For the last few weeks, football games have been highlighted on his calendar because he was actually playing in the games.

Ryan, a senior who splits his time between Bonneville High and Ogden-Weber Technical College, won a raffle to have a chance to kick a 40-yard field goal at halftime of the Sept. 1 game against Woods Cross. He made the kick and won a year of free sandwiches from national chain Jersey Mike’s.

He’s normally a soccer player and this American football season coincides with his club soccer season. Now, as a kicker on the Lakers’ football team, he’s playing both kinds of football.

“Honestly, I love it. The environment and just, the football environment’s different than any other sport for sure. I don’t want to miss practice. I love coming,” Ryan said.

Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner

The story goes that Ryan was in the Bonneville student section when a student body officer came around with a bag, asking people to put their names in for a raffle and a chance to kick a field goal at halftime, potentially to win a year of free sandwiches.

Ryan did, then heard his name called. So while the cheerleaders and drill team did their halftime routines, he watched videos on how to kick a football.

“I’ve never really kicked a football between the posts, so I really didn’t know what I was doing,” Ryan said.

It was a 40-yard field goal set up between the hashes and he drilled it right down the middle.

“I didn’t know it was going to go in because it’s hard to tell straight on usually when it’s gonna go in, and so I made it and then I was like — I had my hands up, running around, it felt like I made the game-winning kick, that’s really what it was,” Ryan said.

He got a bunch of coupons for free sandwiches as a result, but that wasn’t even the whole meal.

The next morning, Ryan lifted weights at the Ogden Athletic Club and ran into Hunter Davis, a member of the football team whose dad also helps coach the Lakers.

Davis, according to Ryan, wanted him to come to football practice the following Monday. The two texted each other later that day about Ryan joining the football team.

Ryan had been asked to play football earlier in the year but didn’t because it conflicted too much with soccer.

At this point, his club soccer schedule had cleared up enough where he could play football. He called his club soccer coach, who was fine with Ryan playing football. So Ryan decided, why not?

Ryan went to practice that Monday — he was 15 minutes late the first time, he said — and eventually won the starting placekicker and kickoff specialist spots.

He kicked in a JV game at Roy, then kicked the varsity game against Northridge and has held the job ever since as the Lakers earned a No. 14 seed in the 5A state playoffs, beat Hunter High in the first round last week and face Roy this Friday in the second round.

Ryan is 15 of 17 on extra points and 3 of 5 on field goals, according to stats provided by the team.

“It’s easy until it’s not,” Ryan said. “When you’re a soccer player, it’s a round ball and it’ll just go where you kick it, so with the football it’s more like about how you kick it straight and the spin and how the air is. It’s crazy, it’s just so different. It’s easy to learn, hard to master.”

Ryan played football as a ninth-grader at South Ogden Junior High but ended up with one too many concussions toward the end of the season and didn’t play football after that year.

He’s played soccer, mostly as a centerback. It turns out, he’s been pretty good at kicking an American football even if he never intended to be.

Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.