Unlikely story as Fighting Irish walk-on is impressive and unique
It was the fall of 1976. Sachem soccer was practicing at the same time as the football team on a regular busy day behind the high school on Smith Road. To warm up, Tom Force, a varsity soccer player, was punting soccer balls down field.
Always on the lookout for athletes to join his team, Sachem football coach Fred Fusaro stopped practice to see if force could punt a football. For Force this was nothing new. He played Pop Warner football in Massapequa before moving east to Farmingville.
“With everyone watching, I took my first attempt and my plant foot slips in the mud and I end up flat on my back,” said Force. “I shook it off and laughed and said, ‘give me another one,’ and booted it about 60 yards in the air. And then another. He asked if I would punt for the team.”
Had it not been for a rule established by Section XI, the governing body of high school athletics in Suffolk County, that varsity athletes could not play two sports at the same time, Force would have lettered in soccer and football. That rule has since changed and there have been a number of student-athletes across the county who have dabbled in both, including many from Sachem.
Force played varsity soccer in 1975 and 1976 and was on the Sachem golf team in 1974 and 1975. He still has fond memories of former Sachem soccer coach, Frank Schmidt.
“Best coach I ever had in any sport,” said Force. “He was a great technical teacher who loved the game and wanted us to get the most out of it. At the end of my senior season I was more disappointed for him than ourselves that we didn’t make the playoffs.”
After graduating from Sachem in 1977, Force had his sights set on attending Notre Dame. He wasn’t going to play Division I soccer, but he did have an inkling to try out as a kicker for the football team. At the time, Notre Dame was feared, and respected as one of the top football programs in the country. No other Sachem alum has ever played football for the Irish.
Force had been a Notre Dame football fan his entire life. He watched games on a small black and white television in the 1960s.
“I always like a good challenge,” he said. “I knew that given a chance that I could compete and had a good shot at making it.”
Notre Dame already had an All-American punter, but he figured he could make it as a walk-on kicker and his athleticism did land him on the roster as the third or fourth kicker after he nailed 14 of 15 field goals from varying distances during the tryout.
“After I suited up for practice the first week they assigned me the additional responsibility of scout team safety,” he said. “The reasoning was that the specialists only worked out kicking for about an hour or so in our own little group, while the rest of the team was doing individual drills.”
The first two kickers on the depth chart would be working on in-game situations during team drills. That left Force to spend the second half of practice working the rotation as a scout team safety against the first and second team offense during team drills.
“I was nowhere big enough to play anything else,” he joked. “I actually had a blast playing safety. I’ve never personally met anyone else who has intercepted a Joe Montana pass.”
His football career was short lived as he got a concussion in a spring game making a tackle. He eventually settled into two years of club soccer at Notre Dame and focused on his ROTC duties since he had scholarship commitments.
Notre Dame won the National Championship in 1977, his freshman year, and Force was awarded a ring for his scout team efforts.
“It was a lot of work, and I have a nice big ring for my troubles, and some great memories,” said Force, who lives in the suburbs of North Dallas.
Force later served in the United States Air Force from 1981 through 1994, the last five years of which were in the reserves. He flew planes during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq.
“I was glad the actual war was over quickly and it was nice flying the troops back home over the ensuing months versus taking them all down there during the buildup,” he said. “My unit spent over 10 months on active duty working long days. It was exhausting.”
Today Force is a commercial airline pilot and captain for American Airlines and still wears his Notre Dame championship ring proudly.
-Words by Chris R. Vaccaro