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No doubt Harrison Mevis broke a lot of Chicago Bears fans’ hearts Sunday night with his game-winning field goal for the Los Angeles Rams in overtime, eliminating the Bears from the NFL playoffs. But it came as no surprise to Warsaw Community High School head football coach Bart Curtis, not to special teams coach Cole Richards.
The Rams won 20-17 to advance to the National Football Conference title game this Sunday at Seattle. The winner of that contest advances to Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, Calif. Feb. 8.
Curtis said Mevis took advantage of the players’ ticket availability to get him, son and assistant coach Michael Curtis and Richards into Soldier Field for the matchup. The elder Curtis said he’s kept in touch with Mevis throughout his football career.
“(I was) very, very blessed, and it was just such a nice gesture on his behalf to reach out and do that. Of course, we've stayed in contact. When he was at Missouri, my wife and I had the opportunity to drive out and watch him kick against Florida his senior year, then spend some time with him prior to the game, which was really neat.”
Curtis remembered meeting Mevis when he was introduced as head coach in February 2019, and a fun accident at the first practice that summer.
"As long as I've known him, he’s been ultra serious and ultra business like with a splash of fun sprinkled in. He was one of the most enjoyable kids to work with as far as knowing what he's going to do, and just an incredible sense of humor.
“I remember my first workout as a Warsaw coach. I lined every kid up and divided them up by height and weight. I didn't know who he was and this and that, so I sent him down with the offensive lineman.
“So he's cracking skulls down there and learning three and four points stances, and coming off the ball, and about 15 minutes into it, Coach Richards said, ‘you do realize our Division 1 kicker is down working with the O-linemen.’ I said, ‘no, I had no idea, but I will fix that.’ So we dragged him out of there.”
It didn’t take long for Curtis to figure out Mevis was no ordinary high school kicker.
"One of the things that made him is his passion for kicking and his passionate love for the game of football, he said “When he was told, ‘hey, you're gonna come in and lift with the football players, in the mornings for zero hour,’ I saw a tremendous jump in his life strength from his junior to senior year. And he never ever missed.”
The coach said he’s not surprised Mevis has success in pressure-packed moments.
“He just never freaks out about anything. He’s intense but not tense.
“I don't think there's a Iot of doubt in that kid. I don't think he gets discouraged. He understands how the kicking game works at that level and other levels. There are a lot of kickers, they all know they're on a week-to-week contract, or must feel that way. And I don't think he ever lost faith or doubt that he could do what transpired (Sunday) night. He did a lot of behind the scenes stuff. I remember him shoveling the turf field in the winter in January and February to go out and work his trade. Sometimes mom or dad would come and shag balls. It's really a family commitment by the Mevis family.
“He knows he's got a job to do. He has logged the hours. He's made that kick 1,000 times. He and I were joking about it (Sunday) night. He's from northern Indiana, so I've seen him out there kicking in the cold. I've seen him out there shoveling snow from the turf field, so you know he's kicked in bad weather before. I don't think anything bothers him.”
Coach Richards expressed similar sentiments.
“His attention to detail and going through what he needs to do in his process is unmatched,” said Richards. “He has the ability to turn off all of the things around him. He has singular focus on the ability to tell himself, ‘OK, here's what I need to do. Here's how I'm gonna do it. Harrison's ability to separate out all of the other noise and focus on what he needs to do is singular and kind of unmatched from what I've seen.”
Curtis said all the recognition for his former kicker’s success should go to everyone who pitched in to make Mevis a success.
“There is zero credit that goes to anything that I did,” the Tiger coach said. “I could tell you that this was his doing, but it's so neat the number of texts that I got and Cole Richards got after the kick was made and throughout the course of the game. If anything, it brings a little realization that anything is possible with hard work and commitment. A lot of people say they wanna do something, but they're not willing to do the things that are inglorious and behind the scenes when there's no crowd there, and he's always been willing to do those uneventful things that seem boring that are a requirement.
“And just the fact that he still considers himself a Warsaw Tiger; that he took the time out to get us some of the passes to see him after the game. That tells you a lot about him.”
"In any interview you've ever heard with him, he is always crediting someone other than himself. As a matter of fact, he only got a couple of lines on national TV (Sunday) night, but it was just like that. The first thing he did was nod towards (Rams quarterback and Most Valuable Player candidate) Matthew Stafford and said ‘if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity. Ideally, he would have just gone ahead and scored the touchdown and done it that way. But when my opportunity came, I was ready and I knocked it through.’
“I didn't get any sense of somebody acting all big time or anything like that. He was pretty humble. He was that way in high school. He's just behind the scenes, extremely competitive academically and all phases of his life, raised by two incredible parents who value education, who value competition and who provided the opportunities for him to improve and hone his kicking skills and get some of the exposure throughout the, different camps and things like that. They were committed to making that happen, and held him extremely accountable throughout school.”
Coach Curtis said he wouldn’t be shocked if a similar scenario plays out in what’s left of the NFL season.
“I'd be interested to hear what he has to say, and how much of it he deflects to other people. It all rolls together into the package, and the human being, that is Harrison Mevis.
“It couldn't be more fitting how it played out (Sunday) night and it couldn't happen to a more deserving better human being.”
