He’s not sure what possessed him to do it, but Justin
Medlock vividly remembers the day during his sophomore year in high
school when he went to the football field for the very first time,
teed up a ball, and kicked a 45-yard field goal straight through
the uprights.
“When I made it, I was like, “˜Hmmmm,'”
Medlock said. “I knew right then I could be good at
this.”
At the time, the Santa Clara native was already part of his
school’s soccer, basketball and baseball teams, and was
unsure whether there was room in his life for shoulder pads and a
helmet. The decision was made easier when Medlock’s high
school football coach told him there was no room on the team for
“just a kicker.”
To Medlock, the rejection didn’t particularly sting much.
He never intended for football to be a big part of his life
anyway.
“Football just wasn’t my thing,” Medlock said.
“If it was, I would have started when I was 12.”
Yet when the Bruin junior sends away his opening kickoff this
Saturday at the Rose Bowl, he will be reminded that kicking
provided him an escape from what he describes as a troubled past,
an opportunity to attend a university he otherwise believes he
couldn’t, and the chance to live up to the athletic legacy
his father left behind.
While Medlock maintains that football is probably his worst
sport along with golf, he appreciates that kicking and a powerful
left leg have propped open doors that he’s been fortunate
enough to walk through, doors he initially didn’t think
existed.
“Kicking has gotten me here,” Medlock said.
“Hopefully it takes me to an even further level.”
Family Ties
A placekicker on the No. 8 ranked team in the country is only
good enough to play second fiddle in Medlock’s family.
Medlock’s father, Robert Medlock, competed at the Olympic
Trials in the 100 meters, falling just short of qualifying for the
Games.
While he doesn’t possess his father’s blinding
speed, Justin attributes much of his athletic prowess to his
father, but still feels his own status, as a place kicker at UCLA,
doesn’t quite yet measure up.
“I didn’t realize it until now, but that was pretty
special, pretty big what he did,” Justin said. “And all
I am is just a kicker. I didn’t even get fast. I don’t
know what happened with my genes.”
Though Medlock felt the soccer field is where his true athletic
talent was best exhibited and perhaps his best chance to mimic his
father’s ability, he still had enough time off the field to
develop “bad habits” and fall into academic
trouble.
“I was a different kind of kid,” Justin said.
“I got in a lot of trouble, and I realized I needed to stop
doing the things I was doing.”
Thus in his junior year, Medlock dedicated himself to kicking
for football, believing it was his best chance to obtain a
scholarship. And this time he made the football team as its kicker,
while surprising his parents in the process.
“I asked him “˜what are you going to do on a football
team,'” said Tammy Medlock, Justin’s mother.
“But we supported it, we’ve always encouraged sports to
keep him out of bad habits.”
While he was training to become a kicker, however,
Justin’s father began to fall ill to cancer, in what Tammy
Medlock described as an extremely emotional, confusing, and
“tough time for Justin.”
The night before only Justin’s third game, Robert Medlock
lost his two year battle with cancer, never getting the chance to
truly see his son excel at his newfound niche.
“He at least got to see me play in two games,”
Justin said.
Hitting his target
Asked to be his high school team’s starting quarterback
his senior year, Medlock declined. He had become his team’s
all-purpose kicker to obtain a scholarship, not to make a career
out of football.
“I never knew how serious college football was,”
Medlock said. “I just thought it was a game. That’s why
I didn’t want to go to Tennessee or somewhere like that where
when you miss a kick, you might not come out alive. I wanted to
have another life.”
But in his time at UCLA, football has become his life.
After each Saturday game, Medlock checks his computer to see how
other college football kickers performed that weekend, constantly
pitting himself against his competition.
And of all current Bruin players, it’s not Maurice Drew or
Marcedes Lewis that leads UCLA in scoring in their careers, but
instead it’s Medlock. The junior is 10th all-time in scoring
and sixth among field-goal kickers in Bruin history with 205
points, earning him a spot on the team’s media guide
alongside Drew, Lewis, and Spencer Havner.
“I take pride in that, seeing myself on the (media guide)
as a kicker,” Medlock said. “I see former Bruin kickers
like John Lee and Chris Sailer, and I want to be considered the
best. And I know that’s going to be tough.”
But at 6-foot and close to 200 pounds, Medlock doesn’t
look like or train like he’s just a kicker. The junior spent
the off season immersed in vigorous workouts to strengthen his leg,
which has resulted in 23 of his 45 kickoffs making it to the end
zone for touchbacks.
And though he hears the constants jabs and taunts that kickers
are the social outcasts of a football team and not really football
players, he lets his work ethic and place in Bruin history speak
for itself.
“I get the jokes, but I don’t really care what
people say,” Medlock said. “I think I am one of the
hardest working guys out here, and I don’t want to get
outworked by anybody. So, they can say anything they want about me
being a kicker, but no one better get beat out by a
kicker.”
An identity that Medlock simply used to get into UCLA, but now
has permanently become ingrained in him.
A strong statement from a shortstop, a tennis player, a golfer,
a forward, a guard and oh yeah, a kicker.