Soccer-to-football transition paying off for kicker on one of Bergen County's top teams
The Old Tappan goalposts through which Nico Ottomanelli kicks his field goals and extra points are not the same ones that his father once used.
Those were in the back yard of dad Gary’s childhood home.
Nico, 16, is a junior placekicker and punter for the Golden Knights’ football team, which squares off with unbeaten West Morris in Sunday’s NJSIAA Group 3 football semifinals. He played soccer growing up in Harrington Park, but as he got closer to high school, he began to rethink his path.
“Around middle school, my dad took me to the field, and we would just kick field goals for fun,” Nico said. “Then, I started to not like soccer as much, so I thought that I could go into kicking footballs seriously.”
Gary, 53, was just the man to offer guidance. He was a varsity soccer player at Old Tappan before graduating in 1987 but always longed to be a part of the football program (his mom disapproved).
A few years later, while attending St. Thomas Aquinas College, the elder Ottomanelli read that Sacred Heart University was starting a program. He transferred to the Fairfield, Connecticut school in 1990, and the following fall, he was a defensive back/backup kicker on the Pioneers’ inaugural Division III squad.
“I had gone to Ray Pelfrey’s kicking camp – he was a kicker in the NFL [1951], so he had these camps all around the country,” Gary said, recalling his experience from the mid-’80s. “I signed up for it, went down to Trenton State [now TCNJ], and I was around these other kickers thinking, ‘I can compete with these guys. I’m just as good’.”
The Ottomanellis followed a similar course when Nico decided to take aim at splitting the uprights. They signed him up to work with coach Rick Krautman, who set the state record for career kicking points at Ramapo (1998-2001), a mark that stood for 17 years.
“He’s helped a lot,” Nico said. “He’s always teaching me how to adapt to college situations, because he played at Syracuse. So, he’s always telling me about it, what to expect and how to deal with pressure.”
Home kickin'
Shortly after he began to take lessons with Krautman, COVID came to America. Once again, Gary drew from past experience to help his son.
“I must have been a junior or senior, and they were getting new goalposts at the high school,” Gary said. “They took down the old H-style goalposts and were getting ready to throw them away… I went to the custodian and asked, ‘Can I have them?’ He goes, ‘If you can carry them, sure’.”
With the help of his older brother (and a Ford Bronco with an open back window), he brought home the posts to set up in his parents’ spacious back yard in Old Tappan. “My two brothers and my dad, we cemented them in, and I’d always be out back kicking,” Gary said.
When class with Krautman was out at the beginning of the pandemic, father and son improvised by – what else? – setting up backyard goalposts.
“We went to Lowe’s, picked up some PVC pipe, and then spray-painted it yellow and put it on top our swing set,” Nico said. “I think it’s regulation height, but it’s a little narrower.”
That actually provided an advantage, in that it compelled the 6-foot-2, 160-pounder to hone his accuracy. The payoff for Old Tappan is that Ottomanelli has converted 50-of-54 extra points (93 percent) and made all three of his field goal attempts, with a long of 32.
Pioneering spirit
The four PATs Nico booted in the Golden Knights’ North 1, Group 3 title-game victory over Hillside last weekend allowed Gary to enjoy a bit of vicarious living.
“One of my biggest regrets is, I could’ve been on the state-championship football team,” said the elder Ottomanelli, referencing Old Tappan’s 1985 North 1, Group 3 sectional crown. “I just didn’t pull the trigger on making the move from soccer.”
According to Gary and wife Michelle, Nico made the move of his own accord. “We didn’t push him at all, he just said, ‘I want to try kicking’,” the father noted.
It could be simply that the spirit of adventure is an inherited trait. Gary was a literal Pioneer on the startup Sacred Heart football team. One of his two older sisters, Darcy, was a charter member of the Holy Angels gymnastics program in 2013.
Regardless, Nico is fully into placekicking now and aspires to keep it going for as long as he can.
“Ever since I started, I’ve had dreams of playing in college, and maybe even playing like professionally,” he said. “I’ve started to reach out to some college coaches, go visit some colleges and all that. I’m really looking forward to trying to play, hopefully, Division I football.”
On whatever field the goalposts are located, Gary looks forward to seeing his son pursue the craft – if not necessarily what it does to his emotions.
“I try my best to be even-keeled,” he said, “even though I’m on pins and needles every time he lines up, just holding my breath, waiting for that ball to go through. Fortunately, it goes through a lot more than it doesn’t.”
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Nico Ottomanelli: Old Tappan NJ football kicker follows dad's path
