Mike Hollis - Former NFL Placekicker

Mike Hollis was a placekicker in the NFL for 9 seasons, 7 of them with the Jacksonville Jaguars including their inaugural season in 1995. He led the NFL in scoring (1997 season) and become the most accurate kicker in NFL history during that time. After being retired from the NFL for almost 20 years, Hollis joined the Jacksonville Sharks in the NAL in 2022. Since his retirement from the NFL, Hollis started ProForm Kicking Academy where he continues to work with young athletes and college and professional kickers. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/g6Fctfo39ng

Brian Harbin: Hello! My name is Brian Harbin. Welcome to today's episode of the grit.org podcast! 

Today we have with us Mike Hollis. 

Mike, welcome!

Mike Hollis: Thank you!

Brian Harbin: So, a little bit on Mike. So, he's originally from the Northwest, grew up in Washington, spent 9 years as an NFL kicker, 7 years with the Jaguars starting with their inaugural season. In 1997, led the league in scoring and became the most accurate kicker in the league at that period of time. 20 years after retiring, he kicked for the Jacksonville Sharks arena football team and currently runs ProForm Kicking, developing young kickers, and also Zealous Wellness, and is a father of 2 kids. 

So, Mike, before we jump into our first question, just want to give a quick shout out to today's sponsor, escrow.com. With over $7 billion in protected transactions, escrow.com is the world's most secure online payment method. From automobiles to electronics to business sales and more, escrow.com makes it easy to confidently conduct business online. Visit escrow.com today to learn more about how you can achieve trust, security, and certainty with every transaction.

So Mike, I know you grew up in Idaho and then Eastern Washington. You mentioned Spokane. So growing up I guess any particular principles or values that you feel like were instilled in you early on through family members, coaches, anything that kind of stands out?

Mike Hollis: Well, I grew up in a very disciplined family household, we'll say. Although back then, it wasn't that disciplined. We were able to be out in the neighborhood until the streetlights turned on and we'd come back. We'd be out on our BMX bikes and doing what kids normally do. But I had a curfew and there was a lot of discipline things, but I think my mom and stepdad, who I grew up with, but They instilled a very deep sense of discipline within me, making sure that I'm following through with what I'm saying I'm going to do and just doing things that they wanted me to do. 

Then, of course, later on in life, in high school, I met up with a guy that became my kicking coach, actually. His name was Jim Gaetano and he grew up in Spokane as well. He's about 12 years older than me, but he was also a kicker, of course, and he was my coach. He was very instrumental in me with my kicking career, so I developed some discipline early on and then I carried that into my kicking career. 

And of course, being very disciplined with the things that Jim was telling me to do because they're not typical. So I kind of take his word for it, like, okay, I trust you. I'm going to do these things. And then, you know, so he basically was the man that got me in the NFL.

Brian Harbin: And siblings as well, or?

Mike Hollis: I have one real sister and I've got a half-brother and I've got 2 stepbrothers. So I've kind of a little plethora of siblings here and there. And I was pretty much the only— well, I don't want to say the only athlete in the family, but I was the only one that stayed with athletics throughout college. None of the other ones did. They just moved on and got into their life.

Brian Harbin: And so, was football kind of an early passion or were there other sports as well that you really got into?

Mike Hollis: Soccer was my sport. And I only joined soccer because my neighborhood kids were— my buddies that were around the neighborhood that were always playing soccer and I just wanted to be a part of the team and eventually tried out and got on the team and I enjoyed it. I really did. I didn't like the running part. I don't have much endurance, but when it comes to just the sport itself, it basically groomed me for my kicking position in the NFL ultimately.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. And so, when did that early passion for kicking start? I mean, do you remember your first time you teed up?

Mike Hollis: Yeah. Well, I don't remember the first time I teed up a football to play around with the idea of kicking, but I do remember my first official organized football game was in 8th grade in the middle school. And back when we were in middle school, it was basically called junior high school. It was grades 7th, 8th, and 9th. And what they did was in 7th and 8th grade, they split up the football team into heavyweight and lightweight just to make it fair. And I was a really small kid back in the day, of course. So I was like, oh, I'll play because I'm playing against kids that are somewhat my size. I'm not going to get killed, in other words. 

So I played in the 8th grade, but the 9th grade is when they put it— it was high school officially, even though we were still at the junior high school. It was a free-for-all, so I'm like, I don't want to play, because I was playing other positions too. That was another part of my decision to play high school football was I didn't know that I could be just a kicker and I had a stepbrother that had told me that I could and so I did.

Brian Harbin: What about early on, any specific kickers that you latched onto that you watched?

Mike Hollis: Morten Andersen was on the Cover of Sports Illustrated years ago. I ran out to the mailbox to get the mail and there he was on the Cover of Sports Illustrated. So I kind of watched him and even a guy like John Carney later on in my career of high school and into college. John Carney was a guy because he's on the West Coast with the San Diego Chargers, of course. So he was another guy that I kind of eyeballed and just kind of watched over.

Brian Harbin: And, you know, early on, what were some of those kind of early challenges you had in kicking? Because I know it kind of speaks to a lot of the kids that you currently coach that are kind of in that same position, kicking in high school. What were some things that you kind of struggled with early on and how you kind of showed improvement over the course of those years?

Mike Hollis: Oh, boy! How much time we got? I mean, there's a lot of different examples, but really, with regards to just being young and athletic, again, I wasn't incredibly athletic. I was good at kicking, decent at kicking, I guess. I had somewhat of a strong leg. But when it came down to knowing everything, of course, we're young and we know everything. We're becoming our own young men and we think we know it all. 

And that's when I bring back the story of Jim Gitano. When I first met him, he came out to the fields when I think I was maybe a junior in high school. Actually, you know what? I was a sophomore. It was 1987. I'm dating myself now. But he had just gotten released from the Chiefs as a camp kicker, and Nick Lowry was the kicker at the time there. And so they went with Nick instead of Jim. But when Jim came back to Spokane, he started coaching. 

And when I first met up with him, he would come out on the field every, you know, once every couple weeks, he'd come out there and work with me a little bit. But me thinking I know everything, I know everything. Why would I listen to this guy? So I listened to him when he was there, but then when he left, I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to go back and do what feels comfortable. 

So again, looking back, I think that that was kind of a bigger mistake in a sense where I should have just listened to him then. But later on, fast forward into college is when I reunited with him and that's when we got into the nuts and bolts, the deep detailed nuts and bolts of kicking.

Brian Harbin: And did you find that you got the most improvement just through repetition? Was it like weight room stuff or just learning kind of the mechanics of form? Where do you feel like you kind of— [Crosstalk]

Mike Hollis: I think it's an accumulation of a lot of things. If there were 3 categories I would choose, and even I teach my kickers this too, I say, listen, your form is the number one. Priority-wise, there's really not a huge priority in the order that I'm giving these things, but the form is very important, clearly. And we'll get into that in a minute, I guess. 

But with regards to the detail, form, form fundamentals were important, but obviously the running and stretching. And people say, well, where's the weight room? Aren't you in the weight room to— No, I'm not a big fan of the weight room. Part of it is because these guys that get in the weight room, they always want their personal records. They always want to do the best and heaviest weights they can lift and then they've got strength now and in their mind, they think they can muscle the football down the field and it changes the way they kick ultimately when they feel like they've got stronger. 

Now, some kids are able to control that, but I think that the sprinting— because the thing about kicking is it's a very explosive motion. It's very coordinated and real athletic and you want to train that way. You don't want to train in lifting heavy weights because that's not going to really benefit you in the long run, in my opinion. Maybe younger kids would benefit from lifting, but not older.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, that's interesting. That wouldn't be something that you would think, but, you know, now that you explained, I can definitely see how stretching would be tremendously important.

Mike Hollis: Absolutely.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. And running, just kind of building that stamina and strength. So you get, you know, progress through high school, and then did you— what was it like, you know, looking to kick in college? Did you know that you wanted to kick in college? Did you get some interest or offers, or how did those conversations happen?

Mike Hollis: Okay, here's where we start with this concept of my size, right? So there's been a lot of— back when I was trying to make a name for myself, I was overlooked by a lot of people and organizations, colleges, and ultimately NFL as well because of my size. But coming out of high school, there was a— this is a story you probably don't know of. If you remember the kicker by the name of Jason Hanson.

Brian Harbin: Okay.

Mike Hollis: He played for the Detroit Lions for like 21 years. He was drafted by them in— I don't know what year. He was 2 years older than me, but Jason and I, we grew up in Washington. He's from the Northwest as well, and his younger brother Travis is as well. So Jason went on to Washington State University, played a couple of years there or 4 years there, got drafted to the Lions, and he was there for 20-something years. 

Well, his younger brother Travis was my age. So Travis and I are the kickers on our respective teams, and I was selected as the number 1 kicker in the Spokane the greater Spokane League, basically. And he was number 2. Well, when it comes to college recruiting, University of Washington jumped right up to the plate and said, hey, Travis, I want to offer you a full scholarship to come and play for the University of Washington Huskies. And I didn't get any looks at all. I got a few here and there from some teams, some Division I teams, but they all kind of wanted me to walk on. And it wasn't very official. I wasn't really that— I didn't feel like I was really wanted.

