Catching Up with Todd Peterson

After attending Valwood School followed by Valdosta High School, placekicker Todd Peterson enrolled at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he played sparingly before transferring to Georgia. After missing five of his first eight field-goal attempts as a Bulldog in 1991, Peterson was demoted as Georgia’s field-goal kicker. He resurfaced a few games into his senior season, finishing the 1992 campaign by converting 13 of 16 field goals. Peterson was named first-team Academic All-America (3.47 GPA in finance)—the first Bulldog to earn the honor in nine years. He was subsequently drafted by the New York Giants in the 1993 NFL Draft, but was cut in training camp.

Kicking for six different pro teams over 12 seasons (1994-2005), Peterson remains only the third former Georgia player to score 1,000-plus points in an NFL career. Currently, he serves on several corporate and ministry boards, while being part of a number of businesses, including Cabell’s Designs and Relish.

UGASports caught up with Peterson from his home in the Atlanta area.

UGASports: So, from Valdosta High School, you decided to attend the Naval Academy in 1988. Two years later, you elected to leave Navy. What went on there?

Peterson: “I first actually committed to [Georgia] Tech while in high school. But, then, two Valdosta teammates and I decided to go to Annapolis. The New York Times did an article on it. It was the first time anyone had ever known of three guys going to the same service academy, playing the same sport in the same year, from the same high school. But there's a saying about the Naval Academy: It's the worst place in the world to be at, but it's the best place in the world to be from. The Naval Academy is truly rigorous, regimented, and academically challenging. And when I was there, I honestly didn’t like it. So, I spoke with my dad, who was a career military officer, and also reached out to my football coach, and told them I didn’t think I was supposed to be there [at Navy].”

UGASports: Yet, from what we researched, you were doing well academically at the Naval Academy, and, football-wise, had played some in 1988 and 1989 as a reserve kicker. Right?

Peterson: “Yes. And the hard part is, if you're doing well at a place like that, it's really difficult to leave, because you really are walking away from a pretty remarkable opportunity. If you're doing poorly, they just run you off. I might have been doing well, so to speak, but I didn't want to be a career officer, and I wasn't interested in the sciences the way the Naval Academy really focuses on the sciences. I wanted to go to law school. I wanted to be in business. Also, I wanted to play better football.” Navy was 5-17 in Peterson’s two seasons.

UGASports: Where did you go from there?

Peterson: “I decided again I was going to Tech. And I was ready to roll before I visited the UGA campus with a friend, who was attending a football camp. As my friend was checking into the camp, I bumped into a Georgia assistant coach I'd gotten to know from when I was at Valdosta. I told him I was leaving Annapolis and going to Tech. He responded by saying, ‘Why go from Navy to Georgia Tech? That’s like going from the frying pan to the skillet.’ Basically, I was challenged to think, why would I go from the Naval Academy to Georgia Tech? What's the difference? Really, the only difference is the military commitment at the Naval Academy. So, I ultimately decided to attend school and kick at the University of Georgia."

UGASports: After redshirting in 1990, you win the Bulldogs’ starting placekicking job for the 1991 season. However, you missed five of your first eight field-goal attempts, including a big miss of 24 yards at Alabama. Simply, what happened?

Peterson: “It was probably a lot of stuff. I mean, for one, I think I probably didn't understand the pressure of the SEC. And I probably had never really had a lot of pressure on me. When I got to Georgia, I didn't have a ton of experience with a lot on the line. And every single kick in Athens is a kick that matters. Also, honestly, I don't think I'd matured as a player, either. Not just on the mental side, but physically and fundamentally, I had a lot of work to do. Although it wasn’t good for Georgia fans at the time, what was good for me, and it ultimately became good for Georgia, was, when I realized I had a lot of work to do. I had to be ready all the time, any time, for every kick, whether it was a 24-yard attempt or a 48-yard attempt. I also had to understand every kick needed to be fundamentally sound.

UGASports: So, after the Alabama game, you yielded the field goal-kicking job to freshman Kanon Parkman, yet you continued to kick PATs and kick off. That seems kind of odd.

