The long-shot NFL aspirations of Fort Myers native Andrew Lunsford have ranged from promising to shattered to renewed.
Nineteen months after a motorcycle accident in Sebring left him unable to walk for two months, Lunsford has found a new school where he can continue learning the craft of kicking.
Despite never playing high school football and converting just five extra point attempts at his first college program, Lunsford has secured a football scholarship to Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Ind., where he will be a sophomore in the fall.
“The trauma was so bad that my body just shut down,” said Lunsford, who was returning in October 2013 to Weber International in Babson Park when an 82-year-old woman, not seeing him riding northbound, cut across his lane.
The collision slammed the motorcycle handlebars into both of his knees as Lunsford and his Yamaha ZR7 flipped over the woman’s mid-sized sedan.
“I was conscious the whole time,” said Lunsford, who was wearing a helmet. “I remember braking. I remember flipping over the car. My bike was in a bunch of little pieces. I had asphalt in my knees.
“I thought I was done.”
Weber International dropped Lunsford’s scholarship following his injury. The school’s coach and sports information director did not return phone calls or emails seeking comment.
“That was really hard to take,” said Lunsford, who at the time never thought he would kick again. “I didn’t feel like I was being cheated by them but by life. That was something I had worked really hard for. Without Jeannette, my fiancee, being there for me, and my family, I don’t know how I would have gotten through that.”
Lunsford said his competitive juices began flowing again as soon as he could walk. By the summer of 2014, he had returned to kicking under the guidance of Brandon Kornblue.
Kornblue, a Naples resident who kicked at the University of Michigan and for theFlorida Firecats of the now-defunct arenafootball2 league, has created a niche as a nationally known kicking coach.
“It’s not easy,” Kornblue said of what Lunsford has overcome. “It’s a rare kid who can persevere through that and still keep going, especially coming out of high school and never having played, to be able to keep going and keep practicing. He has been able to trust me to get him lined up somewhere with a school, never having played high school football.
“That was the first part of it. And then to go through it again? That’s the thing to me that’s admirable. Because of it, he’s now being rewarded from it.”
Lunsford, who was home-schooled and competed in soccer and track and field atEvangelical Christian School before graduating in 2011, at first never cared for football. He began kicking only after seeing the success of his younger brother.
John Lunsford, who kicked for the Sentinels and since the 2012 season has thrived atLiberty University, served as one of his older brother’s inspirations.
Andrew, who turns 23 on Nov. 3, is one year and 11 days older than John. But John has seven more years of kicking experience.
Andrew Lunsford exceled in sports at ECS. He once defeated Buffalo Bills wide receiver Sammy Watkins in the triple jump at a high school track meet. Just as John Lunsford will have a shot at the NFL one year from now, Andrew Lunsford could get his chance three years from now.
“Trust me, I think he’ll do just fine,” said John Lunsford, who made a career-long 60-yard field goal last season for Liberty, against the wind. “Experience-wise, Andrew is well behind other kickers and even the guys there who are playing. But it’s not going to be that hard. Yes, he might be shaking up or he might be nervous at first. But that’s just the type of athlete that Andrew is. You can’t give him something and he won’t be good at it. I’m not just saying that because he’s my brother.
“He had handlebars go into his kneecaps and was thrown 45 feet in the air, got thrown into a ditch, had surgery, months of rehab and then gets a D-I scholarship.
“You don’t just get that by being lucky. You get that by trusting in God and having an incredible work ethic.”
The Lunsfords are two of 11 siblings from a devout Christian family that attends Summit Church off Ben Hill Griffin Parkway, near FGCU.
Andrew Lunsford said he relied on prayer while recovering from his injuries. He said he never believed God wanted him to suffer as he did. He always believed God put him in a position to grow as both a kicker and as a person.
“I’m not one of those people who just believes in coincidences,” Andrew Lunsford said. “I’ve been a Christian my entire life. I have a deep personal relationship with Him. I see this as His way of just shaping me and molding me. It could have been that if I hadn’t gone through the accident, I wouldn’t have been tough enough to go play in the NFL.”
For now, the 6-foot-2, 205-pound Andrew Lunsford will have to be tough enough to play against the Big 10.
Indiana State, which plays in the Missouri Valley Conference at the I-AA level, faces Purdue, a Division I, Big 10 Conference program, on Sept. 12.
“Here’s our situation,” Indiana State coach Mike Sanford said. “We have a field goal kicker by the name of Eric Heidorn, who is a very good kicker. But he is not a long distance kickoff man and not a long distance field goal man.
“What we have done is gone on a national search for is a big, athletic guy who can be a long-distance kicker. We felt that Andrew Lunsford can be that kind of a guy. He is a guy who can kick the ball into the end zone, which is one of the things that is huge in college football and was something difficult for us last year. When you kick the ball to the 5-yard line or the 10-yard line, there’s a high rate of returns. He’s a guy who can kick the ball out into the end zone or out of the end zone.”
Lunsford chose Indiana State over Sienna Heights University in Michigan and Virginia Union University. He even turned down a scholarship he received late last year because at the time, he was getting ready to propose to Jeanette DeSanctis. She said yes. They are getting married May 30 in Jacksonville and will move to Indiana in July.
“It’s a combination of him finding us and us finding him,” Sanford said. “And we’re excited about him and his story. It’s a great story now. We hope it has a great ending.”
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Wrote by: David Dorsey
Published by: News-Press
Published on: May 16, 2015