On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday Donny Lemieux, kicker at Holy Cross and his father Don Lemieux who trains Olympic Swimming Athletes, were in Scottsdale, Arizona for some One on One Kicking Lessons.
Donny and his father have been all over the country working with almost every kicking coach and kicking camp under the sun trying to get his son Donny some help with his kicking technique. Finally, after their long travels and considerable financial expenses they came here to Arizona.
The first day we worked on Donny's foot placement on the ball as you can see in the picture (above). Donny had learned from a previous kicking coach to close off his foot before contact, which made it very difficult for Donny to make consistent contact with the ball.
We introduced Donny to my foot progression drill to help him make better foot to ball contact. It worked for a while but he kept reverting back to his old muscle memory. Next, as you can see in the photo below Donny worked a drill to kick up and through the ball.
My philosophy... Drills, Drills and More Drills to emphasize good muscle memory.
After working on his foot placement, we continued to work on his follow through down the field. At the end of the second day, Donny began to kick up and through the ball and finish down field.
On the final day we worked on Donny's field goal technique but Donny was pretty tired from two full days of kicking so we decided to work on a little punting. Donny showed me a little of his punting technique. He hit about 10-15 punts. I was very impressed. He has a very consistent drop and has some natural ability as a punter.
Click below to listen to Don Lemieux's testimonial about his son's One on One Kicking Lessons with Coach Zauner.
Donny is a great kid and a hard worker. He now knows what he needs to do to refine his skills.
It was a pleasure working with Donny and I wish him the best of luck this upcoming season at Holly Cross. I hope as he continues to work on the drill I introduced to him he will continue to see even better results! Don wants to bring back his son this summer for more work and I look forward to working with Donny in the future.
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