And so, I chose the junior college route. I got a couple of junior colleges in Washington State that were looking at me, and I chose one of the only 2 that we had, I think, at the time. But I went to Wenatchee Valley College, and it was junior college for 2 years because that was the only place that I could earn a scholarship, which at junior college level is not very much. It's a little peanuts. But I was able to play for a couple of years there. I was a blue-chip All-American my first year and did pretty well my second year. But when I finished up with Wenatchee, that started that same process again as if though I just graduated from high school. I was in the same boat. Still nobody wanted me.

And then finally, John L. Smith from the University of Idaho stepped up and said, hey, we had a guy transfer from Michigan State we thought was going to be the guy, and he didn't turn out to be what we thought, and we want you to come in, and we got a scholarship for you if you can beat him out. The choice is yours.

Brian Harbin: And that's where you spent your last 2 years in college. 

Mike Hollis: Yeah. 

Brian Harbin: And so coming out of high school, are they looking at just how far you can kick, what your accuracy is, how many you make versus attempts? Is that, what are some of the metrics they really look at?

Mike Hollis: Every team has their different quirks as far as what they're looking for. I think in general, I think in a kicker, first off, well, the mentality of some coaches out there think, well, we want to find a guy that has a really strong leg. Even if he can't hit the broad side of a barn, we're still going to get this guy because he has a strong leg and we can fine-tune him. Yeah, that only works somewhat. When you got a guy with a strong leg, typically they're swinging really hard and aggressive and there's not a lot of control you have in that. That's really kind of the name of the game is just consistency. 

And if it were me, I'd be looking for the form guys because I'm all about the form. If the form is good, and yes, the ball's got to be a result of the good form. If the form is good, the ball should be good and therefore the kicker will be good. And then the mental side of it too. How does the kicker bounce back from a miss or from a day that he's not kicking real well overall? 

So there's a lot of things that are involved and kicking is a very tedious skill. It's one of the most difficult things you can, especially at the highest level in the world, very difficult to be as consistent as you can and strong. And every ball has to go high, straight, and far every single time. And you think about the guys that play for 21 years, like I mentioned Jason Hanson did, that's just incredible. I played 9. This guy had 21 years. Like, that's just insane.

Brian Harbin: And it's crazy too! I mean, when you, you know, look at a field goal from the field, it's a lot skinnier than people realize it is, you know, especially when you're 40 yards deep. And so, you know, your last 2 years of college then, where do you feel like? Do you feel like you kind of excelled your game in terms of being able to make it to that next level beyond college?

Mike Hollis: Well, I think that bringing Jim back in the picture, my first year at Idaho, I didn't know where Jim went. I think he moved to California or something and I hadn't seen him for a couple years. My 2 years at Wenatchee, I didn't see him. Went on to Idaho on my own basically and halfway through the season at Idaho, this is my junior year, we were playing at Eastern Washington, which is in Cheney, Washington right outside of Spokane. And that's where Cooper Kupp is from, if you know that name, of course.

Brian Harbin: Oh yeah.

Mike Hollis: So we were playing against Eastern and Jim was at that game. At halftime, he walked down the stands and met me. We were walking into our locker room and right there he said, hey, Mike. I'm like, whoa, good to see you, Jim. I hadn't seen you forever. He said, hey, you know that one extra point I saw started fading off to the left? You want to make sure there's 10 extra point— the field goal posts behind the first one and you got to make all— and he starts coaching me right then and there. I'm like, wow, well, good to see you too. But from that point on really is when we got really detailed. 

Now, I had a few more games, maybe 6 or 5 more games left of that season, my junior season, and so he didn't want to get too detailed with the kicking stuff to mess me up, of course. But, after that season was over is when we really got into the nuts and bolts of kicking and a lot more detailed than he was in high school. 

So, I think that was kind of a pivotal point and I was already on a full scholarship, so I had a little risk. I kind of had to forget about what I thought about kicking and just listen to Jim, even though he didn't demonstrate for me. He just told me what to do and I had to do it. So I took a chance, but I knew him. I trusted him. And even my family knew him because he spent some time with me in high school and stuff and so forth. But that was a pivotal point for me to get back with Jim and have him kind of teach me. 

And then I started seeing the balls on my kickoffs were flying and I was comparing myself 2 NFL guys. And that's when I kind of thought that, hey, I've got a chance. Maybe I can play at this level, you know, because I was kicking off, you know, higher and further than some of them at the time.

Brian Harbin: Did you like doing kickoffs as well?

Mike Hollis: Yeah. I don't mind them. It's, you got to stay under control though. I think there's a lot of guys out there that just don't have any discipline on kickoffs and they just wail away.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. I don't know too if much has changed with the strategy. I mean, I know there's a little bit more strategy now with the landing zone and everything else. Yeah, it's different now — [Crosstalk]

Mike Hollis: Heck, I could play now. I don't need a touchback or anything like that.

Brian Harbin: And really cool that you were able to be on the Jags inaugural team. Tell us how all that played out with the combine and getting drafted with the Jags.

Mike Hollis: Well, I didn't get drafted. I never got drafted to any team.

Brian Harbin: That's right. — [Crosstalk]

Mike Hollis: My first team was the Chargers, and I got on with them after college, after Idaho. And I got some… — [Crosstalk]

Brian Harbin: Was that after the combine?

Mike Hollis: Well, I didn't even go to the combine.

Brian Harbin: Okay.

Mike Hollis: So I was a nobody. Literally, it was just somebody came out of a small school, University of Idaho, 1AA FCS. And yeah, so I got a couple workouts. The Atlanta Falcons flew me out to work out there and they had already worked me out in the dome at one point in Idaho and they had 5 guys out there to kick. I was the 5th one or whatever and they picked Todd Peterson. So I didn't get that job and then I flew back and of course, the Chargers wanted me to come down the next weekend. I got that all lined up and there was another guy there, but I was the better of the two and they signed me. 

So again, bringing up John Carney again, I'm now competing against the guy that I used to watch and I thought that was a cool experience. But going into Jacksonville and that was another thing, of course, now I'm done with San Diego. They actually wanted me to come back the next year and Jacksonville was a brand-new franchise and I had a buddy of mine who was a college— at University of Idaho, he was the punter. His name was Eddie Howard and he was a year behind me and he was pretty good. Actually, Jim coached him too. So he got him— Jim got Eddie to be pretty good. And Eddie went on to try out for like— he got onto like 5 or 6 different NFL teams. Never really quite made it. He got a couple of regular season games with the 49ers. 

But I told Eddie, I said, listen, I'm back at school, of course, at this time. And I said, hey, if there's any NFL scouts that come in to watch you, let me know. And I'm going to be there on the other end of the field kicking. I want to see if I can get some exposure. And sure enough, Jacksonville came out to look at Eddie and Rick Mueller was the guy's name. And again, I was on the other end of the field kicking. After Eddie's workout was over, I went over and introduced myself and told the guy that I'd played with the Chargers in preseason and take a serious look at me because I'm dead serious about this. I want to play. 

So he told the team about me or whatever. So they had an interest. Jacksonville had an interest, but again, Tom Coughlin thought I was too short. They had exhausted all their opportunities to look at every kicker they possibly could and they had a kid by the name of Nelson Welsh that was competing against Scott Sisson. 

So in '95, the inaugural team, initially the very first — Their first minicamp— they had 2 because any new team will have 2 minicamps— their first minicamp, I guess Nelson didn't kick real well, and so they were looking to replace him. Of course, Rick Mueller mentioned my name, of course. I sent them video and all that, and it still wasn't enough, they thought. Even afterward, Rick Mueller— we had to talk him into working me out. This is after Tom Coughlin had told my agent that I was too short. Jim, who became my agent later on, he was furious. We were out working out. This was back before payphones were— before cell phones were around. 

So he went to the nearest payphone after we got done working out, after I told him the story about my agent telling me that the Jaguars think I'm too short. He just let them— he called up Jacksonville and he just let them have it. He said, you guys have no idea what you're talking about. Mike kicks like he's 6'2. How would it matter his size? And long story short, he got me a workout with Rick Mueller with the Jaguars, but we had to meet him in Central Washington there. But I did great, right? Well, still that wasn't enough. 

And then meanwhile, San Diego was on the back burner. I asked Bobby Bethard, the general manager at the time, hey, give me some time. I think Jacksonville has a little interest in me. And John Carney had gone to the Pro Bowl that year prior to that now. So here I am, if I go to San Diego, I'm not only gonna compete with John Carney, I'm gonna compete with John Carney, the Pro Bowler. And I'm like, my chances are much better with Jacksonville.

Brian Harbin: Exactly.

Mike Hollis: No disrespect to Scott Sisson, 'cause he was a good kicker, but that's John Carney, just went to the Pro Bowl. So anyways, my point is that we got an opportunity after a while. And this is the funniest story about this is the fact that I was telling my family on a Sunday night That Monday, the next day, I need to call San Diego because Jacksonville's just not giving me any opportunity. They were dragging their feet, not answering the phone calls. 

Monday morning comes around and Jacksonville calls. And that was the call to say, hey, Tom Coffin wants to see you kick in person. He just doesn't really believe that you can kick the way that we've showed you, you showed him that you can. And so they flew me down and I was the only one they flew down. So I'm like, okay, I'm the only kicker here. So if I just have a decent workout, I think I'll do good and I'll get an opportunity. And I did. So the rest is history from that point on.

