South Pointe Grad Makes Big City News

From The New York Times:

Gamecocks’ Kicker Ignores Barbs That Frame Him as a Bookworm

By DAVE SEMINARA

The South Carolina freshman Landon Ard wears glasses to correct a condition called accommodative esotropia.

Landon Ard does not think he is the only football player who wears glasses on the field. But when asked to name another, Ard, a freshman kicker at South Carolina, was stumped. So were historians at the Pro and College Football Hall of Fames.

That Ard wears eyeglasses is a distinction that has sometimes diverted attention from his strong leg to his poor eyesight. “They’re an easy target for trash-talking,” Ard said of his titanium Flexon frames, which have a cord around the back to keep them in place. “But I love football more than anything and I can’t give that up just because I wear glasses.”

Ard has worn glasses since he was 15 months old. When he was 2, he had an operation to try to correct a condition called accommodative esotropia, which refers to the crossing of the eyes. The surgery did not work, but his bifocals correct the problem.

His vision became a source of fascination last Saturday, when he entered the game in the closing minutes of South Carolina’s loss to Louisiana State to attempt an onside kick. It was unsuccessful. His glasses prompted comments on Twitter, message boards and, days later, even from an ESPN N.F.L. analyst.

The interest is understandable. As contact lenses and prescription sports goggles have proliferated and the technology has improved, glasses have all but disappeared from the sporting landscape. From the 1970s through 1990s, there were a host of prominent athletes who competed wearing prescription glasses, including the tennis stars Arthur Ashe and Martina Navratilova, baseball’s Reggie Jackson, the track great Edwin Moses and the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kurt Rambis and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Even fringe sports figures — like the Hanson Brothers in hockey, a fictitious trio in the 1977 film “Slap Shot,” based on the brothers Jeff, Steve, and Jack Carlson, and the British Olympic ski jumper Eddie Edwards, nicknamed The Eagle — were celebrated for their chunky eyewear.

The most recent football player who gained widespread attention for wearing glasses while playing was Brandon Burlsworth, an offensive lineman for the Arkansas Razorbacks who was drafted by the Colts in 1999 but died in a car accident 11 days later. Burlsworth’s Woody Allen style frames were his trademark, and after his death, his family set up a foundation that provides glasses to needy children in Arkansas.

As for Ard, he said he had tried contact lenses and goggles but neither worked for him. When he tried out for the football team at South Pointe High School in Rock Hill, S.C., some of the coaches were concerned.

“I worried about him because he wasn’t your typical kicker,” said Straight Herron, then a South Pointe assistant. “He was always looking to hit somebody.”

Ard kicked, punted and was also the team’s starting free safety as a senior. In a high school game that was broadcast on ESPN, he blasted a kickoff right through the uprights and halfway across the roof of the locker room behind it. He led the team in tackles on kickoffs, and Herron said that despite his size — Ard is listed at 5 feet 9 inches and 189 pounds — he was one of the most ferocious hitters on a team that went to the state championship game. On one occasion, Ard hit an opponent so hard that he gave himself a concussion.

“People ask me if it’s safe to wear glasses and I tell them I’ve taken huge hits and had concussions and my glasses didn’t even come off,” said Ard, who walked on at South Carolina.

Ard says that his frames are designed to absorb impact and that South Carolina has not made him sign a liability waiver. Ard’s ophthalmologist, Dr. Erin Goshorn, says concerns about the glasses are unfounded. “Why is everyone making a big deal because he wears glasses?” she asked. “His glasses are very safe.”

For years, Ard has diffused the questions and occasional jibes about his eyewear with humor. But he never expected his glasses to become fodder for ESPN football analysts, as they did on Monday.

“Check out my man Landon Ard, not very good,” the ESPN analyst Cris Carter said on television this week, describing the unsuccessful onside kick attempt against L.S.U. during a segment on “Monday Night Countdown” called “C’mon man!” As Carter spoke, the highlight briefly paused and Ard’s glasses were highlighted. “He rocking the specs,” Carter said. “Now, I don’t believe he’s there to be kicking at South Carolina, I think he there to help out with the G.P.A. C’mon man!”

Ard’s father, David, said Carter’s remarks and the laughter of his colleagues on the show disappointed him.

“That was wrong,” he said. “They don’t even know Landon. He has to wear glasses.”

Ard, however, sheepishly acknowledged that he had a 4.0 G.P.A. last semester.

“I guess glasses might make you look a little smarter,” he said. “But I think I just look normal.”

Once again, as a bespectacled kicker of modest stature in a sport of behemoths, Ard said he had more to prove than most.

“I guess I do have a chip on my shoulder,” he said. “I want to show people that I might look different than everyone else, but I can do the same things. My glasses don’t limit me.”