Former Tennessee great John Becksvoort was honored before the game. With Becksvoort is his two daughters, Jane and Kate.KNOXVILLE - As he sat in the Neyland Stadium stands for a Tennessee football game 10 years ago, former Volunteers place-kicker John Becksvoort suddenly was filled with emotion as he watched UT running back great Charlie Garner honored as a Vols "Legend of the Game."
"I was happy for Charlie," said Becksvoort, the former Red Bank High School star who hit all 161 of his extra-point attempts during his Big Orange career to set school, Southeastern Conference and NCAA records at that time.
"But what really touched me was that he was out there with his kids. I just kept thinking, 'I hope I get to do that one day with my two daughters.'"
Saturday became that day. With the Vols about to take the field against Tennessee Tech for homecoming, Becksvoort walked out of Neyland's north end zone with 12-year-old Kate and 10-year-old Jane at about 3:47 p.m. as 98,343 stood and cheered.
A few minutes later he ran through the "T" with the current Vols players and coaches. Still standing in that end zone as UT began its 55-0 crushing of the outmanned Golden Eagles, the Becksvoort clan got to see the Big Orange's first score of the day, Josh Dobbs hitting Josh Malone with a 30-yard touchdown pass a mere 57 seconds into the game.
Said Jane, a fifth-grader at Normal Park, of the experience: "I was a little nervous, but it was really cool."
Added Kate, a seventh-grader at Girls Preparatory School: "It was really loud, probably louder than I expected. But it was great getting to do all that with my dad."
Becksvoort's story is one of the greatest of any All-American in school history, which the kicker became during his junior year in 1993. After all, he'd never kicked a football even in his back yard until the 10th grade at Red Bank. As a ninth-grader at the school, the only time his feet touched the football field came when he was playing saxophone in the marching band.
Nevertheless, by his senior year he was being recruited by Michigan State, Vanderbilt and a UT assistant coach named Phillip Fulmer. Becksvoort ultimately signed with the Vols, then wound up kicking the winning extra point against Notre Dame in that 35-34 "Miracle at South Bend" as a freshman.
The real miracle for Becksvoort may have been that for the only time in his career, the football laces were facing him - a kicking no-no - as he stepped into that winning PAT.
"An epic game," he said in a UT press release a couple of years ago.
Despite his college success, he never made it on a regular-season NFL roster.
"I was in the Saints camp twice and the 49ers camp once," Becksvoort said. "(Mike) Ditka was coaching the Saints and he'd started out as a special teams coach after his playing career, so he was watching us all the time. It was intimidating as heck."
Though he felt he performed well enough in those camps to have had an NFL career, he also has no hard feelings that his life took a different path.
"If you're an NFL head coach and you pick a rookie (kicker) over a veteran and he loses you a game on a missed kick, you might lose your job because of that," Becksvoort said. "I've got no regrets."
Instead, he runs WeatherShield, an industrial roofing company in Chattanooga, plays golf and watches Kate and Jane grow up.
If he listens closely, he may even see a bit of his wit and charm in them, such as when Kate was asked if she'd known before Saturday what a great Vol her father was and she replied, "He brags about it too much," only to have Jane counter, "He never talks to me about it."
But Becksvoort expects to talk about and cherish this day for decades to come.
"Just to get to do this," he said, "with the two people who mean the most to me in the whole world."
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com