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He Retrieves The Kicking Tee At Utah Utes Football Games, And He's ...

He sprints onto the Rice-Eccles Stadium turf in front of tens of thousands of fans while the student section chants his name. The Utah Utes have just scored a touchdown, and yet all the attention is on him for about 10 brief but exhilarating seconds.

But it's not quarterback Cam Rising. Or freshman star Nate Johnson. Or wide receiver Devaughn Vele. He's not even in a Utes uniform.

His name is Austin Lewis. The equipment team's laundry attendant is 33 years old, has autism, and is universally beloved by players and fans alike.

Lewis' duties include running out several times a game to retrieve the kicking tee after Utah kickoffs — either to start the first or third quarter, or after a score. This season, each sprint for the tee was timed, the results shown on the stadium's big screen.

"He's very proud of the timing and those records that he sets seemingly weekly retrieving that tree," coach Kyle Whittingham said.

Lewis has worked with the Utes since 2009. He started as a volunteer and worked his way up to a full-time position. Retrieving the kicking tee, he said, has been part of his game-day routine for about the last six years.

"I was nervous the first time I was doing it because I never had experience to grab the tee every game," Lewis said. "But now I feel confident I can do it."

Displaying Lewis's times during home games started this year. But Scott Willis, assistant director of applied health and performance science, has been timing him throughout. He said it started by playfully telling Lewis tee retrievers on opposing teams were faster and there was no way he could beat them.

That's when the bets started. Willis said Lewis was tasked with beating his own record. If he did, Willis owed him a soda or candy — most likely a Mountain Dew or Watermelon Sour Patch Kids. If Lewis didn't, he owed Willis.

Nowadays, Lewis has targets depending on what hash mark the tee is sitting. If it's the furthest one, Lewis's goal is under 12 seconds. If it's the middle, under 10 seconds. If it's the nearest, under eight seconds. If he hits this goal, he gets a point. If he doesn't, Lewis gets a point. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game receives the candy or soda.

Lewis' runs have become popular enough at Rice-Eccles that they are now sponsored by Honda. While he does not get compensated for them, he jokes with everyone by saying it's his NIL deal.

Willis regularly reminds Lewis, though, that his official times are kept by him, not the big screen, which sometimes starts timing him late.

"He was always happy going out to get it, but now he's even more excited because he's getting some love," Willis said.

Willis doesn't have official records of the times, but offered that Lewis has clocked less than seven seconds at the near hash, about 9.8 seconds at middle hash and about 11.8 seconds on the far hash.

Lewis said he wants to keep getting faster. Tight end Dalton Kincaid has an idea for that.

"I keep telling him every week: When he puts cleats on, he'll break that record that he has," Kincaid said. "He refuses to put cleats on."

Lewis is well aware of the tip, which he's heard from several players, and said, "I know it's true." But he's not quite ready to make the adjustment yet.

"Cleats is not my thing," Lewis said. "But one of these days, like maybe [next] summer, I will try cleats and try wearing them and see how it goes."

People within the organization say Lewis is a delight to have around the locker room, works hard and lightens the mood.

"He came in the facility and a bunch of [Los Angeles] Kings gear and the [Las Vegas Golden] Knights ended up winning," Kincaid said. "So I got bragging rights for a little while."

He and Whittingham also eat lunch together occasionally.

Whittingham and others try to motivate Lewis to continue retrieving the tee at a high level. Lewis said Whittingham has told him he's the fastest retriever in the country.

"I'm the best one," Lewis said. "That's what he said to me last year, so I'm going to try and be it again."

Cornerback Clark Phillips III nicknamed Lewis "Big Aus," and the two men have a running bit.

"I always mess with him," Phillips said. "I tell him that he can't catch me. He always tells me that he's faster than me, so I always mess with him in that sense."

Although doing laundry may seem like an unglamorous, thankless job, many in the program speak glowingly about Lewis's approach to his responsibilities. Utah equipment manager Kelly Sharitt said he "never misses a day," and that Whittingham was a driving force behind making Lewis a full-time employee.