Brian Harbin:  Wow! Very timely phone call too — [unintelligible] 

Mike Hollis: Right. That's a godsend!

Brian Harbin: And I'm curious too, so when you do these kickoffs, you did Atlanta, LA, and there's 5 other guys, walk us through, is that just a couple hours? What is that whole process? Are they interviewing you? Are you taking any type of written tests? What type of assessments are they doing there?

Mike Hollis: It's just really basically just round up the guys and we're going to get some time on your own to stretch and warm up and get ready, and then we'll just put you through some stuff. And very, I don't want to say informal, but it was all about the physical abilities. No test. It's not like the test they give you at the Combine. This is just— we just want to see how good you can kick. We're going to do some field goals and we're going to do some kickoffs. We'll do some situational things just to see how you react. Todd Peterson, at that camp with the Falcons, he did the best of all of us and of course, they took the best, which I clearly would agree with because I didn't do as good as Todd and neither did the other guys. 

It's a little challenging when you have that many, but back in the day, they used to invite 20 kickers out. When they could have huge rosters, they'd bring out a bunch of kickers and it was worse back then. But of course, I know that the skills of kickers these days have gotten so much better. I would be a little nervous if I was a kicker these days because so many guys are so good these days.

Brian Harbin: So you get to Jacksonville and you're the guy. I mean, you're going to be the main kicker, right? So tell us about that first season with the Jags and playing in the stadium. I mean, what was that like for you kind of making that transition from…

Mike Hollis: I mean, electric. I mean, the city was just crazy. And in all honesty, I didn't really know a lot of the details about what kind of trouble the team or the city went through to get the team here. There was a news reporter that did a story on the new— the first team. And this was just recently. It was probably like 5 or 6 years ago. And it was incredible. I watched it. I'm like, this is— I was actually interviewed in it. 

But it was a very incredible first season. The stadium was sold out every game. We had tons of support. We only won 4 games that year, but the next year and after that, clearly, we did pretty well and things moved up from there. But it was very cool to just experience and be a part of something so unique and just looking at the challenges that the city faced to get the team. How surprised everyone was really that Jacksonville got the team. And it was just, it's an awesome experience to really show that we've got a team here in Jacksonville and come support us. And we definitely had a lot of support that year.

Brian Harbin: And it's incredible to be a part of that. Any specific stories that kind of stand out from that inaugural season in terms of players, coaches, fans, anything that kind of stands out the most?

Mike Hollis: Well, I think a couple things come to my mind. Our first, the training camp we had that year was up in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. I don't know why, but it was— they had a heat wave go through there that year, one of the hottest years they've ever had on record. And a lot of people were, you know, we had a lot of IVs and a lot of cramping, a lot of, you know, things like that. But that was very unique in a way. 

But, you know, just kind of, you know, beating Pittsburgh in Jacksonville, you know, was a cool experience. I had a 53-yard field goal in that game that helped us win that game. And, you know, having that, you know, the game against Houston, having our game, and that was— That was a big one. An extra point that I made with less than a minute left in the game. Desmond Howard had scored a touchdown and we're tied at 16. I come in to kick the extra point and make it. So we won that game. But that was a super cool experience to see the franchise with their first official victory.

Brian Harbin: And so '97 was obviously a big year. You led the NFL in scoring, most accurate kicker in the league. What kind of helped all the stars align for that season for you, do you think?

Mike Hollis: I was coming off a year that I was 30 of 36. I was an alternate to the Pro Bowl in '96, and that was an amazing year. As you know, we went on to beat Buffalo and then the Broncos in Denver in the second round of playoffs. Then we lost to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game in '96. But going into '97, going from '95 to '96, I was only like 20 of 27 in my first year. I was a little nervous, and so I had to step it up and I did. I'd made 30 out of 36 field goal attempts and I was an alternate to the Pro Bowl. 

So now I'm like, okay, well, I know I can do this. Let's carry on that momentum. And so I entered the season with a positive note and I was kicking well. And then halfway through the season, I started knowing, I started realizing that I'm kind of leading kickers in points and field goal attempts. And I'm thinking, well, geez, if this goes on, if this pace keeps continuing, I think I got a good shot at making the Pro Bowl. 

And I was doing a lot of running. And really being just very specific about my workouts and my kicking. And I just put a lot more attention to mainly my workouts with my running. I did a lot more running that year than I had in any other years. And it was more so in the sense where I knew that I had an opportunity. 

And so, I was going to push myself to see. And that was really my life motto is I just want to be as good as I possibly can be and whatever level that gets me, whatever accolades that gets me, awesome. But the challenge is to be as good as I physically can be. I'll be okay with whatever I get from that.

Brian Harbin: And so just continually progressing. Now, when you're talking about running, are you saying you're doing long distance, short distance, sprints?

Mike Hollis: Well, think about what a kick is. Is a kick a very endurance type of exercise or…

Brian Harbin: It's explosive.

Mike Hollis: It's very explosive. It's sprinting. I'm doing ladder drills on the ground. I'm doing stadium steps. I'm doing hills. I'm doing half gassers. I'm doing anything that's anaerobic, anything that's fast twitch muscle fiber type of exercises. Like track workouts. Yeah, sprints and proper sprints too. I want to lean forward. I want to stay tall when I run. And I'm trying to, you know, keep my kicking mechanics and mentality included with my workouts because you want to train the proper way.

Brian Harbin: And, you know, one of the things back in '96, there weren't as many domes or, you know, coverage. You guys are in the elements, right? So you're kicking on natural turf, you know, grass, which is going to have divots, and you've got wind as factors. And all those things were in play, which nowadays It seems like in 90% of cases, those are non-factors essentially, right? So how much of the science…. was that something you kind of did on your own? Was there anybody even in the game that coaches you on the sideline that would kind of help coach you with all the, what direction the wind is going? Is this all just things that you kind of study and knew and instincts?

Mike Hollis: I think it's instinctual in a sense where you learn because you're out kicking a lot anyways. The difference really is when you come to, like when you're out practicing, typically you're not practicing in stadiums. You're probably practicing on flat ground, flat field somewhere where there's not— maybe some trees, but there's not the big stands that's going to affect the wind as much. 

And so the wind, when you're practicing on your own in those flat areas, is probably more consistent, coming one direction. It's not going to be gusty for the most part. But when you get in a stadium, it swirls and it's everywhere. I went to a truck show years ago when I was playing in Jacksonville, of course, and I had my kids, they were young, and went to this truck show to see all these monster trucks and all that. And well, they did these fireworks, and then it was a calm night for what I thought. And you're watching the smoke billow up from the fireworks. And then watching where the smoke went, I'm just like, it's taken a sharp left and then it went up and then it went down and went right again. I'm like, what in the world? 

And so, from that, really from that point on, I kind of learned something from that. It's kind of weird how you learn these things. And I thought to myself, and Jim had probably told me this before too as well, but you can't really predict where the wind is going to be. You can stand at that, maybe you're kicking a 50-yard field goal, you're on the 40-yard line, you throw it. You see kickers, they throw the grass up and watch where the grass goes. But right there on the 40-yard line, it might be going this way. But down there and up there, of course, maybe by the goalpost itself and then maybe higher when you're going to kick a higher ball, it's going to go maybe in the opposite direction, maybe at your face, or you have no idea where it's at. 

So the thing that I learned from all that is just kick a solid ball and the wind won't do as much to it as you might think it would. And I've never aimed outside an upright, which I think there's kids that do. Like they know they might have a hook. And oh, if I have a hook with this kind of wind, I definitely want to aim outside the upright, and then they miss it right, you know. So there's a lot of things that you second-guess, and it could get you in trouble at times.

Brian Harbin: So what about kind of bird's-eye view of a week in the life? Let's say you just finished a game on Sunday. What's your recovery look like? And then what's kind of your training throughout the course of the week to prepare for that next game on Sunday?

Mike Hollis: Well, I just, you know, depending on if we won or not, if Tom was in a good… He would get— I say Tom because most of my career is with the Jaguars and Tom, but he would give us Mondays off sometimes, not early in the season, but later on in the season. He would give us Mondays off if we played well in one. But if we didn't win or whatever, we didn't get the Monday off, we would come in for our workouts around 9 o'clock in the morning. We'd have like a— maybe 10 o'clock. We'd have like a noon team meeting. Then we'd go out and do some training as far as sprints and running and things like that and no kicking at all. 

Tuesday was our day off. So we come back on Wednesday and start fresh with the special teams meeting at 9 o'clock and then practice later on that day at 1 or 2 or whatever it was.

Brian Harbin: So pretty much no kicking Monday, Tuesday at all?

Mike Hollis: Yeah, Monday, Tuesday I didn't kick at all. So Wednesday was a field goal day for the most part. So I do a lot of field goals. Again, it wasn't like I didn't overkick. I would kick as much as I needed to, and going back to my kicking style, my form and fundamentals, I'm using more of my body weight than most. I'm using my whole body to kick the football, so it's not as strenuous on me or my leg to kick. Too many kicking coaches out there and even kickers would say, oh, I can't kick too much. My leg will get too worn out. I look at them like, really? You think that way? It's really a body kick if you do it right, of course. 

