April 10, 2007
By Chad Frosland
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - As the Boilermakers began their third week of spring football workouts, sophomore placekicker Chris Summers took the time for an interview after practice on Monday, April 9. Summers appeared in all 14 games last season. He ranked second in the Big Ten with 46 PAT conversions and kicked a season-long 47-yard field goal vs. Wisconsin on Oct. 21. Now from Fishers, Ind., Summers talked about having Illinois roots, his major and his favorite kicker.
On spring workouts...
"I enjoy spring football. I'm having a good time. It's just nice to get back to it after three, four months of not putting on pads, and getting out here with the whole team. I like how it's evenly spaced out throughout the week. It gives me a little bit more time to get my personal stuff done."
On the benefits of spending five days over spring break in Hillsville, Virginia training with Doug Blevins, a renowned kicking coach...
"I have a lot more confidence in knowing what I'm doing. In the sense that last year I was kicking, and I was trying my best to fix it, but now I feel like I am more confident in knowing more about the kicking itself so I can be more confident in kicking. And if I struggle, I feel like I know how to fix that better."
On his goals for the upcoming season...
"My first goal, obviously, is to still be the placekicker. I've got two guys behind me and that's their goal too, so that's my first and foremost goal. If I end up being the kicker, I'd like to continue kicking-off well and obviously improve my field goal accuracy."
On coming in this past fall as a walkon...
"Obviously you come in and you have to be confident thinking `hey, I can win this.' But it's tough because they brought in Tim (Dougherty) on a scholarship, and they had Casey (Welch) here who was a senior, and it's always difficult to try and beat out a senior who has so much experience here at Purdue. So, I was confident in thinking that I could win it out, but I don't exactly know if I expected it."
On his athletic highlight...
"Probably winning out the starting job last year, to tell you the truth. It made me feel a sense of accomplishment, and I really felt that all those years in high school that I'd been working really had paid off."
On his Illinois heritage...
"Both of my parents graduated from Illinois and I was an Illinois fan up until last year. It was rough making the transition. Every chance I got I tried to go there and obviously my parents thought it would be great, but they were very supportive of me going wherever the best place was for me.
I was born in Illinois and I lived in Champaign, but we focused on what was better for me and put that aside."
On why Purdue was the best fit...
"I wanted to go into engineering and this is obviously an outstanding engineering school. It just seemed like the staff and all the guys here were really nice and positive to me, and I really felt like this was the place for me."
On juggling engineering and football...
"I came to the realization that you can do both of them, that's not really the problem. The hard part is doing both of them well. Because you can get by, it's really not that much of a problem. It's easy because I'm here over the summer so I've only taken 12 hours both semester and that's not that bad. I'm taking eight this summer. I can't really take the normal classes that most engineering majors would take. It's not that tough, it's just hard trying to excel in both of them. It's very demanding with all of the football activities and all of the school activities that I have to get done. It just takes up a lot of time."
On his career goal...
"You know I would like to advance and keep playing football. But if it doesn't take me there, then I'd definitely want to get a degree here from engineering and have that take me where it takes me. I'm currently trying to apply to the ME (Mechanical Engineering) school. I've still got some work to do over the summer to get some classes done for that, but I really hope to graduate out of here with an ME degree."
On his favorite kicker...
"Adam Vinatieri. He's really good. And you know everybody says that Tom Brady was the one asset that won all of the championships, but Adam won three of them. Then he comes to Indy and he wins another one. I don't know, I think you have to give it to him. He is so clutch and that's what I love about him."
