How an injury in 9th grade turned Providence High kicker into a top-10 national recruit
So how did Providence High kicker Eddie Czaplicki become a top-10 punter and a top-10 kicker in the nation at the same time?
Well, it starts with an ankle injury in his freshman season, while he was also playing soccer.
“I thought about playing football and soccer,” said Czaplicki (pronounced Sha-PLEET-ski), who has signed with Herm Edwards’ Arizona State team. “And I didn’t see myself playing college soccer. I was usually a bigger kid in soccer. I wasn’t the fastest, but I had the biggest leg. I transitioned into football pretty easily.”
Czaplicki and his teammates at Providence will begin official practice Monday, along with public school players from around the state. High school football season, scheduled to start in August and end in December, was pushed back to February due to COVID-19.
Besides the calendar, there will be many changes. Teams will play a shortened seven-game regular season. There won’t be many fans. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools says it will release it official plans for fan attendance soon, but players and coaches tell The Observer that it appears that only 100 fans will be allowed in, and none from the visiting team.
“It’s just going to be a lot different,” Providence coach Wes Ward said. “Practice is going to be different. Pregame is going to be different. Game day is going to be different. Being cold is the biggest difference. We’re not used to that, and the atmosphere will be different. What we’ve heard is that for home games we get 100 fans, and for away games we get none. But, you know, the one thing this group, and especially Eddie, has been good at is, they’ve been good through adversity.”
Ward said what helped Czaplicki develop into a player who averaged 46 yards per punt in the 2019 season — good for No. 13 in America — was leg strength he has developed in the Providence weight room.
At 6-foot-2 and 195 pounds, Czaplicki looks like a high school linebacker, and Ward said his ability to power clean 275 pounds is something he would expect from a linebacker.
Only most linebackers cannot make a 51-yard field goal like Czaplicki did in the 2019 season. That was the second longest nationally that year and the fifth-longest in Mecklenburg County history.
“He’s definitely a game-changer,” Ward said. “Where I noticed it last year was in his punting. He would punt the ball and would switch the whole field. That’s a real luxury to have.”
Ward said his punter is one of the hardest workers on his team and when Czaplicki is not working on his skill at Providence, he’s often with trainer Dan Orner, a former kicker at North Carolina and for the Minnesota Vikings.
Orner has helped develop a plethora of elite punters and kickers, including Panthers kicker Joey Slye. Two of Orner’s former clients will kick and punt for Tampa Bay in the Super Bowl on Sunday — former Northwest Cabarrus punter Bradley Pinion and former Hickory High kicker Ryan Succop.
Under Orner’s tutelage, Czaplicki has developed into the nation’s No. 9 recruit at punter, according to Kohl’s kicking, which tracks specialists nationwide. And Czaplicki is ranked No. 4 by ESPN as a kicker and No. 3 by Kohl’s (ESPN doesn’t rank punters).
Czaplicki, however, is heading to Arizona State primarily as a punter.
“Throughout my training, I saw that I was a better punter than a lot of the kids,” he said, “and in college, I would say for every good punter, there are five good kickers. I said, ‘If I can be a really good punter, that ups my chances to get a scholarship and play for a school that I really want to go to.”
Czaplicki said his college choices came down to Air Force, Arizona State, Elon and N.C. State. He said the experience on Edwards’ coaching staff was a big factor in him heading west. Edwards is a former NFL player and head coach, and Czaplicki has family in the area.
But before college, he wants to enjoy his final season — as weird as it may be.
“We’ve been sitting around waiting on the word on when we were able to practice and when we were able to lift,” he said, “and we’ve been sitting here for five or six months. It feels really weird to have a season now.”
Like most high school players, Czaplicki said he was looking forward to his senior season and “all that came with it.”
Now, he said he plans to enjoy the games he has left, in whatever environment he has to play them in.
“It’s not ideal,” he said. “(Remote learning) has allowed for a little more flexibility in my schedule, but I do miss going to class, going to football right after.
“I miss my normal schedule.”
