A New Shoe Put Kicker in Hog Heaven

By THOMAS BONK

Dec. 31, 1988 12 AM PT

DALLAS — When Kendall Trainor missed a 25-yard field goal just before halftime in Arkansas’ third game of the season, against Mississippi, he was down to his last kick.

We know how Trainor ended the season, but in the early going, he went something like this:

Wide left.

Despite two missed field goals and a missed extra point, the Hogs still led Ole Miss, 12-7. But Arkansas Coach Ken Hatfield was just about ready to give Trainor the boot. Trainor said he was probably missing not only because of a mental block, but also from a torn leg muscle from which he was recovering.

Trainor walked into the locker room and received, well, a mixed reaction. His teammates gave him the cold shoulder and kicking coach Ken Turner accused him of choking.

“Needless to say, there weren’t too many (teammates) high on me,” Trainor said.

And Turner?

“He is the type that tries to motivate you by getting all up in your kitchen,” Trainor said. “He walked by my locker and told me I was a choker. I just kind of simmered by my locker.”

Soon, halftime was over. Trainor ran out onto the field at Little Rock with the rest of the Hogs. He carried with him a new kicking shoe and a new kicking determination. He told tackles Jim Mabry and Rick Apolskis he would not miss another field goal the rest of his senior year.

“I don’t know how much they believed me,” Trainor said.

“I walked over to the bench and I sat down and pulled my shoe off because I was going to change shoes and change my luck a little bit,” he said. “So I tossed my shoe towards the trash can. It hit the lip and fell out.”

Just then, Trainor heard a voice from the stands.

“Hey, Kendall. Wide left again.”

It was Trainor’s 16-year-old brother, Kevin.

“I was glaring when I looked up there and I saw it was him, smiling real big and laughing,” Trainor said. “I figured if he could be loose, why couldn’t I? So I loosened up a little bit and changed my shoe. Since then, I haven’t missed.”

Since he couldn’t hit a trash can with a shoe, Trainor hasn’t been able to miss anything else. He has made 23 consecutive field goals, including 3 in the second half against Ole Miss that accounted for Arkansas’ only points after intermission.

Trainor’s field goals either won games or provided winning margins against Ole Miss, Texas, Houston and Texas A & M. But Hatfield nearly pulled Trainor after that horrible first half against the Rebels.

“I was trying to figure out what to say to him,” Hatfield said. “I used good wisdom there and said nothing. I don’t know what to tell a kicker anyway. From there, he kicked 23 in a row. So good coaching right?”

Trainor was a walk-on freshman from Fredonia, Kan., but he impressed Hatfield, who quickly gave him a scholarship. He is also a 3-year letterman on the Arkansas baseball team. Trainor finished the season with 24 field goals, a Southwest Conference single-season record, and his 102 points also amounted to a conference record.

But when the second half started against Ole Miss, Hatfield was prepared to give him just one more chance. If Trainor missed again, freshman Todd Wright was going to get the kicking job.

Then an Arkansas drive stalled and Trainor was called on to try a 31-yarder.

“That was probably the most pressure kick I had ever kicked,” he said.

But he made it. Then he kicked a 38-yarder, and then another, from 47 yards out.

“The rest is history,” he said.

And Trainor is alive and kicking.