GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Tim Masthay wasn’t looking to relive his high school glory days. The opposite, really. That’s for the washed-up dads, the has-beens, the wannabes. He’s not in that crowd. Not yet, anyway. He’s part of the 1 percent, one of the fortunate few living the dream of his childhood: being a professional athlete.
No, as aw-shucks as it sounds, the Green Bay Packers' veteran punter just wanted to help the kids. Little did he know how much they’d end up helping him.
It all began a year ago in De Pere, Wisconsin, when the West De Pere High School baseball team needed to call a left-hander out of the bullpen. Or, more accurately, out of retirement. Masthay’s wife, Amanda, had done her student teaching at the school a few years ago. And with a state tournament game coming up against a hard-throwing lefty, the team’s pitching coach, Brian Schumacher -- the same guy who’d been Amanda’s mentor in the social studies department -- needed someone to throw batting practice.
Masthay couldn’t say yes quickly enough.
Recovery day with @westdepere soccer-- Box breathing and movement prep! pic.twitter.com/U8z1V0XmxI
— Tim Masthay (@TimMasthay) May 11, 2016
“And I guess that was the first spark,” Masthay said. “It reminded me how much I enjoy being around high school athletics.”
Not only did that one baseball practice transport the 29-year-old Masthay -- an all-state football player, all-state soccer player, all-region baseball player, and four-year letterman in basketball at Murray (Kentucky) High School -- back to his youth, it was the beginning of his second, volunteer job. It wasn’t long before he’d gone from throwing BP to the baseball team, to helping the kickers and punters on the football team, to -- most extensively -- becoming a de facto assistant coach to the school’s boys and girls soccer teams.
“The kids loved it,” said Matt Ganzen, who coaches both the Phantoms’ soccer teams. “They just had such a great rapport with him. We had fun with him, but I think he had a lot of fun with us.”
That he did.
“I had a blast,” Masthay said. “I love being around sports and athletes, and to have the opportunity to be encouraging to them was great. If I had had that opportunity in high school, if a pro athlete had come to our practices, I’d have thought it was the coolest thing.”
So even with the Packers’ schedule overlapping with the boys soccer team’s fall slate, Masthay became part of the program, making it to a couple of practices each week and roughly half the Phantoms’ games, helping the young team at every turn.
“I think the biggest thing he brought -- he’s obviously done a lot of things with his athletic background and knowledge in all aspects of sports -- but the biggest thing he brought was a calming approach,” Ganzen said. “He helped with post-practice and postgame stretching, with diet regimen, with breathing, but where he really had an impact with them was just teaching them about calming yourself down, getting yourself mentally focused and prepared.”
While Masthay also helped players with technique and skills -- he spent most of his time talking with the team’s strikers -- Ganzen said it “wasn’t about really focusing on one aspect of the game. The best thing he did was talk to the kids and figure out where they were at mentally.”
And that’s when Masthay had an epiphany: Practice what you preach!
After his numbers cratered during the second half of a 2014 season in which the Packers’ high-powered offense needed him to punt just 49 times, Masthay confessed to having a crisis of confidence.
In the first eight games that year, he’d punted 28 times and averaged 47.0 gross yards and 41.1 net yards, both of which would have been career bests had he sustained that pace. During the second half of that season, though, he punted 21 times and averaged 40.1 gross and 31.5 net yards. The team responded by bringing in ex-Alabama punter Cody Mandell to compete with him.
Masthay began working with the boys soccer team about the same time he beat out Mandell to keep his job. He then went on to set a Packers franchise record with a 40.2-yard net average last season, the fifth time since he won the job as a free agent in 2010 that he’d set the team record in that category.
“I really hope that me being around West De Pere athletics, and in particular the boys soccer team, I hope that was beneficial to those guys. That was the main point of me being out there,” Masthay said. “But that said, it was almost therapeutic for me to be out there in the coaching role versus the playing role, and then to be in a less-pressurized setting of high school sports versus the NFL.
“Because it was a reminder of, ‘Oh yeah, sports is really fun, and you can approach it that way. It doesn’t always have to be a die-with-every-little-mistake thing.’ Because ever since I exclusively became a punter [at Kentucky as a freshman], I sort of live and die by each punt. And if I have a play that doesn’t go well and lets the team down, it gnaws at me.
“It probably is helpful to me to try to get myself to take those same lessons to heart that I’m trying to impart to the kids.”
Now Masthay, who plans to help the boys soccer team again this fall, must remind himself to do it again.
With help from the Packers’ punt coverage unit, which was the best in the NFL (allowing 4.2 yards per return), Masthay is coming off what he views as a very good season, having punted 80 times behind the Packers’ struggling offense and finishing 25th in the NFL in gross average (43.9 yards) but 14th in net average despite punting in the unfriendly Wisconsin weather.
In December alone, Masthay averaged 47.6 gross yards and 44.9 net yards per punt. And in the Packers’ January NFC wild-card playoff victory at Washington, he averaged 45.3 gross and 44.0 net yards on four punts, including a crucial 55-yard bomb with six minutes to play that was fair-caught at the Redskins’ 9-yard line with the Packers protecting a 32-18 lead.
But then came the Packers’ season-ending Jan. 16 NFC divisional playoff loss at Arizona. Masthay’s poor first punt in that game, a 37-yard low kick that netted just 25 yards, gave the Cardinals a short field that they converted into their first touchdown. Despite punting indoors, he wound up averaging 35.8 gross yards and 32.8 net yards on four punts in the Packers’ 26-20 overtime loss, and he went into the offseason beating himself up over his final performance.
Once again, the Packers have brought in competition for him in ex-Minnesota punter and Green Bay-area native Peter Mortell.
“I think Tim knows what he has to do, and it’s no different than the way it was last year,” special-teams coordinator Ron Zook said. “I think we all -- me included -- we want every punt to be perfect. You know, Tim did set some records last year and did some really, really, really good things. I think sometimes he gets graded a little more harshly than other punters in the league, and he understands that. He doesn’t complain about it.
“[He needs to say], ‘Hey, just go punt the football.'” And I think so far, since Tim’s been back, he looks like the old Tim to me.”
Perhaps Masthay’s high schoolers can help him keep it that way.
“I’ve always been told I had great ability and a great, perfectionist work ethic, but that it can also be a limiting factor because I can drive myself crazy overthinking things,” Masthay admitted. “Being back around high school sports helps me with that because it takes me back to a time when I was going from one sport to the next, having a blast, just shooting a basketball, kicking the football or soccer ball, hitting the baseball, scoring goals.
“That’s always been a challenge for me and it’ll keep being a challenge for me: Maintain a good way of preparing -- really driven, perfectionist-type drive in my preparation -- but then to let that go when it comes time to just perform.”