Murray State University Athletics
Runnin' With The Racers Podcast - Paul Hickert
11/19/2020 7:54:00 AM | Football
Former Murray State football student-athlete Paul Hickert, well known for kicking the longest field goal in program history in 1986, is our guest on the Runnin' with the Racers Podcast, episode 116.
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The Runnin' with the Racers Podcast posts each week to GoRacers.com, iTunes and Soundcloud.
This article on GoRacers.com is brought to you by McConnell Insurance.
Hickert, out of Clearwater, Florida, took a visit to Murray in the spring of 1984, but initially turned down a scholarship offer because of doubts about the avenue of study he wanted to pursue. After a reassuring phone call from Coach Frank Beamer, Hickert was on his way to becoming a Racer.
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"Coach Beamer knows how to motivate people," Hickert recalled. "He told me he wanted to make sure that if I didn't come to Murray, it was because it wasn't the right fit, instead of incomplete information. Dr. Etherton called me and explained the engineering physics program and my Dad and I thought it was great. We had a lot of smart guys on the football team and we had big competition when it came to academics."
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The Racers' Ohio Valley Conference championship team in 1986 still stands as one of the most talented teams in the history of the program. The Racers opened OVC play with a huge win over perennial power Eastern Kentucky at home by a score of 17-15. It's true, MSU's championship run may have never happened if Hickert doesn't kick a 62-yard field goal on the final play of the first half. Now 34 years later, his prodigious boot is still the gold standard for the longest field goals in Racer Football history and in the OVC.
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More than three decades later, Hickert says the topic of the 62-yarder still surfaces from time to time.
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"Once people know that I kicked at Murray State, they'll ask me what was my longest field goal, and that happened just last week," Hickert laughed. "It's fun to recall it. In that moment, I knew this was for the record, but I just wanted to make it for us because we were down 9-0 and getting our tails handed to us. For a field goal of that distance, the snap has to be quick, because the trajectory is going to be lower and it can get blocked a lot easier. Charlie Wiles was the snapper and the holder was David Morris. When the ball cleared the line, it was actually outside the right post and at the last second, it curved in. The best thing is that it sent us into the locker room with great energy and we came out in the second half and handled them after that."
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MSU lost the following week at Akron, but ran the table to win the OVC title with wins over Tennessee Tech (23-16) on homecoming, at Morehead State (45-11), home over Youngstown State (17-14) and Middle Tennessee (21-7) and they clinched the OVC with a win at Austin Peay (24-14). MSU battled valiantly in the 1-AA playoffs in a 28-21 loss at Eastern Illinois. The Panthers were a future OVC member and quarterbacked by Sean Payton, a future Super Bowl champion coach with the New Orleans Saints.
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"That 1986 team had the most raw talent than any team I played on and we were deep," Hickert said. "We had guts and heart and we won the OVC championship. Those moments are memorable and it was a fun season. It was fun to see the progression of Coach Beamer and the great things he did later at Virginia Tech."
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Hickert lives in New York City and has a successful acting career, a bit surprising, given the fact he was an honor student which led to him being in private business. He did some print modeling and that led to him pursuing an acting career. Since 2008, Hickert has appeared in more than 80 movies and television series including Law & Order, One Life to Live and the movie Tower Heist.
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"Acting is nothing more than having an imagination full of what you're doing," Hickert said. "It's imaging a situation in your own life that matches the scene. The goal is to imagine something so fully that you're not trying to show an emotion, you're feeling it."
Â
Hickert says his football days certainly help him many times when acting.
Â
"This is where football helped me out a lot," he said. "When I was in a groove, I never heard the crowd and I was totally in the zone. It's the same thing in acting. They call it 'in the moment', it's kind of like performance hypnosis. A lot of times, there might be more than 100 people on a set and there are lights and activity going on. So we're doing take after take, after take. So when the crowd applauds when you make a field goal, the crew also does that at times when the director says 'that's a wrap!'."
Â
Paul Hickert's legacy as a great kicker still shows him as second all-time with the Racers in total field goals (49) and extra points (116). Those were records until Kienan Cullen broke them in 2011. Hickert was All-OVC as a senior in 1987. He was drafted by the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals in 1988.
About Runnin' With The Racers Podcast
Murray State Basketball great Jonathan Stark was the first guest when the pilot episode posted Aug. 29, 2018, The podcast is produced weekly and usually is available by Wednesday. The Runnin' with the Racers Podcast is mainly guest driven with news and notes of the week from the Racers. Dave Winder, MSU Athletics Associate AD for Media Relations is the host. The podcast is available on GoRacers.com, ITunes and Soundcloud.
