Bohls: Former Texas, NFL star Phil Dawson doing it for more than just kicks these days

SAN ANTONIO — Phil Dawson’s one lucky guy.

Seems wherever he goes, success always follows him around. Funny how that works.

It caught up with the former Texas and NFL place-kicker again here at the NCAA Convention on Wednesday night when he became the first Longhorns football player ever to be named a Silver Anniversary Award recipient for impacts in community and careers. He was honored alongside Peyton Manning and other wildly accomplished athletes a quarter-century after their collegiate careers.

“To be the first Longhorn football player to be so honored, that blew me away,” Dawson said. “I don’t know how that’s the case.”

Of course, Dawson has always been something of a trailblazer from the time he was a high school linebacker who dabbled in kicking. You have to be such to go from being an undrafted free agent who was signed and waived by the then-Oakland Raiders and then spent a few days on the Patriots' practice squad to becoming the best kicker in Cleveland Browns history and boot a staggering 441 field goals, ninth-most all-time.

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As a kicker with an 83.8% career success rate, he might someday find his way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame alongside the only two pure kickers in there, Jan Stenerud and Morten Andersen, but he’s not counting on it. The only other two kickers so honored — George Blanda and Lou Groza, whose Browns franchise record Dawson broke — also played quarterback and on the offensive line, respectively.

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it. But that's so far up there, I try not to,” Dawson said. “I’d be thrilled just to be a nominee. I’m firmly aware of my position. Adam Vinatieri is the next one up. He’s earned it by his longevity and big-moment kicks. I had a few of those but was not on teams that had many of those moments. That’ll probably get me in the long run. But the good Lord gave me a good, long run. I’m very content.”

He appreciates the acclaim he’s received and had no idea what his time at the Ben Agajanian summer camp for kickers would lead to. The Dallas Cowboys kicker told Dawson’s parents, “Your son needs to do this.” Fortuitous words, indeed, with quick results since as a ninth grader he kicked a 49-yarder for the varsity.

“I stumbled into it,” Dawson said of his career plan. “I never wanted to be a kicker.”

His 53-yarder against Richardson for the district championship and another in a third-round playoff win over Nacogdoches started to persuade him otherwise. He visited Texas, canceled all his other visits and became a legend in Austin.

He’s as straightforward-looking as you’d expect from a person who made his living hitting a field goal on a line between two uprights.

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Few have ever done it better either in college, where he kicked one big field goal after another for Texas with 13 school records, or the NFL, where he split uprights regularly for 21 seasons with three teams, including the 49ers and Cardinals.

Dawson deserves serious consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, even if he’s a long shot. After all, he’s always garnered considerable respect, like when he was voted team captain of the Longhorns his senior year despite playing a less heralded position.

He’s aware.

That’s why he’s so proud of that fact, which humbled him the last time he led his team onto the Cotton Bowl field against Oklahoma.

“I grew up in Dallas,” the Lake Highlands graduate said. “So when I led my team out of the tunnel as team captain, that’s the biggest honor you can have as a player, especially at my position. I’ve thought about that a lot.”

Those college memories washed over him as Dawson and others were saluted by a ballroom full of more than a thousand onlookers at the Convention Center on Wednesday night. None was bigger than the jaw-dropping 50-yard field goal he ripped into a stout 30-mph wind to help Texas beat Virginia 17-16 in 1995. I remember it well, standing behind the goalposts that moment.

“That was definitely in my top three memories,” he said. “That was also UT’s 700th all-time win, which spoke to our rich history. That springboarded us to get on a roll, and we won every game after that to win the Southwest Conference.”

Curiously enough, head coach John Mackovic immediately called for the kick team without blinking. His kicker was equally confident.

“I was young and dumb. I really was,” Dawson said. “Maybe I was borderline arrogant because I thought I was going to make every kick. It runs deep. Coach Mackovic was very decisive, and that helped my confidence.”

That said, it didn’t help when, as Dawson was leaving the sidelines before the kick, UT’s offensive line coach yelled at Mackovic, “What the hell are you doing, John?”

Making history, that’s what.

Dawson made some more the next year when the Longhorns beat the Aggies in College Station to clinch a spot in the Sugar Bowl.

“Whoever won that game was going to go,” Dawson said. “As a Texas kid who grew up hating the Aggies, that was big. I still remember the bus ride home. It doesn’t get much better than beating the Aggies in their place in a fantastic environment. That’s on my list.”

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His list of memories has expanded since his NFL retirement after 2018, but they now come in a different category.

Dawson has cited his high school coaches as the ones who made the biggest impacts on his life, and he’s in the process of shaping others’ as a first-year head football coach at Hyde Park Baptist. Last season he took the remnants of an 0-10 team and led Hyde Park to an impressive 8-3 record and the playoffs after inheriting a program that had produced three wins in the previous four seasons. The roster had shrunk to 27 and had to be bolstered to 70 under Dawson.

“We were really down,” he said. “Morale was in the toilet. No momentum. Nothing was going on.”

Yet the team finished 8-2 in the regular season with a win over St. Michael’s before falling to eventual TAPPS Class 5A champion Fort Bend Christian Academy in the first round of the playoffs.

“They laid it on us, but we were pretty good,” Dawson said. “To win eight games in year one was great for the community, and we should be better. There’s some pretty good buzz around town. We know we’re never going to compete with the big boys, and that’s fine. But I tell the players to embrace the team role because I made my career out of just six to seven plays a game.”

Dawson spent two seasons at Lipscomb Academy in Nashville, Tenn., as a coordinator under Trent Dilfer, who took the UAB job last month. Dawson, 47, would never completely rule out college coaching, but his heart is at the high school level.

He wanted to return to Texas, where his son Beau just finished his first season as a backup quarterback at Lamar, and son Dru isn’t playing football at Texas State after quarterbacking at Vandegrift but has assisted his dad three or four days a week.

“Coaching is what he wants to do,” Dawson said of Dru. “He’s a future rock star in the coaching world.”

And Dawson knows all about being a rock star.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Football made UT, NFL kicker Phil Dawson a star; now he's giving back