"Everything he's gotten, he's earned," Sharitt said. "Nothing's been given to this kid. He's just worked his tail off and he's made himself valuable. … There's a lot of love for Austin in this building for sure."

Kicking Academy Helping Grow American Football In Ireland, Europe

The competition is called Ireland's Kicking King and is conducted by Tadhg Leader, a former Irish rugby and Gaelic football player connecting the dots between Ireland's rich pool of kicking talent and college and professional football.

In 2023, during the IKK competition, Leader spotted Charlie Smyth, a 22-year-old from Northern Ireland. Smyth didn't win the competition, or even qualify for the finals of the event, but Leader could see the raw talent. So when the NFL's International Pathway Program contacted Leader and asked for potential kickers, Leader suggested Smyth.

ExploreMore AJC coverage of the Yellow Jackets

Smyth signed a three-year contract with the New Orleans Saints in April.

"As a result of the swing mechanics, directly with the ball placed on the grass (in Gaelic Football), you have to have your foot at an optimum angle, and you have to guide the grass perfectly to get the outcome desired. We've been doing that since we can walk," Leader said. "That's the hardest to piece to kicking, your foot to ball. What's your foot look like when it contacts the ball?

"Most guys come to me with that piece or something that is pretty similar to what it needs to be, so they're way ahead of the curve. Thankful due to our sport, that no one else plays in the world, we actually have it. So the NFL and college football's eyes have been opened in the last 12-18 months."

Leader runs Leader Kicking, an Irish-based academy he founded that tries to create a pathway for Irish athletes to access college education in the United States. It's a pathway that Leader never had, and one he realized may have altered his life had he been exposed to football earlier than three years ago.

But before then, Leader's only baseline for American football were movies "Any Given Sunday" and "The Waterboy." It wasn't until the COVID-19 pandemic that Leader picked up the pigskin and started fooling around with kicking the foreign ball.

"Someone told me to take three steps, and that was it. I got back to getting to 58, 59 yards (for a field goal)," he said. "Someone was like, 'Who do you play for?' I was like, 'no one.'"

Leader began to take punting and placekicking seriously, but it was somewhat too late in the game for him to make an NFL roster. He gained some playing time in European leagues and in the Canadian Football League, but a kicker with little to no experience in his late 20s was a hard sell for professional owners and general managers.

So Leader returned to Ireland and his hometown of Galway, began a career in finance and started coaching football on the side. As his reputation grew, the NFL asked Leader to be its international punting and kicking coach.

Meanwhile he was further understanding what it meant to play college football in the United States.

"It was so obvious. This is class, college football in America," Leader said. "I talked to these guys and learned what it means to be a Division I college athlete and was like, 'This is phenomenal. This is like playing in the Premier League in England.' And we can do it, there just needs to be a pathway.

"My journey, there was no path. So I was just like why not connect the dots here and do it. And I really enjoy coaching. It was never a matter of I'm not doing this, it was just a matter of when. It was very purposeful."

Success has been almost immediate with Leader in assisting Smyth, Idaho State punter Ross Bolger and Rutgers kicker Jack Scullion, to name a few. Now Leader said he has a database of almost 1,000 names of young kickers from all across Europe looking to get their big break in America.

"This year at the (NFL Scouting Combine) was the first year they had the specialist combine. We had three guys kick and two guys punt," Leader said. "Talk to any coordinator and the general feedback from them was like, 'Wow, these lads belong. We did not expect them to be comparable to the top seven kickers in college football.' I knew we were better than they thought we were, but they had no frame of reference."

Leader plans to attend Tech's season opener Aug. 24 when the Yellow Jackets face Florida State at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland. In fact, his Ireland's Kicking King competition leads to that game and helps tie together his efforts to showcase college football to the Irish and Europe and college football's efforts to broaden its appeal.

(The Tech-FSU game) educates people on what college football is and the scale of college football," Shanahan said. "It shines a light on how big it is, how well it's resourced, how crazy and fanatical people are about it and now we're showing how we can access it," Leader said. "It's a really nice synergy."

This story has been revised since its original posting.

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