It’s easy to see why Ooltewah coach Monroe has a special relationship with John Long, the Owls’ junior place-kicker.

“John has been in a lot of pressure situations, and I can’t remember one that he hasn’t delivered,” Monroe said.

Long has been delivering since the first game of his freshman season. He missed two field goals early, but with 20 seconds left in the 2006 season opener at Cookeville, he kicked the game-winner in a 24-21 victory.

“He’s a typical soccer player turned kicker,” Monroe said. “Kickers — you let them live in their own little world. You watch games and the other teams try to freeze the kicker, but kickers have their own agenda. At practice you send them off in another area, and they just kick and kick and kick.”

Most of the time.

Monroe has tried his best to create pressure situations for Long, and the left-footed kicker and punter has responded positively.

“I’m always getting on him and he’s always smiling. But he’s a good kid, a great student and likely a Division I prospect as a kicker,” Monroe said.

Said Long: “I guess I’d have to thank Coach Monroe for me not feeling the pressure. No one just loves to be yelled at, and he certainly yells at me. I try to make it so he doesn’t yell at me.”

Yet Long has taken Monroe’s pressure tactics in stride. When he was in middle school, he had a band that performed once in front of 5,000 people.

If Long has a shortcoming, Monroe thinks it would be his desire to be more involved in the physical aspect of the game.

“He was a lineman when he was in middle school, and I have to remind him all the time that he’s a kicker,” Monroe said. “John could be a pretty good everyday player, but I haven’t let him do it because of his value as a kicker.”

In some ways, though, Long is a typical kicker.

He’s a soccer player, too, and a lone B has kept him from straight-A status since he was in elementary school. When he lines up to kick a field goal or extra point, he envisions the post-kick celebration. But he still wants to be considered a football player and a full member of the team, and he and several teammates play a military tactics game on-line called “Call of Duty.” Yet he also takes solitary time to play the drums and strum on a guitar.

“I have been to camps where kickers were isolated from the team,” Long said, “and then I have met guys who hang out with the rest of the team like I do.”

He knows the Ooltewah team and its strengths and weaknesses.

“We could get back to the region (2-5A) championship. This team is promising,” he said. “We have some strong linemen and a lot of returning players, including our quarterback (Brady Reed) and some really good receivers (Sammy Seamster, Gino Norwood, Darrion Delaney). But overall, everyone seems to like each other a little more than the guys on the team did last year.”

Monroe is going to be pushing and yelling at all of them, even Long, for whom he has great expectations.

“I think he’ll reach new heights as far as kickoffs, and he has gotten more consistent with his punting,” Monroe said. “Kickers and punters have good days and bad days, but John is getting more consistent every day.”

Long wants to be part of it all — Monroe’s yelling, the sweat stench of the locker room, the sweltering afternoon practices, the sessions when heavy afternoon thunderstorms force them into the gym in tennis shoes and pads, the wins and even the losses. His favorite song by Aerosmith, his favorite rock group, says it best: “I don’t want to miss a thing.”

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