Soccer, Football
Favorite athlete: Odell Beckham Jr
Favorite team: Manchester United
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning the Turkey Hill Challenge Cup
Most embarrassing/funniest moment competing in sports: “I watched a shot go into my own goal that I probably could have saved during a big tournament with lots of scouts. This threw me off and I played pretty poorly the rest of the game.
Music on mobile device: Travis Scott right now
Future plans: Study psychology in soccer while playing soccer and go on to find a job in the field of psychology.
Favorite motto: “Got get it” plain and simple
One goal before turning 30: Attend graduate school
One thing people don’t know about me: I barely watch TV, but I prefer kids’ shows and cartoons to adult/serious shows.
By Ed Morrone
As a former offensive lineman in college, Ryan Nase may have once subscribed to the theory that kickers and punters weren’t really football players.
Then, later in life as the head football coach at Cheltenham, Nase met Justin Grady. Now, not only does Nase go out of his way to heap praise upon his kicker…he calls Grady the Panthers’ biggest asset.
The perception of the kicking position in football varies depending on who you ask, but few will give the same credit to a kicker or punter as they will a quarterback or linebacker. Aside from kickoffs, extra points, punts and field goal attempts, kickers aren’t on the field with the rest of the team and tend to be off in their world doing their own thing.
“I can remember when I played at Lafayette during training camp, we’d be pushing sleds and doing Oklahoma drills, and the kicker is jogging laps without his shirt on,” Nase said with a laugh.
However, under closer examination, a truly great football kicker has the ability to completely change a game when successful. Not only can he put points on the board, but he can drastically alter the opposing team’s field position.
Grady has done that through Cheltenham’s first three games, and believe it or not, football is his second sport. As it turns out, Grady is also the Panthers’ first-team all-league starting goalkeeper. But first, let’s start with football, and how Grady is not only able to play football on top of his soccer commitments but play it well.
Of Cheltenham’s 10 kickoffs so far, eight of them have been touchbacks. Grady has also punted seven times for an average of 44 yards per kick. In other words, he’s putting the opponent at a disadvantage right off the bat by pinning them back in their own zone. Grady hasn’t tried a field goal yet, but Nase said that any time the Panthers cross midfield, he’s not afraid to give his kicker a shot.
“He takes his training very seriously,” Nase said. “During the offseason, he lifted with the football team and got substantially stronger and more muscular. If he wasn’t as good at soccer as he is, he would be a starting running back, wide receiver or tight end on our team, he’s that strong. Every football game he plays for us is his second game of the day. And he does all of that while maintaining a 4.0 GPA. It’s unbelievable.”
Grady was a soccer player first, playing locally for a Cheltenham youth team when he was seven. He began playing goalie when he was 9 or 10, and played for various club teams into his teenage years, including one that was ranked No. 1 in the country for a time.
Grady was even invited to play for the Union Academy, a junior squad that was affiliated with the Philadelphia Union. He and his family ultimately decided against the time and commitment required and instead opted to continue playing club and high school ball, but the invitation alone spoke to Grady’s talent on the pitch.
So with his soccer career heading in the right direction, how the heck did he end up kicking for the football team too?
“During the summer, I work at a sports camp at the high school as a counselor,” Grady recalled. “After my freshman year, there were a few football players who were also working at the camp. We were messing around during a break and I ended up kicking a 35-yard field goal. They told the football coach at the time I had a nice leg, and he ended up telling me to come out for the team.”
Even though he admitted he had no idea what he was doing, Grady went out for and made the football team as a sophomore. The team didn’t have a great season, so Grady didn’t get the opportunity to kick any field goals; instead, he used the time he devoted to football to hone his craft. As a junior, he found himself more involved in the action and showed people just how important a skilled kicker can be for a team. In a 23-20 win last October, Grady connected on all three of his field goal attempts (from 30, 45 and 21 yards), including the game-winner with less than two minutes to play.
“To have the ability to change the outcome of the game like that was amazing,” Grady said. “Besides the actual feeling of winning the game and being an important piece of the team, the thing I took most from it was the validation of my teammates.
“The response I got from them was that I was someone they could trust and they had my back. They’re out there working hard on the field the entire game, and I won’t say mine is an easy job, but compared to everyone else, kicking is kind of a set process. To be able to come in and do that and make everything they fought so hard for worth it, that’s the feeling that was worth the most.”
Grady is in constant communication with Nase and Cheltenham soccer coach Bill Tonkin in terms of being able to effectively juggle his responsibilities with both teams. Nase even said that he builds the football practice schedule around Grady’s availability, so during the one or two times per week Grady is able to be with the football team, that’s when the Panthers will be practicing special teams.
It can become a bit of a balancing act, but Grady said it hasn’t been an issue, in large part because both coaches are lenient in their understanding of his unique situation.
“Justin is a great kid and leader for our team,” Tonkin said. “His ability to find balance between sports and school is amazing, and he is a true example of what a student-athlete should be. He’s a great role model for the younger players on our team as well.”
Nase said that if Grady wasn’t destined to be a soccer player in college that he would likely find himself as a scholarship kicker for a football program. For his part, Grady loves to do both, and finds the roles of goalie and placekicker similar in their own ways.
“A goalie in soccer is like an extremely magnified version of a kicker in football,” he said. “When it comes to making field goals, the whole team is depending on you to be that last resort.
“If you miss one, it’s pinned on you, just like in soccer if you allow a goal, nobody focuses on the defensive breakdown. Instead, it’s what the goalie did wrong. Because of that, you can’t let your emotions flare up because it will negatively influence the whole game. I just want to help in every way I can for both teams so that I can continue to do both, which is what I like.”
Grady isn’t sure where he’ll be playing soccer next fall just yet, as he is still in the middle of the recruiting process. He took a visit to George Washington University in D.C. this week, and has also been in contact with coaches from Lehigh, Lafayette, Villanova and Colgate, among others. His ultimate decision will be made after considering multiple options: academics, athletic fit and the amount of scholarship money a school is able to offer, especially considering his parents have four kids at home.
As far as academics go, Grady has taken his studies more seriously the older he’s gotten. His parents have always pushed him to apply himself — his dad graduated from Penn State, and his mother, who got her undergraduate degree from Yale, just completed her doctorate in family therapy. As a result, Grady’s courseload is littered with AP classes, and he maintains a perfect GPA. He’s interested in studying industrial psychology, a branch of psychology that applies psychological theories to workplace environments and employees.
“He’s a leader not only on our team, but in our school,” Nase said. “Everything he does, he works hard at. His class schedule is AP this, AP that; he has a natural competitiveness, not just in sports but in the classroom too, where he challenges himself and does really well.”
Grady is excited for what’s still to come in the future, but until then he still has his entire senior year to enjoy. He’s grown to love the different scenario - playing two sports during the same season, and he’ll try to soak up as many memories as possible before it’s time to move on to what’s next.
“What I’ll miss most are the people,” he said. “We haven’t had a great football team the past few years and we only won two games last year. But that hasn’t stopped my soccer teammates from coming to the games on Friday nights, chanting my name and supporting me. I’ve also enjoyed getting closer with the guys on the football team. I think until my sophomore year, I bought into the notion that the kicker wasn’t an important part of the team.
“But then I saw my teammates start to appreciate the kicker position the more chances I got to succeed. There was an overall shift in the atmosphere of the team. As I kicked more field goals, guys started coming up to me in the hallways and telling me how important I was to the team. I think sometimes they were half-joking, but they also see and understand my value. That’s a great honor, and the most fulfilled I’ve felt is that response I’ve gotten from my teammates.”
