Senior Bryan Crutchfield runs the forty yard dash in a blazing 4.94 seconds, he is a member of the prestigious 700 pound club, and at 6’2’’, checks in at a whopping 145 pounds. He has never made a tackle, thrown a pass, rushed for a gain or scored a touchdown, yet CHS football would be in a lot of trouble without him.

Crutchfield is entering his second season as the Bulldogs’ special teams specialist after being named All-Gazette second team last year for his outstanding field goal and extra point kicking. This year however, Crutchfield also takes on a new role as full-time punter.

 “On fourth down now I know I’m going in,” Crutchfield said. “Before when I wasn’t a punter, it was always, are we in field goal range? Are we gonna go for it? Is [senior quarterback] Alex Kantor going in? But now I know I’m going and I know I’m in charge of the special teams unit.”

Even though Crutchfield’s kicking has elevated him to superstar status as a football player, he would never have played the game if he was not snubbed from his middle school soccer team.

“I played soccer for almost 10 years,” Crutchfield said. “I ended up not playing Hoover soccer so my dad said ‘well you’re not gonna make soccer, so let’s try your luck with field goal kicking’.”

While Crutchfield is one of the most accomplished on the team in terms of awards, respect is not always easy to come by as a kicker.

“We used to make fun of him a lot, stuff like, ‘you’re a kicker, you’re the scum of the earth’,” senior Danial Dadkhoo said. “But now he’s pretty good, so we don’t really say anything.”

 Few players face late-game, pressure-situations that a kicker like Crutchfield does, yet he manages to come through in clutch situations time after time thanks to his superb mental approach to the game.

 “I try not to think about anything actually,” Crutchfield said. “People say it must be very nerve racking but you learn to control the nerves, you get used to it. Truthfully when I’m out there my mind is just focused on the sweet spot of the ball and nothing else, people could be screaming out who knows what and I wouldn’t hear it.”