McPherson, known as "Hammer," has the county's first all-amateur kick-boxing show featuring "Awesome Dave" Floyd set for 8 p.m. on Feb. 25 at Michael's Eighth Avenue in Glen Burnie.Hammer Productions is ready to deliver.McPherson last presented a successful pro/amateur kick boxing show at the Glen Burnie Armory on a snowy night in December 1989.

FOXBORO, Mass. - Sweden came into the Women's World Cup considered a title threat but was run off the field by the United States in the first half of its opening match. Aside from those 45 minutes, when the Swedes fell behind 2-0 in a 3-1 loss, they have lived up to expectations. By beating 1999 bronze medalist Brazil, 2-1, in a quarterfinal yesterday at Gillette Stadium, the Swedes moved into the semifinals against the winner of today's China-Canada match in Portland, Ore. "The pressure around the [first]

Poly has attempted so few field goals over the years that coach Augie Waibel vividly remembers the last successful one -- which had occurred 13 years ago.And he certainly won't forget sophomore Marcus Smith's kick yesterday.Smith's 23-yard field goal just after the start of the fourth quarter proved to be the winning points in the 12th-ranked Engineers' 16-13 victory over visiting Randallstown in a Class 2A quarterfinal playoff game at Lumsden-Scott Stadium.The field goal, which sailed off to the right and barely stayed within the uprights, completed Poly's rally from a 13-0 deficit in the first quarter and staved off elimination in Waibel's 35th and final season.

At Good Guys Bar and Grill in North Laurel, patrons come to see bikini-clad dancers whirl around brass poles to rock music.One customer really got a kick out of the place.Robert G. Smith and his buddies visited the club in the 9900 block of U.S. 1 in October. Mr. Smith of Maryland City claims that a dancer kicked him in the right side of the head with her high-heeled dancing shoe.Mr. Smith went to the bathroom and passed out. Bouncers at Good Guys mistook Mr. Smith's injuries for drunkenness, dragged him from the club and deposited him outside in the street, Mr. Smith says.