Clemson offers kicker Ammon Lakip

Lakip helped his team win the state championship his senior year.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Thu Jan 06 13:35:03 GMT-04:00 2011

CLEMSON – The Clemson coaching staff, realizing that field goal kicking was an issue in 2010, has moved to rectify the situation in 2011 by offering a full scholarship to kicker Ammon Lakip of Alpharetta (Chattahoochee HS) Ga.

Lakip said Clemson entered the recruitment process late, but he now plans to be on campus for an official visit on January 29th.

“They called me a couple of days ago for the first time,” Lakip said. “I hadn’t really been talking to them, but Coach Swinney called me last night and made the offer.”

Lakip has offers from Maryland, Georgia Tech, Air Force and Auburn, while UConn has offered him as a preferred walk-on. Auburn is offering a gray shirt.

Lakip said he will take two other visits – to Auburn on the 14th and Georgia Tech on the 21st, then make his decision following the Clemson visit on the 29th.

The 5-11, 175-pounder said he made a 51-yard game-winning field in the state playoffs this past November, and he feels like that coolness under pressure is his best asset.

“I like to think I am ice cold out on the football field,” Lakip said. “I have ice water in my veins when it’s time to make a big kick. I know I need to work on some things before college, though. I feel comfortable with field goals 55 yards and even a little over, but I need to work on my kickoffs and my punting.”

He said that he has been told he would back up Zimmerman, a personal friend of his, at punter while working as field goal kicker.

He also knows former Clemson kicker and Chattahoochee kicker Mark Buckholz, who was also a two-sport star. Lakip visited Clemson on a soccer recruiting trip back in April, but decided to take football as his route of choice after a talk with Buckholz.

“I visited Clemson and I really liked it,” he said. “But I decided to hold off on soccer. Mark is a good friend, and I watched him play here at Chattahoochee. He told me to pick one sport and don’t play the other. He said he would have been better off to play just one, and gotten better at that one sport. That is what I am going to do.”