While a winning, last second kick against the Florida Gators may have cemented his legacy, there is one question former NFL and Michigan State kicker Paul Edinger is always asked.

Why did you kick like that?

“Honestly, it just evolved,” he said of his back-to-ball start and twisting windup. “I’m a little guy. I wasn’t trying to be fancy, I was just trying to generate momentum.”

But he did more than just generate momentum. Edinger was the gold standard NFL kicker consistency at the start of the 2000s. At a time when kickers were treated as disposable, Edinger nearly singlehandedly rewrote the script. Dubbed the Human Corkscrew by ESPN’s Chris Berman, Edinger still holds the record for never missing an extra point, and his field goal percentage places him in the top 100 of all time. While other NFL kickers, on average, attempted kicks of 37.5 yards, Edinger was known for thundering kicks over 50 yards. In his first three NFL seasons, he hit 35 field goals of 40 yards or longer, more than any other kicker in the NFL. And locally, he holds the distinction as being on a list of Kathleen High School grads who would go on to be NFL greats, a list that includes Ray Lewis, Desmond Clark and Freddie Mitchell.

A kicking phenom in high school, it was actually futbol that was his first passion.

“Florida kids, we’re outside all the time,” he said. “I loved soccer. I played golf in junior high and high school, and I played baseball, but soccer was my passion.”

Travel soccer became all consuming, from the Lakeland Hot Spur, to the Northdale Rangers in Tampa and back to the Lakeland Lazers – with time spent along the way with the Clearwater Chargers and Tampa Bay Kickers.

“We were good,” he said. “Lake Parker was home field, and I played until after my freshman year of college. We even put together a State Cup team.”

But he kept looking over at the football field.

“I always felt that if I had a chance to do it, I could do it,” he said. “I always had a strong leg. So I went out in the spring of my sophomore year. I didn’t feel any pressure – it was just natural.”

Starting under head coach Ernest Joe, Edinger’s kicking soon became the talk of high school football. By the time he was a senior at Kathleen, Edinger earned all-state honors, kicking 11 field goals, including a 53-yarder. He also handled punting duties for then-head coach Dave Robson’s Red Devils, averaging 42 yards per punt. For most athletes, they would have sat back and waited for the colleges to come running. But not Edinger, who had a scholarship offer in his hand before the season started.

“My grandfather had a baseball scholarship to Michigan State but got married instead,” said Edinger. “One summer between junior and senior year, his booster friends at Michigan State had me come down to kick. Day one I rolled in and met coach Pat Shurmur. I ended up kicking so well at that camp that the parents of four or five local blue chip prospects from the area were pretty upset. Coach Saban had me kick at the stadium with all the coaches and John Langeloh – who’d kicked there from 1987 to 1990 – was holding. So I had a scholarship offer before my senior year of high school.”

Playing for a soon-to-be legendary coach, Edinger paid his dues by punting his freshman year. He’d handle both kicking and punting his sophomore year before transitioning over to just kicking for the last two.

It was his final year at Michigan State that Edinger hit the Sunshine State infamous last second 39-yard field goal that sent the Michigan State Spartans over the then-10^th ranked Florida Gators, 37-34, in the Orlando based Citrus Bowl. Little did those watching at home know how special it was for the kicker.

“I had met with Florida Gators head coach Steve Spurrier before I committed to Michigan State,” said Edinger. “At that time, he’d made it clear that he’d never give a kicker a scholarship. His view may have changed since then. But either way, it was pretty sweet revenge to meet and beat them in the Citrus Bowl.”

After being looked at by the Bears, Seahawks and Chiefs, he was drafted in the sixth round of the 2000 draft by the Bears.

“Making that jump from college to the NFL was almost night and day. I had the longest playing Bear as a snapper – he made the holders job easy, he didn’t even have to spin the ball. Louie Aguilar, who’d played nine years in the NFL, took me under his wing. We had a bad snap and he took the ball and ran. He told me afterward that he would rather that than force me to have a bad kick. I learned a lot from him.”

He also credits punter Brad Maynard, who also held for Edinger his last four years at the Bears.

“He was amazing,” he said. “It’s a thankless job, but he really helped me put up those numbers.”

And he got to meet his heroes.

“When we played at Minnesota, kicking legend Gary Anderson, who’d already kicked for 18 years in the NFL, came over to me,” said Edinger. “It was right before kickoff. He congratulated me on making it to the NFL. That was special.”

Edinger embraced the mental aspect of the game – and the importance of those last minute kicks.

“Kicking as much mental as it is physical,” he said. “But when it came to clutch kicks, I was going to make those clutch kicks. Other positions, you might get second chances. Kicking, you might get once chance. Three bad weeks in a row, you might be off the team.”

Tuesdays, he said, were the worst.

“If you missed a kick or two a couple of weeks in a row, they’d bring in two of three kickers on Tuesday to work out. There is always someone ready to take your job at every position – so many athletes want to play on Sundays. They work hard, waiting for someone to fail. And with only one kicker on a team – 32 playing – there are plenty waiting to go.”

After five years in Chicago, Edinger came to the first mini-camp at the end of May and noticed there were three kickers, two rookies and a veteran, in camp.

“I thought we were going to have a competition,” he said. “They had other plans and let me go.”

Maybe it was all that cold weather in the North, but Edinger and his wife headed for somewhere a little warmer – Costa Rica.

“We were there for a couple of years, and I stayed in shape and tried out for teams,” he said.

Signing with the Arena Football League Chicago Rush, Edinger found himself back in professional sports.

“But the league went bankrupt in 2009,” he said. Back in 2010, he played with the Jacksonville Sharks before moving on to his last team, the Pittsburgh Power.

Today, Edinger lives in St. Augustine with his wife Amber, daughter Leilani and son Taj.

“I might help out at the local high school with kickers, or with my buddies kids,” he said. “But right now, I spend most of the time either at my son’s baseball games or at musical theater stuff for my daughter. Life is good.”