The Patriots kicking Coach Brad Bohn’s West Coast Kicking Academy has been a big hit.
By JOSH DIGGS
Tustin Sports Writer

The first time University kicker Louis Feinstein attended Brad Bohn’s West Coast Kicking Academy, he might have wondered if he was in the right place.
The 5-foot-7-inch, strong legged instructor walked onto the football field wearing a pair of athletic shorts and barefoot, cleats no where to be found, snagged a football and squeezed it before gently placing it on the tee as a handful of puzzled pupils looked on.
“What are you doing?” one bold kid finally muttered.
“I’m going to kick with you guys,” Bohn said. Then he reared back, got a running a start and booted the pigskin 70 yards into the back of the end zone.
The kids looked on stunned.
“I’ve never seen anyone kick the ball that high and that far in my life and he had no shoes on,” Feinstein said.
Since then, Feinstein, Beckman kicker Cameron Casty and nearly 100 other kickers and punters have made the weekly trip to Saddleback College in hopes of making the same strides.
Bohn, the varsity coach for Beckman’s soccer team and head coach of the Patriot’s freshman football team, opened the West Coast Kicking Academy in the fall of 2002 after a brief run in the professional ranks and it has opened to big success.
He meets with kids as young as 12 years old up to high school seniors. Most come from Orange County but others come from Los Angeles, San Diego, and Riverside counties – even as far as Bakersfield – to learn proper technique and mental makeup to become a successful kicker with hopes of improving their team’s special teams play and securing a college scholarship.
Most high school kickers in the program have been named all-league kickers, all-CIF and several have gone on to play at Division I college on scholarships or are currently being recruited, Bohn said.
“I understood that this is something that I know a lot about so I took my skills and athletic ability and teaching ability and put them together,” Bohn said. “There is no one else doing this around here and it was something that there is a definite need for.”
Bohn has the credibility to boot.
He was an all-county kicker out of Laguna Beach High School and was offered a scholarship to play at Utah State on a full scholarship. He graduated four years later with two degrees having set or shattered nearly every team and conference kicking record.
He signed as a free agent with the Detroit Lions in 2001 and played in four games – the highlight being a game-winning field goal against the Indianapolis Colts – before moving onto the Arena League for a season.
Bohn incorporates his love of teaching and knowledge of the sport as well as pressure packed situations and kicking contests to push the players.
He pits the kickers against each other in tournament style competitions, which puts emphasis on each kick, to simulate the type of pressure the player would experience in game time situations.
And unlike many camps that meet for a weekend in the summer, Bohn trains year-round with the players, which he feels makes helps them learn better and retain more information.
“The reason I think this program is successful is the consistent training program,” Bohn said. “I’m able to break down not only the physical aspects but the mental aspects of what it takes to be a very high level kicker. And because we train every week we can see these kids develop over time and we can continually manage and tweak their technique until they can begin to train themselves.”
He also incorporates a video system similar to the one used by golf instructors to critique a swing to immediately analyze and correct any problem in technique. It also allows the kickers to see what they are doing wrong.
The sessions have been a big boost for Casty, the junior kicker for the Patriots who is in first year at the varsity.
He missed his first kick in the team’s opener, but regrouped to nail a 50-yard field goal in a win against Northwood and hit a 38-yarder to account for the team’s only points in a loss to Corona del Mar
“(Beckman football coach Brian Mustain) has had a lot more faith in me, especially after I kicked the 50-yarder,” Casty said. “I think they feel confident in me inside the 40-yard line if we can’t score a touchdown.”
It has also opened up the possibility of following his instructor’s example and kicking at the collegiate level, Casty said.
“That is something that I’m definitely aiming for and something I’d love to do,” Casty said.
Don’t forget the cleats.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 9:23 am and is filed under Artie Casas, Josh Diggs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.