Between The Uprights

There is beating the odds, and then there is routing the odds.

This is running it up on the odds.

On Thursday, the National Football League announced rosters for the Pro Bowl, the great Hawaiian getaway in February. As in most all-star games, the all-star part is taken quite seriously by the honored few, the game not so seriously. But, hey, if you had to stop in mid-post pattern to do a TV interview, how seriously would you take it?

In any case, the game itself won’t start until either Jason Hanson or Mike Hollis puts foot to ball. They are the placekickers named to the AFC and NFC teams.

The only two.

And they are both from Spokane.

Well, greater Spokane.

“It’s pretty amazing,” said Hollis. “To have only two chosen and both from the same town, that’s almost impossible.”

We’ll leave the mathematical probabilities to the pocket-protector set.

And with apologies to Dallas kicker Richie Cunningham - and to Potsie Weber, Ralph Malph and the Fonz while we’re at it - we’ll reject suggestions that this was anything but the right call.

Hollis leads the AFC in scoring with 118 points, having made 27 of 32 field-goal attempts for Jacksonville - including 16 straight before a miss last weekend against New England. He’s missed only once in nine tries from 40 yards or beyond.

Hanson’s accuracy has been even more remarkable - 24 field goals in 25 tries. The lone miss, from 52 yards, banged off the left upright in Detroit’s season-opener against Atlanta, his first try of the season. He’s within reach of the NFL record of 31 straight, set by Minnesota’s Fuad Raveiz over the course of two seasons, 1994 and ‘95.

“At this point, I’m not too worked up about it,” Hanson said. “If I get close to 30, I might get a twinge of nervousness - but, really, just making a field goal in the NFL is all the nervousness I need.”

So this makes Spokane what? The cradle of kickers?

Maybe. But less than their shared roots - Hanson went to high school at Mead, Hollis at Central Valley - their Pro Bowl selection underscores the fact that there’s more than one way to get there.

Hanson took the freeway, Hollis the back roads.

A scholarship recruit to Washington State, Hanson rewrote the placekicking - and some of the punting - records there before becoming that rarest of birds: a highly drafted kicker. The Lions took him in the second round in 1992, and in six seasons he’s made a rapid climb up the club’s all-time lists for points and field goals.

Two years younger than Hanson, Hollis was actually a more prolific high school kicker - he still holds GSL single-season and career field-goal records. But he wound up at Idaho as a walk-on after two years at Wenatchee Valley Community College, and then doggedly pursued a pro career through unsuccessful tryouts with San Diego, Atlanta, Seattle and the New York Giants before sticking with the Jaguars.

“There was a lot of trial and error, a lot of disappointments,” said Hollis. “I got shot down by a few teams. You could say we took different routes, but wound up in the same place.”

But are they really?

Hollis doesn’t feel he’s kicking appreciably better than he did in his first two NFL seasons, but only that “situations and opportunities have put me in a position to play in the Pro Bowl.”

Hanson, however, admits to making “an educated gamble” on some technical points before the season that have helped dramatically.

“I was not totally 100 percent sold on what I was doing,” he said. “There were things I had to refine, minor changes I had to make. I remember telling my wife before the season that I had made these changes and there were no guarantees they would work.

“I don’t want to make it sound like I’ve ‘arrived,’ but I think part of the reason I’ve had the season I’ve had is due to that.”

For the truth is, no NFL kicker every really “arrives” - Pro Bowl or no.

“I’m not going out there afraid to miss anymore,” said Hanson. “And if I miss a couple, they might say, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ but not ax me - though if I miss a couple more they might.

“Even with the Pro Bowl, it’s such a great honor. But I know Pro Bowl kickers - a year or two later, they were gone. It can be that volatile with kicking.”

And no more so than in December, with playoff hopes on the line.

“But this is something that’s going to stay with me for the rest of my life,” said Hollis. “No one can take it away. It’s every NFL player’s dream. Well, first of all it’s a dream just to get into the NFL. But this is a bigger one.”

Hanson and Hollis have crossed paths only a few times - in GSL soccer games, once in high school football, a preseason NFL game and in a 1995 regular-season game.

“I’m anxious to see him in Honolulu,” said Hollis, “and really sit down and talk to him. I was the one always kind of following him.”

They can talk about the odds of getting there at the same time - and about the odds, period.

“I hope to get there many more times,” said Hanson, “but it could only be once - so I’m going to make sure I enjoy it.”

Bet on it. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos

MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review