Guy Got His Kicks on First Day With Raiders

The greatest punter in the history of the NFL, Ray Guy, was also part of what many consider the greatest professional sports franchise the Las Vegas Raiders.

Punter Ray Guy made an incredible impression on Coach John Madden on his first day with the Oakland Raiders at a rookie camp in 1973 at the Silver and Black’s training camp facility at the El Rancho Tropicana Hotel in Santa Rosa, Calif.

The Raiders selected the 6-3, 195-pound Guy out of Southern Mississippi with the 23rd overall pick of the National Football League Draft that year, making him the first and still only punter to be chosen in the first round.

Guy averaged 44.7 yards per punt as a senior, best in the nation in 1972, kicked a 61-yard field goal during a snowstorm in a game at Utah, and intercepted eight passes from his safety position.

But he was only getting started.

All he did was become the best punter in NFL history on his way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

But on that first day of rookie camp, Guy punted by himself on a side field for most of the practice while the Raiders worked with their new position players on the primary field.

Finally, Madden called Guy over to have him kick a few and what happened was amazing.

Guy began punting the ball 60-70 yards or more in the air, with the ball hanging in the sky for several seconds, and everyone stood there watching in amazement with their eyes and mouths wide open.

After Guy had kicked 20 or so punts like that, Madden blurted out: “OK, Ray that’s enough, Great job.”

However, Guy answered back with: “No, that’s only my warmup.”

So Guy went on to kick several more punts, higher and farther, before Madden finally got him to stop, saying: “I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” to which Guy responded: “Don’t worry, I do this all the time.”

And he did.

Guy punted the ball 1,049 times for 44,493 yards in his career, a 42.4-yard average while having only three kicks blocked. However, he didn’t always punt for distance, as Guy often pinned Raiders’ opponents deep in their own territory.

“Having Ray Guy meant having a chance to make the playoffs and win the Super Bowl,” Raiders Hall of Fame cornerback Willie Brown said. “He was just that strong because his ability to punt–when we needed a long punt, he did it; when we needed a short punt, he did all that. He kept opposing offensive teams back in the hole a majority of the time.

“As a defense, you have a shot anytime he’s in the game punting. We didn’t worry about whether they were going to get the ball because no matter where we were on the field, a majority of their offense usually started on the other 20 or inside that sometimes.

“It’s always great to have a weapon like Ray Guy.”

Guy’s longest punts from scrimmage went for 77, 74 72, and 71 yards, and in his 11 seasons in which the NFL counted punts inside the 20, he had a total of 209.

After a 1977 game against the Astrodome, Houston Oilers Coach Bum Phillips accused Guy of using footballs illegally inflated with helium because he had "never seen anyone hang kicks like Guy did,” and that the ball was “hanging up there too long.”

The Raiders had used a new ball for every punt, adding to Phillips’ suspicions, so sent one of the footballs to Rice University for testing, but nothing unusual was found.

Guy was selected first-team All-Pro six times and second-team twice played in seven Pro Bowls, and was chosen to the NFL’s 1970s All-Decade Team, the 75th Anniversary Team, and the 100th Anniversary Team.

During the 1976 Pro Bowl at the Louisiana Superdome, one of Guy’s punts hit the gondola and video screen 90 feet above the field.

“That’s the single thing I get asked about the most,” said Guy, who punted for the Raiders as the win Super Bowls XI, XV, and XVIII. “It was nothing like ... pre-planned.”

In 2014, Guy became the first punter to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and it all started on that day in Santa Rosa.

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