Just for Kicks
by George Diaz
Annie Parker knew her son Lucas would grow up to be a kicker even before he was born.
“When I was pregnant, he kicked me and cracked a rib,” she says.
Annie’s vision for her son’s future wasn’t wrong. In fact, you could say kicking runs in the family.
Lucas, 17, is a junior at Lake Mary High School and the kicker for the football team, which recently won its first state championship in school history.
Annie was the placekicker at Lyman High School during her senior year in 2000.
And her father, T. Blake Van Brunt Sr., played three seasons at Leon High School in Tallahassee as the kicking specialist.
Their three-generation prowess is impressive in and of itself, and even more so when you consider that Annie was the only girl on her team.
So what’s the secret sauce for this family of exceptional kickers? There’s no secret, just genes and the rewards that come with hard work.
One for the Books
Lucas, who transferred to Lake Mary from Lake Howell, is enrolled in five Advanced Placement classes and earning As and Bs in all of them. And this past December, he had quite the sports highlight moment during the Class 7A State Championship Game against Vero Beach.
After an improbable Hail Mary play as time expired, which tied the score, Lucas trotted onto the field for an extra point kick that would win the game. But first, Vero Beach would jump offsides twice to try to rattle him. When the snap finally came, Lucas drilled the game-winner to give the Rams a 28-27 victory.
“I think I’ve kicked like 230 of those in my high school career so far, so it felt like any other kick,” says Lucas, who lives in Casselberry with his mom.
That kick felt anything but routine to the crowd, though. The game’s surreal events unfolded as heavy rain pelted the stadium, but fans of the Lake Mary Rams weren’t about to let the weather stop their celebration.
Annie – who had just undergone hip replacement surgery – hobbled out of shelter underneath the stands to FaceTime her father.
“I don’t know how my phone still worked because it was soaked,” she says, “but I wanted him to hear and see the moment.”
Flashback to the ‘70s
Blake, now 70, was the pioneer of this kicking family, starting as a freshman in 1970. Despite missing his sophomore season after surgery for a detached retina, he went on to make 73 of 74 extra points in two and a half seasons while hitting field goals as long as 55 yards.
“I wore number 74,” says Blake. “I just wish I had made that 74th extra point.”
Fearing any additional harm to his eye, he quit football to focus on academics at Florida State University. Blake would go on to enjoy a 38-year career at Lockheed Martin, working his way up to senior manager of the company’s global supply chain.
And along the way came daughter Annie. She had a knack for being strong and nimble on her feet, playing four years of varsity soccer as a stopper on defense. One day, Annie and her brother were on a practice field kicking field goals, when the football coach (and one of Annie’s teachers) happened to catch her in action.
The coach pulled Annie aside the next day in class and said: “Our kicker just got injured. Do you want to try out?”
Annie Get Your Football
She went home and asked for her father’s blessing to join the football team. Blake agreed to sign off on it, as long as certain rules were followed.
He addressed the team, telling them: “I’m not expecting you to be a boyfriend to my daughter, but I’m expecting you to be a brother.”
The players heeded Blake’s words.
“They just took her under their wing,” he says. “They would not let anything happen to her.”
Annie would run to the sidelines after kickoffs to avoid getting hit, and she changed in a different locker room. It all worked out.
She could kick field goals from 40 yards out, only missed one extra point attempt, and won a game on an extra point kick.
“I didn’t know it was that big of a deal to have a female kicker,” says Annie, who is now 42. “Social media wasn’t a thing. I just looked at it as another day on the field playing soccer, but now it was football. I never let it get to my head.”
Now, with Lucas preparing for his senior year playing for Lake Mary, the family legacy continues. His proud mom and grandfather are looking forward to adding even more memories to the family scrapbook, chronicling three generations of kicking excellence.