But yeah, so the preparation was really just— it was very consistent. I didn't really get too caught up into if I missed a field goal on Sunday. If I kick one on Sunday at 42 yards, I'm not going to go on the field on Monday and kick 20 or 30 or 50 42-yard field goals in a row. I was never that way. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. Don't overdo it. Don't try harder. Just stick with the basics. Now, if there were some issues or problems I would have to iron out, then definitely I'd work on those that week, but typically there wasn't too much to work on. Just kick the ball.

Brian Harbin: And so let's say you start kicking away. What would be a ballpark number of kicks you feel like would be a good workout for a day?

Mike Hollis: Boy, 30, 40 kicks. That's it. Not much.

Brian Harbin: And from different distances pretty much?

Mike Hollis: Yeah, from different areas. Pre-practice, we go out and work with the snapper and holder, so I'd probably get a good— on my own, I'd warm up, probably get a good 20 kicks before the snappers and holders got out there. Then, when they got there, we'd probably kick another 10 kicks or so or maybe a little bit more, and then in the field goal drill during practice, we'd kick 5 or 6 or but in between pre-practice and the actual period in the practice, I'd kick a little bit on my own and so forth. But there really was never a number because I never took count of what they call nowadays is kick count. I never had a kick count. I just kicked it and when I decided I was done, I was done.

Brian Harbin: Then you would practice a little bit on Saturday and then leading up to the game, you'd get there and try and kick what, 10, 15 balls before the game?

Mike Hollis: Well, yeah, and that's the thing too with— again, I mentioned with the way I kick, I was very efficient, so I could kick a lot. So game days was probably the day that I kicked the most footballs. I kicked a lot. I'd start stretching 2 hours before the game and I'd get out there— actually, 2 and a half hours. Then I'd get on the field 2 hours before the game and kick a bunch of kicks from different areas, get used to the wind, what it's doing, and then come back in, get the rest of my pads on, go back out with the team and snapper and holders, get a bunch more then again, and then of course then the game starts. So game days were very stressful.

Brian Harbin: Yeah.

Mike Hollis: As far as a lot of kicking and mentally it was challenging. But once you got on that roll after your first field goal, for the most part, you were just like, okay, I made the first kick. Okay, this is going to be a good day. And your warmups, if you hit them well, you kind of have an idea what kind of day you're going to have. I've had days where I didn't warm up good at all and I was a little nervous, but I ended up kicking just fine. So it really is just a mix of emotions, really. You just got to learn how to just really control them and just kind of just— you kind of have to shrug things off. If you really do, it's weird. 

People ask, how do you deal with the mental side of kicking? I'm like, well, you want to hear something crazy? Well, yeah. Well, how would you deal with it? I said, I didn't care where the ball went. What do you mean you didn't care where the ball went? I said, well, if I'm going to care about something, I'm going to care about the form and the technique and the process that makes the ball go where it's supposed to go. Don't you think that's a priority? Because that happens first, right? You kick the ball first, then you get to see where it went, right?

Brian Harbin: Mm-hmm.

Mike Hollis: So that was where my mindset was, is a backwards way of thinking. With most kickers, they think they— they look at the goalposts intently that they're just convincing themselves that they got to laterally steer a ball to the goalpost. I don't look at it that way. I just do my form. I line up and say, I'm just going to put my foot on the ball and see what happens.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, absolutely. Kind of like a golf swing, right?

Mike Hollis: Yeah. You can't care. You can't care. That's what gets you in trouble. That's why kickers, like in important situations, you could have the best kicker in the world, but on game day on a game-winning kick, he didn't perform well at all. Well, that guy probably tried really hard to make the kick because of the consequences of missing. But if you don't care about the consequence in a way— now don't get me wrong. Yes, clearly you care about winning the game or not, but you can't care too much. You just got to just do what you've always done. That's what gets kickers in trouble is they try too hard. They kick too carefully. The extra points, when they moved them back to the 33-yard extra point essentially is what it is now. That first year, there's a lot of extra points missed.

Brian Harbin: Mm-hmm.

Mike Hollis: Because kickers don't want that stigma of missing an extra point because it's embarrassing. But it's a, you know, 20-yard extra point back in the day. Yeah, that's embarrassing. I missed 3 in my career out of like 300, you know. But with them, in the most part, really, is where athletes, you know, and they have, you know, those— if they were to kick a 33-yard field goal, no problem. It's a 33-yard field goal. But then that same kick as an extra point means a little different because they don't want the stigma of missing it.

Brian Harbin: It's supposed to be a gimme, right? And so this is a scene we've seen play out so many times. You know, it's one of the most heartbreaking things for me to ever watch on live TV is to see especially a college kicker miss like that game-winning field goal because you just, you know, as a parent, you hate it for that kid, you know, and what they're going through.

Mike Hollis: Mm-hmm.

Brian Harbin: And, you know, I believe that, you know, if it comes down to that, then, you know, it's not on the kicker, it's on to, you know, the other 51 guys and it's, you know, a team thing. But, you know, we've seen it play out where, you know, it's going to come down to a field goal, he's kicking into the net. So what do you tell yourself and what do you coach your players to say to yourself leading up to those moments where they walk on the field?

Mike Hollis: For a game-winning attempt?

Brian Harbin: Yeah.

Mike Hollis: Yeah. You know, it's much like what I would tell them on a timeout. And a lot of times it actually happens together. Ice the kicker. You know what I mean? Yeah, because it's an important kick, they want to ice you. So with that in mind, you just have to— what I would do, and even when I played, it was more like the timeout, that would mess up with the routine of the kick. The cadence, yeah. Yeah, it's the routine. The coach calls field goal, you know you're going out, you know there's a certain time that's going to be there before you kick the football. Everything is in sequence. It happens typically around the same time. Everything is all kind of like it's there. You run on the field, you get your spot, you walk back, walk over, give the nod, okay, kick, go.

But when they call timeout, that just stops that for a second, so what I would do is go off to the sideline and come back on. When the coach— I told Larry, our coach, I said, listen, call field goal when you think it's a good time for me to go back out there and kick this ball like nothing happened, like we're just doing this all over again. 

But with regards to what I would tell any kicker on a game-winning kick type situation, it's like, listen, you do not have to try any harder. Your job does not change based on what the result's going to be. You kicked a field goal in the first quarter of this game and you hit it really good. Why would you do any different? It's not any different than what you did on that kick. It's not any more important. You might think it is because of the score and the time that's left on the clock. You might think it's important, but in all reality, the first one was just as important as this one.

Brian Harbin: Mm-hmm.

Mike Hollis: So you didn't treat the first field goal as really important. I mean, yeah, you want to make your kicks, but there wasn't a game-winning sort of aspect to that. So you relaxed and you just let your form do all the work. And then when you get into this, well, I got to make this kick, then you're form goes crazy and then you miss the kick because you tried too hard.

Brian Harbin: Was there anything that you would say to yourself kind of in those moments to kind of keep yourself focused and on point, or anything that you would just try and remind yourself to, you know, not put too much pressure on yourself?

Mike Hollis: Yeah, you know, the one thing that I think I struggled with a little bit when I was playing was a little bit of anxiety, which I think a lot of kids do. When I'm referring to anxiety as far as pulling the head up because they're anxious, especially on the shorter kicks. You realize the shorter kicks you're going to know earlier than later if it's good or not. Like it's a really short kick; it's going to go through the uprights a lot quicker than a 50-yarder.

Brian Harbin: Right.

Mike Hollis: So you're looking up like think, oh gosh, I made you know and that is you not really finishing the process. And so that was one thing I would remind myself on an important kick: it's just finish the kick. I've already made the kick, and that's another thing. Just you got to convince yourself that you've already made it. 

Now you just need to do the form and finish the form and then look up. And the best part about that is if you have that mindset and you do good form, you get the luxury of looking up and seeing what the form did to the football. Again, kickers don't think that way. They want to— they think about the result before they think about the kick, and that's backwards.

Brian Harbin: Do you think that icing the kicker? Do you feel like there is a thing that is effective or do you think maybe 5% of the time it might work, but those coaches, if they have a timeout, they might as well burn it? Do you feel like there is any additional psychology that helps with that at this point or do you feel like most kickers are kind of prepared for it?

Mike Hollis: I think it will affect kickers. I know what will definitely affect kickers, and this happened to me, and I don't blame Brian Barker for it, but he did tell me prior to the kick, he kind of put his hands on my shoulders and says, hey, they're going to call timeouts. Just don't worry about it. They're going to definitely call timeout. We got lined up. He kind of gave the set, no timeout, and the ball was snapped. And I was like, what just happened? The ball snapped. And I missed the kick because I was surprised that they did not call timeout. 

So I honestly think in situations where teams— everybody in the stadium, all the coaches, all the players, all the fans, media, everybody, they're all expecting this team to call a timeout. And guess what? They don't. I think that would screw up a kicker more than actual calling a timeout. I think that would really mess with them because it did me.

Brian Harbin: Well, and I think too, there's even times where they call the timeout before the ball is snapped, but the ball is go-ahead snapped, the kicker kicks it, and then they got to turn around and kick it again. And if they made it or miss it, that psychology is going to play a little bit into the mind of the kicker.