Peterson: “Yeah, as weird as it sounds, Coach [Bill] Hartman (kicking coach) had convinced Coach [Ray] Goff (head coach) and the coaching staff not to take away the kickoff and extra-point job from me, which is pretty comical. Usually, you have a guy kick extra points and field goals, and another guy kicks off. You don't think of the guy who's going to only kick extra points as being your kickoff guy. All I could say is I think Coach Hartman knew, and probably Coach Goff knew, I had the talent. I just hadn't figured it out yet when it came to kicking field goals. Then there was Kanon [Parkman], a true freshman. He came in and did a good job on field goals. I did my job on extra points and kickoffs, and we ended up having a good year (9-3 season after 4-7 in 1990).”

UGASports: You mentioned the late, great Bill Hartman. What was your experience with the man who was likely most responsible for Georgia becoming such a great program for placekickers beginning in the mid-1970s?

Peterson: “Coach Hartman helped me a ton. He was the best in the world. All of us who kicked under his watchful eye valued his concern for us, his care for us, the way he took care of us mentally and emotionally, didn't ostracize us or marginalize us or let us be marginalized or ostracized by the coaching staff. He valued special teams, he valued kicking, and he helped me bounce back and get ready for my second chance. He was a great man. I mean, I can genuinely say I loved him. He helped us all realize we were football players who kicked. We didn't want to be kickers. We wanted to be football players who kicked. We had a unique role on our team, but we needed to act like men and football players.”

UGASports: Because of Parkman getting mono, and backup field-goal kicker Andrew Chadwick, missing a critical field goal against Tennessee, you suddenly went from Georgia’s No. 3 to No. 1 field-goal kicker early in the 1992 season. When did kicking field goals finally click for you?

Peterson: “I would say, if I felt like I really played at a level comparable to the history of great kicking at Georgia, I finally had that happen when we played at Arkansas (a 27-3 Georgia win in Fayetteville in early October 1992). And I had a really great game. I put five or six of my six or seven kickoffs in the end zone, I hit a couple of nice field goals, and I made all my extra points. It was like it all clicked there. I got to have that second shot [at being the primary field-goal kicker]. And thank the Lord the balls went through that season, and I ended up making the vast majority of my kicks.”

UGASports: What can you say about your off-the-field experience at Georgia?

Peterson: “Well, there's no place like a Georgia locker room after a win in Athens, and there's no place like Athens on Saturday night. But, more so, I built lifelong friendships at Georgia. There's a bond and a fraternity there, which is a unique one. To this day, I’m very close with some teammates because we went through the wars of college football together, and life shaped us and formed us, and we care about each other and each other's families. I cherish those friendships.”

UGASports: What’s your feedback regarding you going from being Georgia’s third-string field-goal kicker to being selected in the NFL Draft only seven months later?

Peterson: “Getting drafted was unexpected. I thought I was talented enough, physically talented enough, like I actually could play. But whether or not I was going to get a look in the NFL was rather unlikely in my mind, just because I hadn't done that much in college, and I actually laid an egg my junior year. So, I wasn't thinking I was getting drafted, by any stretch. I thought I had a shot, probably, to get invited to an NFL camp, but not drafted. Leading up to the draft, I had a few good workouts in a short window of time, and one of those was for the Giants (who would draft Peterson No. 177 overall in the seventh round), with Joe DeCamillis, their special teams coach at the time, who was Coach Reeves' (head coach Dan Reeves) son-in-law. I think the Giants took a chance on me. And so, when I got a phone call from the Giants saying, ‘Hey, your name is about to show up on ESPN,’ I was blown away. It was a massive privilege. And, also, if I hadn't gotten drafted, even if I'd gotten picked up [as an undrafted free agent], the fact I probably would have had a rough time getting established, I don't think I'd have stuck it out the way I did when I did eventually get cut.”

UGASports: As you just mentioned, you were ultimately cut by the Giants. You then signed with the Arizona Cardinals in 1994, played two games with them (including kicking the game-winning field goal in a win at Washington) before getting cut. You finally settled in with the Seattle Seahawks. However, going back and forth from being repeatedly cut and signed had to be exhausting/frustrating.

