TCA grad Anders Carlson recalls bizarre draft day, looks forward to NFL career

May 3—The moment that changed Anders Carlson's life was broadcast worldwide. Just not where he happened to be.

The former kicker at The Classical Academy in Colorado Springs and Auburn received a phone call from the Green Bay Packers, informing him that he would be their sixth-round selection on Saturday in the NFL Draft.

He hung up the phone, looked at the TV, and saw a black screen with the message: AT&T Service error.

There was no pounding on the TV in frustration. Carlson just sat back at a house off Lake Martin in Alabama, where he watched the draft and appreciated the humor of the moment.

"I was probably the only person in the draft who didn't see myself get drafted," said Carlson, who noted that the TV reception returned shortly after his pick was announced. "I just kind of let it be. The important phone call already happened. I didn't get to watch it, but I knew it was happening and I was excited, no matter what."

It makes sense that Carlson was able to have that perspective in the moment. The draft itself was never the goal.

The story of Daniel Carlson's foray into kicking has been told many times. A family friend, who was coaching kickers for TCA, ran into the Carlson family at church and asked if the family's oldest son, Nils, might want to give it a try. Nils was in his father's home country of Sweden, though, playing semiprofessional soccer. Instead, it was Daniel, who was about to enter his freshman year, who was recruited to try it.

Daniel studied YouTube videos on kicking, then starred in high school, became a standout at Auburn and is now an All-Pro with the Las Vegas Raiders.

Though Anders didn't have to discover the sport from scratch — and he spent hours punting the ball back to Daniel after retrieving his field-goal attempts — it still wasn't his passion immediately. That remained soccer, a lingering influence from his father's upbringing in Europe.

"Junior and senior year, that changed," he said. "(Football) was something I grew to love. I enjoyed the camaraderie of teammates and just the journey of it all."

Carlson then spent six years at Auburn (also Daniel's alma mater), a career extended by the extra COVID-19 year and by a medical redshirt following an ACL/MCL tear to his left knee.

The SEC isn't the NFL, but it's the closest thing to it.

While at Auburn, Anders met his wife (he and Abigail Coleman were married in June 2022), put together a career that trails only Daniel's in terms of field goals and PATs made for the Tigers, and he earned a bachelor's degree (College of Business' aviation program) and master of business administration.

Anders has had the luxury of watching Daniel's career, which has included some of the highest highs and lows offered for a kicker. Daniel was cut early in his first year, after a disastrous day with Minnesota, before rebounding to become the Raiders' most accurate kicker of all time.

Watching and absorbing some of Daniel's lessons influenced the way Anders views and handles pressure. He is confident enough in his ability to trust that he will be prepared, and after that, he'll live with the results.

"I think the biggest thing for me is just knowing my identity," Anders said. "I think for me, faith is a really big thing. My current thing I'm doing is football, but that's not who I am.

"I'm just focused on the things I can control, but knowing my identity is not in football, it's in God."

The only aspect of all of this that has left Daniel feeling a bit unprepared is his knowledge of Green Bay. He's only been in Wisconsin once. He doesn't know the details of the Packers' kicking situation and doesn't particularly care. He knows to make it in the NFL, he'll need to be one of the best 32 kickers in the world, so competition will follow him at every turn.

He's just excited for this long-awaited step for Abigail and himself, and missing a few key moments of the draft broadcast certainly wasn't going to affect that.

"We are ready to grow up and go on our own adventure and see where it takes us," Carlson said. "It's exciting. It's something you've never done, so you're just excited for all the twists and turns and all the learning moments and stuff. Yeah, absolutely ready for it."