Mike Hollis: Yes, definitely. I was always told, and I would agree with this, if the team calls timeout and we already had just maybe snapped the ball or whatever, Brian Barker told me, he's gonna put it down and he said, just kick it. It'll give you an idea what the wind might be doing.

Brian Harbin: Hmm.

Mike Hollis: Oh, that's a good point. And then, of course, when you have to kick it again, I've had them where I've had penalties. I've had penalties, which one example I've had, we had a penalty on a field goal that I made. We dropped it. We moved it back. There was another penalty. It was before the play started, so the play didn't happen, but I kicked it and I made that one. They move it up. Okay, redo the play. 

Now, I've got 3 kicks in a row that I'm trying, and then I missed the 3rd one. But that was a mental thing. And I remember that exactly to this day, that feeling on the field. I just got nervous, like, oh my gosh, I got to kick this again? And of course, I missed it.

Brian Harbin: What about with players on the sideline? I mean, are there things that are helpful or not helpful that they say if you have If you're talking to your teammates and you're a kicker, what is helpful, not helpful?

Mike Hollis: Yeah, again, I think players have the feeling of having to talk to their kicker. And again, athletes that kind of would understand this, that you don't really talk to the kicker anyways, right? As far as on any kick, you're not going to remind the kicker, hey, you better make this, or whatever. You don't do that in a normal situation. You only do it in a situation where you're really want the kicker to make the kick. 

Well, again, that goes back to that whole concept of why would you do anything different? So I tell my guys, listen, you guys don't need to say anything to me. I know how important a kick is. Trust me. You don't have to threaten my— I'm kidding. They didn't do that. But they would be encouraging. I'll put it that way. Only one guy, I won't really name who he is, but he did say, Hollis, you better make this. I'm like, oh, okay. It was one of my first years there in Jacksonville, so it was kind of one of those things where, okay, I know it's important. I clearly know that. So it's okay. I got this.

Brian Harbin: And looking back over your entire career, what would you say would be your most memorable field goal moment or extra point moment? Anything that— I know you mentioned kicking that game winner for the Jags inaugural season, but anything else that kind of jumps out for you?

Mike Hollis: Well, that one specifically, you said extra point because that was an extra point, but it's funny because Brian had said, he said, hey, Dave. Dave White, that was our snapper. He says, Dave's been giving me laces pretty much every snap. So I know, you know, this is the game-winning points, right? So they're coming at us. 

So I may not have time, I may not even move the laces, but just don't be— just kick it. If I don't move the laces, just kick it. And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, right, whatever, he'll move the lace. Man, those laces came back at like literally 6 o'clock, you know, thinking 12 o'clock is the target, but 6 o'clock is all the way backwards, 180 degrees backwards. I kicked 100% of the laces on that ball. And I was literally— I remember thinking this, as soon as that ball was snapped and I did not— and I remember this, this game-winning extra point, our very first year. When I'm running up to kick this ball and he does not move the laces, I thought to myself, dang, he wasn't kidding. But I still kicked it and ironically, it was just right down the middle, really good kick too, actually. 

So that was cool to be a part of there and the funny story about the whole laces. But then also the Buffalo game in '96, playoff game there, our very first playoff game as a franchise. We went in and beat Buffalo by 3 points, and this field goal happened to be the game-winning points that put us ahead. But it was— the wind had kind of changed up a little bit, and Brian sometimes, my holder Brian Barker, he would lean it a little bit to the right, and that was just kind of a natural thing. He thought every kicker did that, and I didn't really care. I'm like, yeah, whatever, just put it down. As long as it's vertical or somewhat vertical, I'll kick it, right? 

Well, he— we had a wind that was coming from left to right, and it had switched. First half, it was going the opposite direction. Well, the way I was kicking on that last kick, it was 45 yards. And I didn't really know it at the time. I kicked it and I'm like, ooh, I hit that well. 

As a golfer, you probably understand that you hit a ball real well, that you know it the second you hit it. It's the same kind of concept with kicking. I was like, boom, I hit it. I'm like, wow. So I hit that ball and I'm looking up, it's going right down the middle, exactly where I felt it was gonna be going. And all of a sudden, I'm looking at the sky because one of their— the Bills guy came around and took my legs out from under me. It should have been a penalty, but it wasn't. 

And then of course, Brian Barker's holding his hand out. He said, hey, man, it went through, he says, as he's helping me up. I'm like, what do you mean? It was going right down the middle. He says, watch the screen. He told me to watch the Jumbotron. I'm looking up at the Jumbotron and sure enough, that ball took a sharp right and hit the very top, inside top of the upright on the right upright and it bounced through. So it counted. And the week before, I'd had a bad kick against the Falcons that actually hit an upright and went in too. So I was known as the Doinker or something at that point.

Brian Harbin: Doinker.

Mike Hollis: Chris Berman. But yeah, so that was an important game as far as on-the-field stuff. But then the one memory I do have of not on the field, it was actually on our way back from Denver after that, literally the week after that, that Buffalo kick as the plane flew over the stadium. That was such a— I get goosebumps talking about it all the time because it was such a cool experience.

Brian Harbin: Yeah.

Mike Hollis: You can literally see from however many thousand feet up we were, maybe 100 feet, I don't even know how many feet we were above the stadium, but you could literally see everyone because they knew it was us. It was super, super cool.

Brian Harbin: Wow!

Mike Hollis: That is cool!

Brian Harbin: Yeah. Yeah. And doinks, I know there was a— I think it was a college game recently. There was like 3 doinks, like 3 kicks and 3 doinks, which statistically the odds of a doink are so narrow. And then to see 3, one guy had 2, one he made, one he missed. It was crazy.

Mike Hollis: Right.

Brian Harbin: And so, yeah, 7 years for the Jags. And I know you played a couple years after the And then how did you kind of figure out when it was time to hang up your cleats and NFL football and kind of that decision to move on?

Mike Hollis: Well, my back played a role in that, my lower back. I eventually had 4 surgeries on my lower back. The first 2 were here in Jacksonville throughout the 7 years I was here. Then I went to Buffalo, played for the Bills for 1 year. My back was fine. It wasn't great, but it was fine. Then the year I went to— and then after that, I went up to— I signed a 5-year deal with the Giants. 

And so I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to be a Giant for the next 5 years, at least tried to at least, but up there in preseason and got involved in a tackle on a kickoff against the Jets and got a nasty blow. I mean, it was head-on-head, just we crashed. It was like a car crash. And my back, my disc, one of the 2 discs I've had issues with was kind of like a central bulge. So both of my legs were tingling.

Brian Harbin: Hmm.

Mike Hollis: And so at that point, they got me in for an MRI and said, you probably need to get surgery on it. So they put me on injury reserve. And that was my season, my first year of the 5-year deal. And then Tom Coughlin was hired. That was Jim Fossum's last year in 2003. 

And then Tom Coughlin was hired for the 2004 season. And I knew, leaving Jacksonville, I knew that he didn't really care for me as far as my abilities, plus my back. I'd just gotten off my 3rd and 4th surgery with the Giants there. And so he let me go. And that's when I finally figured out, I wanna be active when I get older. I don't wanna push myself too much and risk any sort of major chronic injury that I could affect the rest of my life with. So I decided, you know, I got 9 years in, I'll find something to do and enjoy my life. And that's what I did, moved back to Jacksonville and retired.

Brian Harbin: And the back injury, was it a result of just the years of kicking or was it, you know, from an earlier injury from tackling or?

Mike Hollis: Well, you know, growing up in the Northwest, it gets cold, we get snow. So I was a skier during the wintertime. And again, growing up as a kid, I was not smartest kid in the world with regards to just being oblivious to any sort of risk. I was a BMX bike guy. We built these 12-inch or 12-foot, you know, quarter pipes out in front and we'd crash, no helmets, you know, stupid stuff. 

Well, I was skiing, I'm taking big jumps and landing on really flat solid ice, which jarred the back quite a bit. So, this is back in high school when I hurt my back and it was from skiing initially. And then, of course, you know, lifting, you know, doing some silly stuff in the weight room when I really didn't know better. And then, kicking, just a prolonged life of kicking. You're doing something on just one leg essentially. So there's a lot of twisting in one direction. So that kind of affected a little bit as well. Kind of a lingering issue you'd always had.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. Now that you mentioned it, I was thinking about, did you enjoy the part of potentially having to make a tackle on the field or was that like, all right, you guys, there's 10 of y'all to go tackle this guy.

Mike Hollis: Don't make me be the guy to— I was pretty scrappy. I wanted to get in there. It wasn't like I wanted to hit someone. I'm a small guy, so I'm definitely going to go low. I'm not going to try to chest up to you. Heck no. These guys are massive and they're fast. I've tackled Herschel Walker. You won't see it because there was a penalty, so it won't be down in the record book as far as a tackle by the kicker Hollis, but I got video of it. But no, it was cool. There was times when you really don't have a choice. 

Again, I didn't want to be a kicker who was protecting himself and, oh, I don't want to hit him too hard because— no, man, just get in there and whatever. I never got really hurt. The only time I got really hurt is I got kneed by my own guy on a kickoff on a tackle. Travis Davis was the guy. The next week, my whole right leg was all bruised up and it was painful, but that was the only time I really got hurt on a kickoff.