Peterson: “Perhaps the most frustrating thing about my first year, year and a half, before I really got settled in Seattle was, every time I went in and worked out for somebody, or every time I got signed and thought I was going to make the team, only to then get cut again, somebody told me more or less exactly what Coach Reeves had initially informed me: ‘Hey, you're going to be a good kicker in this league. I'm just not going to be the coach who gives you your shot.’ And I was thinking to myself, why in the world are they all telling me I'm going to be good in the NFL, yet none of them will give me a shot? Coach Erickson (head coach Dennis Erickson) and Seattle’s front office ended up taking a chance on me, because John (John Kasay who, ironically, had been Georgia’s placekicker when Peterson arrived in Athens) was leaving Seattle for the Carolina Panthers. And thank the Lord the Seahawks did take a chance, because it paid off for me.”

UGASports: In 2005, or what would be your final year in the NFL, you played with your sixth team in 12 seasons, the Atlanta Falcons, and you were nearly perfect (23 of 25 field goals, 35 of 35 PATs). Why didn’t you continue playing in the NFL?

Peterson: “I’ve always loved football. I'm still involved peripherally, and my son plays college football. We're a football family, but it's not my life. My life doesn't hang in the balance of football—and a lot of people know that's because of my faith. I was almost 37 years old when I played my last game in January of 2006. At the time, our daughter was turning nine, our son was turning seven, and I just think coming back home to Atlanta was a swan song. At that point in time, I wasn't going to take a one-year job somewhere random when my kids were already settled and we owned the business we still own today. I think we kind of felt like we were done when it came to me playing football.”

UGASports: Like a lot of professional athletes' experience, did you have any trouble transitioning from playing in the NFL to suddenly being out of the league?

Peterson: “Honestly, I didn't look back. I've always said transitioning out of pro sports or probably any high-performance job is a lot easier when you have a purpose beyond that. And the reality was, we had bought into a business that was doing well; it was growing. Eventually, we'd have 50 to 60 collegiate licensing agreements. I was also on a couple boards of different organizations—businesses, nonprofits, ministries, etc.”

UGASports: How did you get involved with Cabell’s Designs? Are there any other businesses you are currently directly involved in at an operational level?

Peterson: “Long story short, my wife and I had become friends with another couple, the Sweeneys. We were all Georgia kids, all UGA alums. Cabell Sweeney, who is a talented artist, had a really amazing idea of creating and selling handcrafted gifts. We really felt like God was saying to us to get involved and help the Sweeneys, so we effectively bought a half of the business in exchange for putting capital into growth opportunities. We built the business over a few years, and grew it to the point where we had major college licensing agreements with pretty much all the schools in the SEC, ACC, Big 12, Pac-12, Big Ten, etc. It’s mostly tailgating stuff, like platters, pottery, bowls, and things like that. Also, about four years ago, we started another business related to the tableware world, called Relish. It's actually melamine, which is a fancy word for plastic. It's a high-end plastic tableware that appears more like china. It's actually durable and it doesn’t break if it drops on the ground.”

UGASports: Please tell us about your family.

Peterson: “I met my wife, Susan, in the banking and finance program at UGA. We've been married now for 27 years. We are proud parents of a 23-year-old daughter, Hannah, who lives in Washington, D.C., and works for the U.N. for their World Food Program. Our son, Zach, is turning 21 and attending and playing football at Furman. He’s a receiver.”

UGASports: Since graduating from UGA, have you been able to associate with the Bulldog football program?

Peterson: “I have stayed in decent touch with folks. I conducted a kicking camp there for probably about 10 years when Mark [Richt] was there. When I was in the NFL, it was hard to get back for a game because I never had a bye when Georgia had a home game. So, it was a long time before we even got back there. But our children spent a ton of time there on Saturdays as kids growing up, and it's a part of our family. We have a bittersweet thing about our kids—neither of them ended up going to Georgia. However, Hannah, who graduated from the University of Virginia, took one summer online course at UGA. Because of that, she told us she too was a Bulldog.”

UGASports: Finally, what would you say was/is the “driving force,” for a lack of a better term, for you being able to bounce back as a placekicker at Georgia and in the NFL, and for your post-football success?

Peterson: “Our faith is important to us, and we've never been shy about that. We really do believe God blesses people and God gives people opportunity—and people are supposed to make the most of that. If it weren't for my faith in Christ, I don't know where I'd be. I can promise you this, I wouldn't have bounced back at Georgia the way I did, and I wouldn't have bounced back in the NFL when I needed to, the way I did. More so, I probably wouldn't be the husband I am, probably wouldn't be the father I am, and probably wouldn't be the leader and friend I am.”