Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [64]
Del’s eldest son, Steve, went on to pitch for the University of Virginia and, in 1978, was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers organization, with whom he spent the next four seasons, pitching for the Newark Co-Pilots and Burlington Bees. Daughter Sandra was also a fine basketball, soccer, and field-hockey player at Thomas Jefferson High in Alexandria.
Although Scott, the middle child, was also talented at baseball, soccer was his true passion.
“[Football] wasn’t a dream as I was growing up,” he said years later. “I was dreaming about playing in the World Cup.”
Twice Norwood earned all-metropolitan honors as a sweeper for the Colonials. But as a senior, Jefferson High’s football coach approached him about becoming a placekicker. Hoping to contribute where needed, he became a two-sport athlete during the fall season.
Father and son worked together to turn Scott into a reliable soccer-style kicker, and beginning in 1978, Norwood was a two-sport athlete for Division I-AA James Madison University. As a freshman, he kicked the game-winning field goal against Mars Hill on a Saturday, drove to Baltimore with his parents, then scored the winning goal in a match with St. Peter’s College. That winter, Norwood quit soccer to focus on placekicking.
“I gave up soccer because I thought I had leveled off,” said Norwood, whose five goals as a freshman ranked third on the Dukes soccer team. “I didn’t think I’d get much better. I had watched football and enjoyed it.”
During his first year, Norwood shared the kicking duties with Joe Showker, then took over full time for the 1979 season.
“He’s capable of hitting anything from 55 yards and in,” Dukes head coach Challace McMillin said about the five-foot, eight-inch sophomore, “and he’s got excellent accuracy from 40 yards in.”
Norwood was a preseason all-American prior to his senior year. Applying visualization and relaxation methods to his pre-kick routine helped immensely.
“I really began to feel settled at the end of last season. I’ve just gotten a lot of practice, that’s the main thing. I not only have practiced physically, but I’ve also practiced mentally. A lot depends on your mental attitude,” Norwood said as a junior. “I feel I can be successful consistently from the 40-yard line and in when I’m kicking well and coming through the ball. When you get out farther, you think about kicking the ball hard and that takes away from other things.”
On November 22, 1981, the Dukes took on the host East Tennessee State Buccaneers at the “mini dome” of Memorial Center Field. In his final college game, Norwood’s twenty-yarder with nine seconds left broke a 14-14 tie and gave James Madison its first victory over a Division I school since switching to I-AA in 1980.
That kick was not the last game-winner for the future professional. Although the Atlanta Falcons signed Norwood out of college, he was cut prior to the 1982 season. He caught on with the Birmingham Stallions of the USFL and, as a rookie, set a league record with five goals against Herschel Walker’s New Jersey Generals. In Week Three of the 1984 season, however, a roughing-the-kicker penalty by a Pittsburgh Maulers defender injured his knee, and he missed the remainder of the schedule.
Rehab and diligent practice back home in Virginia with his father rejuvenated his kicking stroke, and the Bills invited him to their training camp in the summer