Brian Harbin: Did you ever practice tackling or it was just…

Mike Hollis: To kill time in training camp, coaches would say, yeah, what do you want to do? Let's practice some tackling, and that was it. Nothing really during the season.

Brian Harbin: Yeah.

Mike Hollis: You're not going to have it very often. And even if we practice form tackling, I probably wouldn't do what they taught me. Again, I grew up in a neighborhood. We played a lot of football without pads and we were killing each other. And I can give you an example of one. It wasn't really— I didn't kill my neighborhood buddy or anything, but they would always try to jump and hurdle over me, right? Well, when they would do that, I would time it just right where I'd cut and grab the foot that's trying to hurdle me. When that foot stops, they fall forward, right? 

Well, fast forward to the NFL. Tamarick Vanover was a guy that was a return man for the Chiefs many years. Big, big dude and incredibly fast. And he broke through. I think I tackled him twice, but this specific one, he broke through and I'm like the last guy and he's like doing his little thing, kind of like looking at me and I'm looking at him and he's kind of cutting a little bit. And then finally he decides to kind of try to hurdle me. And remember when I was talking about that?

Brian Harbin: You're going for his legs.

Mike Hollis: Well, do you remember the time I was talking about how and didn't move the laces. And I thought to myself, and I remember thinking to myself, oh my gosh, he wasn't kidding, as I'm kicking the ball.

Brian Harbin: Right.

Mike Hollis: Well, this motion, this memory came into my mind the second I did what I did with my high school buddies back in the day when we were tackling. This was actually before high school, and I would trip them, right? 

Well, Tamarick Vanover tries to take a sharp left of his and jump over me, kind of like hurdle. Well, I happened to reach over and grab the top of his shoelaces, just like I have done back when I was a teenager. And that thought came right to my mind the second that I made contact with his foot. I'm like, oh my gosh, this looks familiar. I've done this before. And of course, he stumbles and falls, and he was really mad because he let the kicker get him, barely.

Brian Harbin: I'm glad you mentioned this too about the laces out, because that's one thing everybody always knows about kicking, right? Laces out, right? And it's probably a very simple explanation, right? You just want to be able to hit the flat side of the football to get a consistent kick. If you're kicking on the laces, then the direction of the ball is gonna be more variable. I mean, is it that simple or is there more to it?

Mike Hollis: Yeah, it's not as crazy as you might think. I work with kickers that we have them just turn the ball a little bit. They were using sticks and stuff. Sometimes I'll do holds for these guys but they'll— every once in a while they'll turn the ball sideways and kick it and nothing really happens. It's just, it's more of a mental thing. I think when the laces are forward, you know that you're hitting a clean part of the ball. 

When you see laces to the side, one of the— one side or the other, it just makes you rethink how your foot's gonna be put on the ball a little bit. I think that's the only reason. I know people say, well, the laces, if on the left, it's heavier on the left-hand side, so it might hook. No, don't get too crazy. It's not like that at all.

Brian Harbin: Okay. Yeah, I don't know, too. Part of it's like the ball is going to be if you kick it the same way each time with laces out, then the ball is going to have more of a consistent overturn. But maybe that's not true.

Mike Hollis: If you look at a ball carefully, even if the laces are dead straight— and again, depends on how you hit it, if you're in the middle of turning your foot or something in the middle of the swing itself, when you actually hit the ball— you'll notice that the laces aren't always perfectly straight. They're actually rotating a lot, you know, throughout that whole process. Yeah.

Brian Harbin: So, and I know this is a big thing for a lot of NFL players that we talk to, is kind of that post-NFL career. So, tell us about kind of how you decided what to do next. I know you're here in Jacksonville. You've got, you know, you had your kids were, you know, I think probably teenagers at the time. How did you kind of figure out what was next for you?

Mike Hollis: You know, I really didn't know. I didn't prepare myself very well. I look back, that's one of the regrets that I do have is having a better idea of what I wanted to when I finished football. And I didn't prepare real well for that. I moved back to Jacksonville. We love the area. 

And of course, I was married at the time. And my wife at the time, she's from Spokane as well, high school sweetheart. So, her family is also back in Spokane. So, we made a decision to retire essentially in Jacksonville. And everyone's still here. The kids are still here and the ex-wife is still here in Jacksonville as well. But I think that just kind of with me, I just wanted to find something I had a passion in. 

And with football, I was passionate about my own health and fitness, but I didn't want to go see a weight room after I retired. I was like, man, the last thing I want to do is go to a weight room. I want some time off. And then, I got heavy and then my weight kind of bounced around a little bit. So, I kind of found a passion in health and wellness. I found a passion clearly in kicking because of my story. I was officially 5'7 and 180 pounds in the NFL as an average athlete and I was able to do the things I did, I know it wasn't because I was big, strong, or freakishly athletic because I wasn't. I was the exact opposite. 

So I know that if I can do it, then anybody I teach— for the most part, you have to have some athletic ability. But I think that was a big passion of mine is to teach kids how to do what I did. So that's been almost— it's 19 years now going on 20 with my academy. So I kind of— having spent 9 years in the NFL, people don't think about this. When you graduate from college and then, okay, you've got your area of studies, right? Well, you go on to play in the NFL, you're not doing your area of study. You're playing football for a living, right? Well, you play 10, 15 years, 20 years, whatever the case may be, you're 20 years away or removed from what you studied.

Brian Harbin: Exactly.

Mike Hollis: So after 20 years, all your peers that you graduated with in college are now, you know, they've been 20 years' experience in the field that you studied. Now you're starting from scratch. So it is a challenge. 

Now, of course, I didn't do 20. I did 9. But even coming back, I'm like, I don't know what I want to do. I've got to get recertified in a lot of things if I wanted to do that. It took me a while to kind of figure out what I wanted to do. I've dabbled in a lot of different things. But for the most part, I enjoy what I do. I'm an entrepreneur. I don't really want to show up to a job, work for a boss, and help him make millions. I want to make millions myself. You know, right.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, I definitely want to ask you about ProForm kicking and also Zealous Wellness, but I do want to ask you too, so you're 20 years removed from, you know, retiring from the NFL, and then you go kick for the Jacksonville Sharks. You know, how did that come about and what was that experience like for you?

Mike Hollis: Nick, Nick, where you at, Nick? It was from, well, ultimately, here's the bottom line story. I had, because my kicking academy, I had a lot of guys that come in from out of town, and this one kid came down from New Jersey area and played for Rutgers a little bit and he wanted to practice. He wanted to see if— he wanted to get better with kicking obviously and then get into the arena and see if he can play some arena football. 

And so I had messaged Nick Firas because being part owner of the Sharks, I messaged him. I said, hey, man, I've got this kicker. I want to get into the arena. This was during the season about, I don't know, 5 years ago, 4 years ago. And, hey, is the turf down? Can we get in there? And I just want to see if this guy can kick and I'm going to bring my shoes too just to kind of play around. And something happened. The ball was kind of dropped or whatever, and I never got my guy in there. 

Well, Nick had called me like 5, 6 months later and said, hey, were you serious about that message you sent me? We talked about last year or whatever. I said, yeah, my guy. Yeah, he's here, Sebastian. I can get him in. He definitely still wants to kick in the arena. He goes, no, really, not about him. What about you? Are you still kicking? I said, well, I mean, I demonstrate. I show my guys what I— yeah, I'm still kicking. I'm fine. He goes, do you think you could play? I'm like, I mean, I haven't thought about it, but I probably could. I don't see why not. So would you want to play for the Sharks? I'm like, are you serious? He goes, yeah, we're thinking about making a change to the kicking position. And the guy they had at the time was a kid by the name of Brandon Baer, who was one of my clients that I coached years ago.

So I'm like, well, you guys got Brandon. He's a good kid. He's like, yeah, well, we're not really sure if he's coming back, this and that. So just keep it in mind, whatever.

Brian Harbin: Okay.

Mike Hollis: Now I'm thinking, well, I might give this a shot. So I signed a contract and went into training camp. And the training camp that we had was only like a couple days of kicking for the kickers, of course. And Brandon's there. So I'm competing against a kicker that I trained. So I'm already in a win-win situation. If I get cut, it's because I've trained this guy so good that he's…

Brian Harbin: Right. Exactly.

Mike Hollis: And if I make the team, it's cool. I can say I'm a kicker at the age of 50. But good news is he did better than me and they kept him, which I'm like, yeah, of course. He's got a stronger leg. He kicked the ball better than me. Of course, keep him. Well, fast forward, the Sharks had released him and then picked up another guy. 

So at that point, I'm thinking, well, okay, if they really wanted me to play, they would pick me up after releasing Brandon, but they didn't. So I thought, okay, that's fine. I'm good. Then Nick had called a little later on and said, hey, our guy's not really— he's kind of injured. I think he's gotten a little ankle injury and we're not really sure if he's going to be kicking real well. He's done okay for us, but would you want to come in? I'm like, oh my gosh, really? And I hadn't been working out, but I'd been kicking a little bit here and there. I said, yeah, sure. Why not? 

So, that's really the story. I got in for the one game and I can honestly say, flat out honestly, like at 50 years old, I forgot how long the games were. I forgot how my back would tighten up halfway through the game, which it did. I kicked the ball 22 times in that one game.

