By Will Vandervort.
When Ammon Lakip first visited Clemson in the spring of 2010, he came as a soccer recruit.
A star player from Johns Creek, Ga., he was a highly thought of recruit in the world of soccer as he played on all-star teams that traveled the world. He played against the best athletes from Brazil, Argentina and Portugal to name a few.
“I played with kids that signed professional contracts a couple of years after we played them,” Lakip said. “I have always embraced playing higher competition and going against people that were considered better than me.
“I have always just loved to prove people wrong.”
It wasn’t too long after his visit to Clemson that Lakip had to start doing just that. He discovered going into his senior year of high school that he could not play soccer at the college level because his ankles were not going to be able to handle the physical wear and tear of the sport. They were giving out and they were giving out fast.
Luckily he had a backup plan, though when Lakip first started playing football that was not the plan at all. Lakip’s ninth grade teacher, Brian Holmes, who was a placekicker at Samford University and kicked for the Atlanta Falcons and the Carolina Panthers in the NFL, knew of Lakip’s strong leg so he tried to encourage him to be a placekicker for the football team at Chattahoochee High School, the same school that produced Clemson greats Charlie Whitehurst and Mark Buchholz.
I said, ‘Nah, that’s not for me. I want to play soccer.’ I held that mentality until my junior year when they did not have a kicker,” Lakip said. “I was like, ‘You know what? I will do it, but soccer comes first.’
“Going into my senior year, I found out my ankles were not going to hold up anymore playing college soccer so I decided it is about time I just focused on football. This is the way I have to go. When one door closes, another one opens so I just took it seriously from then on and it got me here. So I did something right.”
[postvideo][/postvideo]
Lakip did a lot right. His senior year at Chattahoochee he made 14 of 20 kicks, including two game winners. One was a 27-yard kick as time expired in the state semifinals at the Georgia Dome. The next week in the state championship game, he nailed a 51-yard kick – the second 50-yard plus kick of his career.
As No. 16 Clemson gets set to play 12th-ranked Georgia on Aug. 30, Lakip returns to his home state with something else to prove – he is the guy that can replace kicking legend Chandler Catanzaro.
“That’s all everyone wants to talk about, but personally, I just do me,” the redshirt junior said. “I mean, I have always been a little bit of a different kicker, I guess you could say. I have only kicked for five or six years now. I just like to rely on my calm attitude and my strong work ethic.
“I show up every day ready to compete no matter who I am against. I think I have matured a lot the last three years sitting behind Catman.”
In those three years, he watched Catanzaro score a school-record 405 points, make 37 of his last 39 field goals, including 20 straight at one point, and nail two game winners – one to send the Tigers to the ACC Championship Game in 2011 and a second one to beat No. 7 LSU as time expired in the 2012 Chick-fil-A Bowl.
Now it is Lakip’s turn. Can he do the same against the rival Bulldogs or at Florida State on Sept. 20 if need be?
“Every night I go to sleep thinking about it. It is pretty exciting. I am not going to lie,” he said. “I look forward to it. To be honest, I have always felt that pressure encouraged my abilities.
“Personally, I feel calm under pressure more than anything. It is more difficult for me to show up to practice every day with a strong attitude and ready to go. Game days, I have always felt like I would be ready.”
That was Lakip’s approach when he was a star athlete on the soccer pitch and played against the best in the world. There is not a day that goes by that he does not think about those days.
“Every day, but I get out here and kick footballs so that is close enough to it,” he said.