CAMAS — His focus remains on today, the present.
His dreams, his hopes, are centered on the future.
The past? It’s there. He learns from it.
When he does his job in the present, when he reaches his goals in the future, Michael Boyle will know that whatever has come before now just made him better.
“You gotta go out there and focus on just what you’re going to do in that moment and do your best,” Boyle said.
Specifically, he is referring to kicking a football. But, he has learned, that really is a fine philosophy for life.
Boyle is in his fourth season with the Camas Papermakers, a kicker for one of the best programs in Washington.
His first season ended in heartache for Papermakers, devastation for a special teams player.
Boyle’s story does not begin with that tough day in the state championship game.
No, it starts two days later, when he returned to the football field to practice kicking, all alone, on a cold December day.
“I just told myself I wanted to do anything in my power to get my team back there,” Boyle said.
For a kicker, that meant getting stronger. A bigger leg, of course, but also — and more importantly for this position — a stronger mental approach.
Boyle received a message from former NFL kicker and Mountain View High School graduate Rian Lindell, who encouraged Boyle to keep working.
“He said kickers have to have short-term memories,” Boyle said. “You can’t go back on it.”
Just like Boyle cannot go back on the A-minus he received as a freshman in English class. Boyle can be mad about it — he still is — but he does not dwell on it. Instead, he has been perfect in the classroom ever since.
And he cannot change the fact that an odd injury led to a bizarre discovery and then surgery. All of those things conspiring to wipe out his offseason prior to his senior year, crushing his opportunities to be seen by college coaches at kicking clinics.
Instead, he celebrated being back on the field, making all by one extra point this season, while converting on three field goals.
Not a whole lot of field goals. But then again, he plays for Camas. Field goals? Field goals? Why settle for three points, when seven is better?
“Fourth-and-10, we’re still going for it,” Boyle said. “I’m kind of used to it. And nine out of 10 times, we seem to convert. Can’t complain about that. So instead of attempting a field goal, I’m kicking an extra point.”
He helps in other ways, too. All those touchdowns Camas scores? They are followed by kickoffs. Boyle is a touchback machine. There are times when he is told not to kick the ball into the end zone, to give the coverage team some work. But for the most part, if Boyle is asked to kick it deep, the other team is starting on the 20-yard line.
Boyle hopes he has enough of a resume to impress college coaches.
Last offseason, he was set to perform at a kicking clinic. But a week prior to the event, he hurt his left ankle. He could not plant, keeping him from kicking.
“I just thought I sprained it a little bit. It seemed like a minor injury. Wasn’t anything I was worried about,” Boyle said.
However, the pain … just remained.
“It kind of never went away,” he said.
He found out, after a series of tests, that he was born with an extra bone in his heel. Surgery was required. Boyle had the procedure in the spring, missing out on another kicking clinic, and his rehabilitation lasted most of the summer.
“I was more worried about the camps I was missing,” Boyle said. “I trusted that I was going to be OK. Just more worried about the time I was missing.”
He returned in time for August practice, then strained a muscle and missed the first game. Younger brother Andrew Boyle filled in, keeping the extra points in the family name.
Michael Boyle returned in Week 2.
“It was great. At the same time, it didn’t feel that much different (than previous games),” he said. “No butterflies. Just really excited to be playing.”
Boyle does acknowledge that he was nervous before the state championship game in 2013.
Yes, that game.
Chiawana rallied from 13 points down in the final 70 seconds to stun the Papermakers by one point.
While those final moments had nothing to do with the Camas kicking game, two Camas kickers combined to miss two field goals and three extra points that day — with Boyle missing on two kicks. A series of events led to a lot of unusual things that day — the holder being injured, which threw off the timing on those kicks, was just one major factor.
Still, a kicker is his own worst critic.
“I was devastated. I couldn’t even understand what just happened,” Boyle said. “It was unfathomable. I put it on myself. I had one job.”
Two days later, Boyle was kicking. Inspired by the past, but focused on the present and the future.
“I’d say I’m a lot more confident in my abilities now,” Boyle said this week as Camas prepares for yet another playoff run.
“Short-term memory is pretty much everything,” Boyle said. “And if you do mess up, it’s all about the next kick.”