Brian Harbin: Wow!

Mike Hollis: Yeah. But that's not really— just staying loose the whole game and just waking up the next morning, I was— my body, I've never been that sore before in my life.

Brian Harbin: Now, is it exact same size field goal and ball in arena football or…

Mike Hollis: No, on both. The arena football is more of like a composite and it's— I don't know if it's a little— it might be a little plumpier. We'll say the ends are more plumpy. It might be a little thicker, but it's composite, so they bounce off the foot a little bit better. The uprights are actually half the size of NFL. So NFL is 18 feet 3 inches or 18'6, 18 feet 6 inches. And the arena's half of that. It's 9 feet wide.

Brian Harbin: That's a tough kick.

Mike Hollis: Yeah. For sure. Yeah.

Brian Harbin: I guess you're in good conditions, but still, it's— Yeah.

Mike Hollis: You gotta kick it perfect. Well, again, I think because we've had the experience I've had with kickers I've gotten in the Arena League, kicking with me and they get their form down really good and then they go into arena and play a few games and I'm like, who's this kicker? I clearly know who it is, but the form is not the same because they, again, they're trying too hard to make the kick. 

And I knew that going into— going back to when I played the one game for the Sharks, I thought that like, I'm going to really— because I know based on when I played in the NFL, I didn't care if I didn't care about where the ball went. The story I told you, of course, but trying to kind of understand the concept of caring about— don't care about the result, care about the form.

Brian Harbin: Mm-hmm.

Mike Hollis: So I carried that into the Arena League. And I kicked fine. I had one bad extra point that I think I missed. It was a weird snap and the hold was kind of crooked. But other than that, I think I hit the ball pretty well. On kickoffs, I didn't kick it as far, but I think that the mentality is where a lot of kids mess up because they, again, they try too hard because it's such a narrow place, a narrow target now that they're trying really, really hard to make it go through and they don't need to.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. And kind of on that point, I know you work with— so what age do you start coaching kids? And I know you coach kids that are in college and maybe beyond. So with your ProForm kicking, who's kind of the perfect candidate for you for what you do there?

Mike Hollis: Well, there's no perfect candidate. Anybody who wants to perfect their kicking skills…

Brian Harbin: Like beginners even?

Mike Hollis: Yeah. I've worked with kids as young as 8 years old before. Yeah. And I've worked with kids— I got off the phone yesterday with a Hawaiian guy who's still playing in the arena football league at the age of 46. Kimo is his name. He's playing up in Georgia here in a few months. He'll be up there. It's just anywhere in between. I've got a guy from Mexico City, Jorge Leon, who played at— he got in with the Orlando Predators at the age of 43, I think. And he's 46 now, 45 now too, something like that, maybe even older. I don't even know.

Brian Harbin: And so, like, you know, and typically, are you working with them like on a weekly basis and then you, you know, going through balls and kind of working on form, technique, you know, anything I guess you talk through like on the mental side as well? Having them work on a read or what's kind of that process look like?

Mike Hollis: Well, everyone has a little different skill level, but with regards to just the things that I'm teaching, I'm teaching the same things to every kicker I work with. I'm not one of those coaches that caters, oh, well, you have a certain style. We're going to cater to what you like, because most kickers' style is not something I would want to do. They kick too laterally. They swing too far one way. I can go into detail, but with regards to just what I teach them and getting into the mental side of it, I think that the mental side really comes down to— I don't teach them how to mentally prepare for a game. I don't really get involved in anything that a sports psychologist would because I never had to do that either. 

I tell them, I say, listen, the mental side of kicking for you is a secondary part of you doing the form. Doing the form in the initial physical phase is getting good with the form and the technique. The second phase is trusting the form and the technique. That's your mental side. That's all it is. If you can master a certain process and then trust that process, what other kind of mental help do you need?

Brian Harbin: And when it comes to form too, I know like it used to be, you know, take 5 paces back and then 2 paces over. Is that more just kind of a personal choice or is that something that depends on the length of the kick? Or that's just something that I remember seeing and doing as a kid, 5 steps back, 2 over. I mean, is there any science behind how far back you stand? Is it just all about comfort?

Mike Hollis: Well, it's a tough— it's not really a tough question for me, but what we do is we stretch the kicker out pretty far. So we don't do 5, we sometimes will do 4 steps back, but the typical lineup for a kicker will be 3 back and 2 over. If you're right-footed, of course, you're going to take 2 steps to your left. 

But going back to the whole process of the mechanics, I teach athletes to become more mechanical than athletic. Most kickers, the way they kick laterally and aggressively, they're kicking the ball athletically. I tell those guys, listen, if you're a great athlete, you might become a good kicker doing it that way, but if you're not a very good athlete, you're not going to be a very good kicker because it's kind of relatable, you know, they relate quite a bit. But if you want to study and learn and trust these mechanics, you can be— you'll be as good as you'll ever be. Whatever your physically possible being as far as your consistency, you'll find it through this form. 

And so I tell guys to understand the philosophy of trusting this form and this technique and allowing that to do the work for them. And so that's really the bottom line is making sure that they understand that the process is making the And too many kickers think the opposite way. They think the result is too important. And so their form kind of takes a backseat to the result.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. And I guess part of it too, of like the reason you see the steps is just to make sure they're at the same spot each time to make sure they're getting — [Crosstalk]

Mike Hollis: Well, that becomes a lot more important when you're a mechanical kicker. That was the point I was kind of trying to make is the fact that when you become a mechanical kicker, I tell people, hey, listen, if you were a human robot, so you're half human, half robot, but I could program you to do exactly the same motion from this spot every time. I put this program in you and said, okay, go kick the ball, and you kick it and you go boom, kick it 100 out of 100 times. You're making every kick and they look exactly the same. Everything's the same, right? 

If I took you and I moved you on the 101st kick and I moved you to a different spot, but still with the same program, I'm going to put you further from the ball and probably at a different angle. Do you think you're going to make the kick at that point if you were a programmed robot? 

Well, clearly no, because you're going to plant— foot's going to be back because your steps are going to be the same length. So again, when you think about being very mechanical, the lineup becomes incredibly important. When you're athletic, like you guys like Sebastian Janikowski used to do that…

Brian Harbin: Which he's here in town too.

Mike Hollis: Yeah, he's here locally. Martin Gramatica was another guy. What I mean by what they did is they would just walk back at a certain angle. They wouldn't go back and then over 90 degrees. They would just walk back at a certain angle that they thought was right. If you're going to do that, you clearly are just steering a football. You're just doing— you're relying on your athletic ability, your guesswork. You know, I couldn't do that. I had to be very methodical and mechanical with my stuff.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, it's funny, I saw Janikowski one time at a one of our kids' volleyball games. He's a big dude.

Mike Hollis: He's a big dude.

Brian Harbin: He's a big kicker. And so is also the idea is you're trying to kick the same part of the football each time as well? Is that kind of part of the consistency?

Mike Hollis: Oh yeah.

Brian Harbin: And then when you see guys line up and do like with their arm, I guess that's kind of trying to figure out where they're aiming it essentially, right?

Mike Hollis: That's their target line they're drawing basically. So when you get back to your spot, especially with angles like hash marks, kickers don't understand sometimes what it means to line up the proper way. And really what we're trying to do is draw a straight line wherever you want to aim. 

If you're playing the wind, it's going to be off-center a little bit, but if you're dead down the middle, you draw that line, you go back your 3 steps or whatever you want to do on the way back, and then you stop for a second, then you look and see where your foot is, and you draw a line, like an imaginary line from your foot that goes through the ball and to the target. And then from that point on, then you go 90 degrees. If you're right-footed, you go 90 degrees left from that spot. So you're always doing a 90-degree kick. 

And I've asked kickers when they're on the right hash, I say, okay, little Johnny, what direction are we kicking the ball here? Oh, I'm kicking it to the left because I'm on the right hash, Coach. I'm like, no, wrong answer. The answer is you're kicking the ball straight because the way you line up, you're aiming Right down the middle and don't look at these lines next to you because they screw you all up. And that's why sometimes people have a hard time doing 90 degrees, especially on kickoffs, especially if you're doing angled kickoffs.

Brian Harbin: Interesting! What about— and I feel like too, obviously you got a lot of enjoyment out of kicking yourself personally, but I'm sure there's almost even more enthusiasm and passion you have towards helping this next generation of kickers. I guess anything to that: Do you have anything to end on that note in terms of stories or anything that's been impactful and kind of reenergizing on why you do what you do in terms of pouring into young people like that?

Mike Hollis: Yeah, you know, why I do what I do is just to see the satisfaction and the grin on the kid's face when he hits his first ball that he really finally figures out, like, oh, that's what you mean by this whole timing thing and this form and how the form did all the work. And usually when that— and it happens a lot, and every time it does happen, I'll ask the kicker, like, you know, and especially if they hit a really good one, I said, how much effort did you put into that? He goes, I barely kicked that ball. I'm like, see, that's what I'm saying. Your body did a lot more work than your leg did. 

When you want to kick it far and with just your leg only, you're going to feel how far— you're going to know how far the ball is going to go based on how hard you swing your leg. The way we kick, I don't even know how far the ball is going to go. And remember I was telling you about stretching your back further?

