Seven days. Usually one job. Often no second chances until next August. High school kicking tryouts are short, public, and judged by coaches who coach ten other things — which is exactly why you cannot treat tryout week like a regular practice week. You need a plan that peaks on day seven, not a week of panic kicking that leaves your leg tired and your timing fried.
What Coaches Are Actually Grading
New kickers assume tryouts are a distance contest. They are not. Your coach is filling a job that requires the ball to go through the uprights from 25 to 40 yards every single time, with a snapper and holder he is also evaluating. What he is watching:
- Your consistency window. Where are you automatic? A kicker who never misses inside 35 wins more jobs than one who bombs 50 twice.
- Operation speed. Do you get set, execute, and reset fast? Coaches have clocks in their heads.
- Recovery after a miss. Miss, sulk, miss again — done. Miss, breathe, hit the next one — the coach writes your name down.
- Coachability. When he says “shorten your last step,” does your next kick show it? That single rep matters more than ten without feedback.
- Hustle and body language. Between kicks, after kicks, when you are not the center of attention.
The Seven-Day Plan
Peak, do not pile up. Volume in tryout week is how kickers show up with a dead leg and a scrambled routine. Here is the week:
- Day 1 — Film and basics. Review your last two weeks of video. Pick the ONE swing fix that matters most. Kick 25 balls, two-step only, all contact work.
- Day 2 — Contact day. Short approaches again, 30-40 balls, focusing on the one fix. Chart everything so you can prove progress to yourself.
- Day 3 — Full operation. Find a holder and snapper if at all possible. 20-25 live operations, both hashes, 30-45 yards. Record your chart.
- Day 4 — Rest and mental work. No kicking, or almost none. Visualize the tryout field, the operation, the routine. Walk the distances.
- Day 5 — Light operation day. Half volume, full routine. Practice your pre-kick routine exactly as you will use it Saturday.
- Day 6 — Dress rehearsal. 15-20 live kicks at game intensity, then stop. Do not chase the last one. Legs need to be fresh, not proven.
- Day 7 — Tryout. Short warm-up, routine exactly as rehearsed, one kick at a time.
The Details Nobody Plans For
- Bring two balls if the coach allows it — one game-style and one you have kicked a hundred times. Ask which he wants you to use before the whistle.
- Know your tee situation in advance. If tryouts are off the ground, your last session on a tee should have been weeks ago, not the night before.
- Write a between-kicks script. Where you stand, where you look, how you breathe. The idle seconds between kicks are exactly where nerves grow, so fill them with the routine instead.
- Pocket a notebook. Chart as you go and jot the coach’s corrections between rotations, so every next kick has a target instead of a mood.
Chart Yourself During the Tryout
Between kicks, keep a running tally in your head or on your wristband: makes, misses, distance, hash. Two reasons. First, it keeps your brain on process instead of panic — you cannot count makes and catastrophize at the same time. Second, when the coach asks you afterward how you think it went, you have a real answer: “9 of 12, all makes inside 35, 2 of 4 from 45.” Coaches respect a kicker who knows his own chart. It tells them you will chart yourself all season without being told.
Handling the Nerves in Front of Coaches
Nerves are not the enemy — unmanaged nerves are. You will not talk yourself out of being nervous, so give the nerves a job instead. Breathe in for four counts, out for six, between kicks. Walk back to your mark the same way every time. Run your routine on every ball, including the boring 25-yarders, so the routine is the thing that shows up on kick seven, not adrenaline. If the mental side is your weak spot, work on it before the week starts, not during it: the guide to stopping game-day nerves and the piece on building a pre-kick routine are both short, practical, and built for exactly this.
And remember what a tryout is: a week of kicks, not your identity. One bad day in August does not define your season unless you let it leak into the next rep.
If You Do Not Win the Job
It happens, and it is not the end of anything. Do these three things before you leave the field: ask the coach, politely and specifically, what separated the winner; write the answer down; and turn it into your training list for the next three months. Kickers get better in the gaps — the offseason, the club team, the next level. The seniors who lose a competition in August and show up ready in November get remembered for it. So does everyone else, but in the direction you want.
For the deeper work behind a tryout-ready swing — contact, steps, and the routine that holds it together under watch — The Art of Kicking walks through it chapter by chapter. Grab it with code KOE for 10% off, and take the routine you build this week straight into your season chart.
