ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, September 27, 1996 TAG: 9609270042
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN STAFF WRITER
PHIL DAWSON HAS BOOTED some big field goals for Texas, including one that beat Virginia on the final play last season.
To Phil Dawson, it was old hat, albeit the 10-gallon variety.
He made the uprights look like wide longhorns with a 50-yard field goal into a 20-mph wind on the last play of last season's Virginia-Texas football game in Austin, Texas.
The kick gave Texas a 17-16 victory. It launched Dawson into Longhorns football legend, if his high school deeds (he picked Texas over Nebraska, Florida State and Miami) hadn't already given him such status.
``He had kicked some before like that,'' said Dawson's mother, Judy.
As a senior at Dallas' Lake Highlands High School, he beat Richardson with a 53-yarder with three seconds left. Later that year in the state playoffs, his 52-yarder beat Nacogdoches on the last play of the game.
And then came the kick that crushed the Cavaliers. It was an improbable bomb from the right hash mark, so improbable Dawson didn't think he had a chance. He already had missed kicks of 52 and 57 yards with the wind at his back. An unidentified Virginia defensive back, after the second miss, told Dawson, ``You're horrible.''
``My confidence wasn't exactly at the highest level,'' said Dawson, a 21-year-old junior. ``When I got in, I knew I had to hit the ball better than I'd ever hit it in my life.''
He said he had all kinds of things in his mind as he lined up the kick. Most had nothing to do with football. He cleared his mind when Virginia coach George Welsh called a timeout.
``I told myself I had a chance of making it, but deep down, I didn't,'' Dawson said.
Dawson, a frequent golfer in the off-season, equated the kick to a good golf shot. ``I wish I could explain the feeling I had when I looked up and saw the ball going exactly where I wanted it to go.''
Although he said beating Texas A&M for the final Southwest Conference championship was the greatest moment of his college career, Dawson said the kick against the Cavaliers was his greatest kick, even if he's had longer.
Dawson's range is up to 60 yards. When he was 22 months old, it was 60 feet. He impressed his parents by standing in their back yard in San Antonio, and kicking a beach ball across it.
``Since he was our oldest, we thought all kids could do that,'' his mother said. ``When he started playing soccer, we realized that wasn't the case.''
Dawson said he always could kick a soccer ball farther than anyone else. His younger brother, Peter, couldn't wrest that claim away when he came along. Peter still plays football, but is more accomplished as a country and western singer.
After his eighth-grade year, Phil gave up soccer to concentrate on football. He was a kicker and offensive tackle for Lake Highlands, and was rated one of the top 50 players in Texas regardless of position after his senior season.
At times when Dawson talks, he sounds like someone who wants to be more than a kicker. He's 5 feet 11, 193 pounds and calls himself ``a kicker with a linebacker's mentality.'' He lifts weights with the Longhorns' offensive linemen. He begs his coaches to let him kick off, not just to put the ball in the end zone, but to put blockers on their backs. For that same reason, there are no plans on the Texas staff for Dawson to start kicking off.
``I think of myself as a football player who just happens to kick,'' Dawson said.
Among the side benefits of the Virginia game-winner, Dawson said it gave him confidence and made him feel like a greater part of the team. Whenever he gets down, he watches the kick on videotape. It served as inspiration in the spring when he was rehabilitating after surgery for torn ligaments in his left knee.
Dawson may have pulled out the videotape again this week. Texas lost to Notre Dame 27-24 on Saturday. The game ended on, of all things, a 37-yard field goal by the Fighting Irish's Jim Sanson. It presented an eerie image exactly opposite to the Virginia victory, down the hash mark. Sanson lined up on the left.
Dawson knew how powerful a kicker's leg can be. After Sanson's boot, he found out how painful it can be, too.
``It's kind of a helpless feeling,'' Dawson said. ``One's a lot more fun than the other. I'd never been on the other end of a last-second loss.''
He's much better at placing his teammates on the other end.
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. (headshot) Dawson. 2. UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS Texasby CNBkicker Phil Dawson (left) follows the flight of his 50-yard field
goal against Virginia last season that beat the Cavaliers 17-16 on
the final play in Austin, Texas. The rematch is Saturday night.