Brian Harbin: Mm-hmm.

Mike Hollis: Well, stretching your back further in your approach will give you more incentive to run forward to kick the football. When a lot of kickers I work with, from the first time when they come in to see me, majority of them are entirely too close to the football from their stance to the ball itself. I say, okay, little Johnny, if you can walk, if you can take 3 long walking steps and get up to the ball where your plant foot's normally going to be, try that real quick. And sure enough, most of them can do that. They'll walk 3 steps and plant right where they're going to plant. And I said, well, if you can walk there, do you really need to run? 

Well, I do need to run because the snap's coming. Well, listen, you're not really going forward though. You're going up and down. You look like you're running, but you're kind of just going up and down. Yeah, going forward a little bit, but the way I'm gonna do it is I'm gonna force this forward momentum on you. You're gonna have no choice but to speed up just to get your plant foot to the ball or up by the ball. Once you get that, once you have that force forward momentum, guess what? That speed that you're generating just to get to the plant foot, what do you think that speed is also doing? Well, it's also going into the football.

Brian Harbin: Yeah.

Mike Hollis: Where most guys trot up to the ball, stop, and do like what I would refer to as a stationary golfer. Golfers are stationary. They stand on 2 plant feet. They stand and wiggle their butts and their shoulders and then look up and look down, look up. They have all kinds of time on their plant feet. Well, kickers don't. We run up to that spot and most guys actually do what I was just saying. They run up to that ball only to stop and swing their leg just like a golfer would.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. And like you said earlier, you're trying to create that explosion motion. Yeah.

Mike Hollis: It's accumulation of everything. The kick happens from the very beginning of your approach to the follow-through where your momentum finally stops, all of that is your kick. Most kickers don't look at it that way. They look at the— oh, the kick is done at the ball. Well, it's really not. You got to follow through, and the follow-through is a result of everything you do up to the ball.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, so many intricacies that go into it, you know, that, you know, I have such an appreciation for field goal kickers and the, you know, amount of, just preparation. And then just, you know, again, the pressure of usually most moments that they go into it.

Mike Hollis: So it's tedious.

Brian Harbin: And I want to ask you too about Zealous Wellness. I know that's kind of your passion on health and wellness. So tell us a little bit about that.

Mike Hollis: Well, I'm big into staying young and youthful. I feel like I'm in my 20s. You know, I'm doing my best to make myself feel as good as— I've been up and down with my weight and my shape, my lack of shape I should say, as far as being in shape or not. So I've dealt with that before and I don't like being out of shape and I don't like being unhealthy. 

And so, my biggest thing is I've developed a passion into trying to help others, you know, experience the same stuff. And so really Zealous Wellness This is a platform that I put together that just kind of exemplifies some of the services and products and services and fitness things that I'm doing that have worked for me. Because believe me, back in the day when I was in the NFL, we got— and even still to this day, we have a lot of people who reach out to us and want us to try their product. Hey, endorse this. And, oh, I need you to— I really want you to try this and this and that. 

So I'm kind of a very optimistic type of person. I usually say, yeah, sure, I'll try it. Anything that I feel is going to work. And more times than not, the products typically that I try aren't really that effective. Now, services like fitness and things like that, clearly, I can feel the difference in that. Like, yeah, that works.

Brian Harbin: Mm-hmm.

Mike Hollis: But when it comes to nutrition and things like that, there's a lot of things out there that don't— hadn't really necessarily worked for me. I'm not saying that they don't work for others, but I know that there's a lot of fake, especially like Amazon and things like that. There's a lot of fake items out there. These products are— these companies are very ruthless in making fake stuff.

Brian Harbin: Yeah.

Mike Hollis: So you got to be careful with that too. But yeah, Zealous Wellness. And I do a podcast too, just talking about health and nutrition and mental and football and just everything, all the above. But I think that, you know, with the way people and our society is right now today with the foods that we're eating, we're kind of handcuffed because we just eat the foods that are prepared for us as far as like grocery store food. And if you think about entering a grocery store and you see a health food section of the grocery store, what does that make the rest of the store though? If you got like one health food section in the store, what's the rest of the store?

Brian Harbin: Right, exactly.

Mike Hollis: Crap. It's not good. We're eating foods that are not benefiting us at all and I'll go down rabbit holes here and there and it's very obvious What our government is doing, what the higher-ups are doing, what the decision-makers are doing, they're patting their pockets with our obesity and our sickness. It's a revolving cycle and people need to break that cycle and get out of it.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, I mean, how far we've come in the last 20, 30 years in terms of understanding the importance of diet and what you eat and what you put in your body and everything else is significant. So that's great, that initiative that you have there. I did want to ask too, we talked a little bit before the interview today about in the NFL now we're seeing, and even in college, we're seeing some of these kickers that are putting up bigger and bigger numbers. From your perspective, what do you think is helping with that?

Mike Hollis: Well, there's a lot of things. They didn't have snappers really back then. I guess my first team with the Chargers, David Binn was the snapper that they picked up. I think that might have been like the very first ever just snapper on a team. I don't really know if there ever has been just one person that does snapping, but since then, of course, teams have caught on and now they have— every team has just a specific snapper and they're good.

Brian Harbin: Mm-hmm.

Mike Hollis: That's one thing. And the snap does— I mean, you think about it, the kick's got to be off about 1.3 seconds. You got 1.3 seconds from the time it's left the center to the time the ball's kicked. And that's a lot of— it's very quick and there's a lot of error that can happen within that timeframe. 

So snapping is a very important position. So snappers have gotten really good. The operation between the snapper and holders have become very, very good. When you've got that perfection, it's really easy for the kicker to be confident and not have to guess. I had bad snaps a lot and I had to kind of— Brian was a godsend when he told me, just trust me. I'll get it down. He was my best holder I've ever had.

Brian Harbin: Mm-hmm.

Mike Hollis: And he would get it down and I would kick it. And so had he not told me that, I probably would have missed a lot more than I did. But with regards to that, I think that the field conditions are a lot better now. We're playing on more consistent turf. Even the grass fields are becoming better. Then you got obviously the artificial field turf…. fields that there's no divots ever. That's a big deal. And the footing's always the same for the most part.

Brian Harbin: Yeah.

Mike Hollis: Even in areas that teams play in cold weather, the thawing mechanism underneath the field has probably gotten better. And so you don't— like when I was playing against the Giants, I wasn't with the Giants at the time, but I remember they experimented with grass fields and they put all these sections of grass in and each section had its own little thawing system. Well, some did, some worked and some didn't. And so you never knew when you stepped on the field if you're going to be planting on ice or not.

Brian Harbin: Wow!

Mike Hollis: It was horrible. Like that, this is not professional at all. But yeah, and kickers in general, I'm sure there's more importance on kicking coaches. There's one on every block. I'll tell you that right now. 

But unfortunately, these guys don't really teach really good stuff in my opinion. But for the most part, kicker, there've been more emphasis on training to become kickers at younger ages, I think, for a lot of kids. And just their physical fitness and things, that's evolved as well. They're getting better in every aspect, and that's why you're seeing all these long 60-plus-yard field goals. You hear the announcers, oh, Cam Little attempting a 63-yard field goal. Oh, it is good. And that's it. If I had to kick a 63-yard field goal, I'd be crazy. That's nuts. But it's no big deal now. Anything 60-something yards, oh, no big deal. Wow!

Brian Harbin: Yeah. And kind of to your point too, with kids starting earlier and getting training better, and they're just, you know, that snowball effect is just gonna, you know, lead to longer field goals. So, yep. Yeah, just was curious your input on that. Our last question today would be about the Grit Creed. So these are 12 principles that we're all about baking into that next generation. Which part of the Grit Creed do you think resonates most with you?

Mike Hollis: I pinpointed a couple, but I think that the one that really, really resonates with me would be the one that says, I will follow through with what I say I That's what I'll do. What I'll do. Yeah. I'll follow through with what I say I'll do. And that really kind of stems from like, like Tom Coughlin and even my parents growing up. It was very, very disciplined household. I would do things, you know, say that I'm going to do things they tell me, okay, I'll do it. And just following through with people, I think that shows respect that you're able to, you know, follow through with what you say you're going to do. And, you know, with Coughlin, you had to, you had no choice. 

And I think it just, it teaches you discipline and it really is part of teamwork too. Because if you think about it, when you're part of a team, if you don't do your job, you're letting the rest of the guys down. And so by signing that contract, you've told the team and the players and the coaches and the city that you're going to do the job to the best of your ability. 

And if you decide you're not going to really come through with that, then you've let everybody down. And so the last thing you want to do is let anybody down. I would hate— I'd feel terrible letting anybody down. I got to be truthful to myself and others and follow through with what I say I'm going to do.

Brian Harbin: I love that! Well, Mike, this has been a blast. It's always been on my bucket list in life to be able to sit down with an NFL kicker. So, I appreciate you being able to share your stories and insights today and really admire the career that you've built for yourself! 

And thank you again for being on!

Mike Hollis: Awesome! Well, thank you so much! I appreciate that!

Brian Harbin: Well, that's a wrap for today's episode of the grit.org podcast! Thanks again! And we'll see you guys next time! 

Take care!