Tavecchio sticks with dream, kicks way to history

Tavecchio took more to soccer than football but tried place kicking as a sophomore in high school mostly so he could go to the team barbecues. He then was set to play soccer in college at UC Davis but opted to go to California when he got a chance to walk-on as a football player.

After four years at Cal, Tavecchio began his attempt to make the NFL. Seely brought him to San Francisco in 2012 as the backup to David Akers but he never made the team. The next season he signed with Green Bay only to get cut again.

His best chance might have come with Detroit in 2014 but he was beaten out by Nate Freese and joined the Raiders for the final exhibition game. Oakland brought Tavecchio back to camp again in 2015, ’16 and ’17 only to cut him each time before the start of the regular season.

“Some people would think it would get easier with getting cut, but it actually got harder,” Tavecchio said. “There were difficult times when you question, ‘Can I keep giving myself in this way only to be dejected again?’ Shakespeare said, ‘It’s better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.’ Sometimes I question that, but again right now, I’m grateful for that. In 20 years, hopefully I’ll look back and say, ‘Whatever happens, I gave it everything.’ ”

Tavecchio spent his time between camps holding various part-time jobs from real estate, to tutoring, to helping kickers at Cal to working at a tech company in New York this offseason when he got the offer to go to London for a full-time job.

He also kept up with his kicking, working out at his old high school and consulting with former NFL kicker Michael Husted, who was the last kicker other than Janikowski to play a season opener for the Raiders back in 1999.

Tavecchio visited Husted each year in San Diego and worked with him over the phone, on video and through virtual reality to improve his skills. Husted said the biggest issue is the mental aspect, which often takes years to conquer.

“It’s one of those things you almost have to get out of your own way,” Husted said. “Every year, every training camp he’s been able to do that better. You have to have the potential, you have to capitalize on the opportunities when they present themselves and there are very few of those. That’s 50 percent of it. The other 50 percent is luck. You have to be at the right place at the right time. If Janikowski was healthy this wouldn’t have happened.”