An Upright Attitude WSU Kicker Tony Truant Lives And Dies By ‘The Toe’
Forget the back of the bus. Tony Truant was having trouble getting on at all.
It was Sept. 25, 1992, and Truant, who could have passed for a nervous ballboy, couldn’t quite sell himself as a Washington State University football player.
“I went to get on the bus Friday morning, and one of the coaches stopped me and he goes, ‘Who are you?’ ” the 22-year-old senior recalled Wednesday. “And I was like, ‘My name’s Tony Truant. I’m kicking for Aaron Price because he’s sick.’ “
The expression worn by offensive coordinator John McDonell said, “Sure, kid, and I’m Knute Rockne.”
Truant persisted. “So coach McDonell goes and talks to coach (Mike) Price, and coach Price is like, ‘Yeah, let him on the bus. He’s our kicker.’ “
Nice to meet you, too.
Truant, it turned out, wasn’t making any of this up. The regular kicker, Aaron Price, really was ill, and Truant, who wasn’t even listed in the game program, would have to kick at Fresno State the next day.
“It was probably the rockiest start of anybody’s career I’ve ever seen,” said Price, now a graduate assistant on his father’s staff. “He practiced like two days and no one even knew who he was.”
By the end of the Fresno State game, they would be unable to forget him. Although the Cougars escaped with a 39-37 victory, their replacement kicker made just 3 of 5 extra-point tries.
The shaky debut, which included an errant field-goal try, was barely enough to earn Truant clearance for the trip back to Pullman.
Fans made what seemed like the logical conclusion - Truant couldn’t kick. Only later would they learn he had played with a torn left quadriceps that would take months to heal.
The injury was a product of fatigue, brought on as Truant practiced incessantly in the days leading up to the game.
“He didn’t really tell anybody about it until Saturday,” Price said. “And so he had to kick that game with a pulled quad, which is real hard.
“He did OK. He made three extra points and we won by two.”
Truant redshirted in ‘93 and has been the starter since. And while he’s been steady this season, making 4 of 5 field-goal tries and consistently booming kickoffs into the end zone, it hasn’t always been a smooth ride.
This week, as the Cougars prepare for Saturday night’s game at Arizona, Truant is often reminded of his darkest WSU moment. It happened two years ago, when Truant missed a late attempt in what would become a 10-7 loss to the Wildcats.
A penalty had turned a 39-yard try into a 44-yarder, and Truant’s miss would turn him into the scapegoat.
“It’s hard to bring up Arizona,” Truant said, anticipating the question. “It was hard, it was painful, but it wasn’t entirely my fault.
“I’m not going to put blame on anyone, but a lot of people blamed me for that, which wasn’t necessarily fair.
“When we have the ball on the 15-yard line, I should, if anything, have a field goal right down the middle from 30 yards.”
After the season, when the Cougars were resigned to the Alamo Bowl, Truant felt betrayed.
“Everyone thought we were out of the Rose Bowl when we lost to Arizona, and we weren’t, because we were still tied for first,” he said.
Two years after Arizona and four removed from Fresno State, Truant’s transformation is striking. The Toe, as teammates call him, no longer needs two forms of ID to board the team bus.
In fact, after surviving a couple of up-and-down seasons that produced several challenges to his starting job, Truant seems to revel in his new-found security.
“He walks around and he’s got ‘The Toe’ on his license plates, and - I don’t know - he thinks he’s bad,” senior receiver Chad Carpenter mused. “If he ever gets big-headed, just remind him of Fresno State, when he shanked all those kicks.”
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