Â
Â
The Runnin' with the Racers Podcast posts each week to GoRacers.com, iTunes and Soundcloud.
This article on GoRacers.com is brought to you by McConnell Insurance.
Hickert, out of Clearwater, Florida, took a visit to Murray in the spring of 1984, but initially turned down a scholarship offer because of doubts about the avenue of study he wanted to pursue. After a reassuring phone call from Coach Frank Beamer, Hickert was on his way to becoming a Racer.
Â
"Coach Beamer knows how to motivate people," Hickert recalled. "He told me he wanted to make sure that if I didn't come to Murray, it was because it wasn't the right fit, instead of incomplete information. Dr. Etherton called me and explained the engineering physics program and my Dad and I thought it was great. We had a lot of smart guys on the football team and we had big competition when it came to academics."
Â
The Racers' Ohio Valley Conference championship team in 1986 still stands as one of the most talented teams in the history of the program. The Racers opened OVC play with a huge win over perennial power Eastern Kentucky at home by a score of 17-15. It's true, MSU's championship run may have never happened if Hickert doesn't kick a 62-yard field goal on the final play of the first half. Now 34 years later, his prodigious boot is still the gold standard for the longest field goals in Racer Football history and in the OVC.
Â
More than three decades later, Hickert says the topic of the 62-yarder still surfaces from time to time.
Â
"Once people know that I kicked at Murray State, they'll ask me what was my longest field goal, and that happened just last week," Hickert laughed. "It's fun to recall it. In that moment, I knew this was for the record, but I just wanted to make it for us because we were down 9-0 and getting our tails handed to us. For a field goal of that distance, the snap has to be quick, because the trajectory is going to be lower and it can get blocked a lot easier. Charlie Wiles was the snapper and the holder was David Morris. When the ball cleared the line, it was actually outside the right post and at the last second, it curved in. The best thing is that it sent us into the locker room with great energy and we came out in the second half and handled them after that."
Â
MSU lost the following week at Akron, but ran the table to win the OVC title with wins over Tennessee Tech (23-16) on homecoming, at Morehead State (45-11), home over Youngstown State (17-14) and Middle Tennessee (21-7) and they clinched the OVC with a win at Austin Peay (24-14). MSU battled valiantly in the 1-AA playoffs in a 28-21 loss at Eastern Illinois. The Panthers were a future OVC member and quarterbacked by Sean Payton, a future Super Bowl champion coach with the New Orleans Saints.
Â
"That 1986 team had the most raw talent than any team I played on and we were deep," Hickert said. "We had guts and heart and we won the OVC championship. Those moments are memorable and it was a fun season. It was fun to see the progression of Coach Beamer and the great things he did later at Virginia Tech."
Â
Hickert lives in New York City and has a successful acting career, a bit surprising, given the fact he was an honor student which led to him being in private business. He did some print modeling and that led to him pursuing an acting career. Since 2008, Hickert has appeared in more than 80 movies and television series including Law & Order, One Life to Live and the movie Tower Heist.
Â
"Acting is nothing more than having an imagination full of what you're doing," Hickert said. "It's imaging a situation in your own life that matches the scene. The goal is to imagine something so fully that you're not trying to show an emotion, you're feeling it."
Â
Hickert says his football days certainly help him many times when acting.
Â
"This is where football helped me out a lot," he said. "When I was in a groove, I never heard the crowd and I was totally in the zone. It's the same thing in acting. They call it 'in the moment', it's kind of like performance hypnosis. A lot of times, there might be more than 100 people on a set and there are lights and activity going on. So we're doing take after take, after take. So when the crowd applauds when you make a field goal, the crew also does that at times when the director says 'that's a wrap!'."
Â
Paul Hickert's legacy as a great kicker still shows him as second all-time with the Racers in total field goals (49) and extra points (116). Those were records until Kienan Cullen broke them in 2011. Hickert was All-OVC as a senior in 1987. He was drafted by the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals in 1988.
About Runnin' With The Racers Podcast
Murray State Basketball great Jonathan Stark was the first guest when the pilot episode posted Aug. 29, 2018, The podcast is produced weekly and usually is available by Wednesday. The Runnin' with the Racers Podcast is mainly guest driven with news and notes of the week from the Racers. Dave Winder, MSU Athletics Associate AD for Media Relations is the host. The podcast is available on GoRacers.com, ITunes and Soundcloud.
Â
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