Giorgio Tavecchio kicked 9 of 13 field goal attempts last year (3 of 4 from between the 40 and 50 yard lines) after starter David Seawright was injured.
Tavecchio is by birth Italian, but has lived most of his life in several locations in the United States, most recently in Moraga, California. We published a lengthy video interview with him that discussed his long path from Italy to Moraga earlier this year; it is available here.
In the video attached now, we held a "catch-up" discussion with him to see how he felt about Cal Football's 2009 Fall Camp. This latest conversation was conducted just three days before Cal announced that he would be the starting field-goal kicker for the 2009 season.
In our several spring practice reports on Kicker's this year, we documented the kicking success of Tavecchio and David Seawright. If success is measured by field goals scored - and also by loft and distance, the results were near dead-even. This fall, given Cal's prohibitions on media attending practices, we were unable to report on recent field-goal kicking success.
Former Cal kicker Mark Jensen has been working with the Cal kickers this year. Recently he expressed his opinion of the less-than-stellar kicking results of the 2008 season.
"Neither Nick Harris, nor Tyler Fredrickson, nor I (all of them excellent kickers for Cal) could have done as well as a freshman as the guys did last year," emphasizing the importance of maturity and experience for kickers.
He also added that Tavecchio has a great attitude toward kicking, noting that while Tavecchio may internally stress greatly during the practice week, he seems to be able to let that all go away at game time. The practice week is the stress; the game is the joy.
In the attached video (about 4 minutes in length), I asked Tavecchio about both of those comments from Jensen.
