What is a football kicking holder?

Some parents are new to this great ‘sport within’ the sport of football. Kickers are a bit like goal keepers in soccer…the position flies under the radar until the most crucial of times (a penalty shootout or a game winning field goal for instance.)

Kickers often train (mostly do train) on their own. This means (for new parents) buying something to ‘hold’ the football during practice when practicing field goals. One of the main tools we as kickers use with every practice session is what is known as the football kicking holder.

Again, since kickers generally practice their kicks without a teammate holding the football for them, a kicking holder is absolutely critical to use.

Now, before the age of the ‘commercially mass produced’ football kicking holder industry, I used to make my own kicking holders out of PVC from the hardware store. Those holders were better than nothing at the time…certainly better than the limited options on the market back then.

I remember one commercial holder design I used to see at kicking camps during the summer. It was essentially a large, rectangular iron base (that weighed a ton.) It was the first metal holder I’d ever seen and it had a flexible arm with a cutout foam block attached to hold the ball in place. It had a large screw to hold the flexible tubing in place that became loose over a few months so we just stopped using that model because on top of everything else, it was expensive to a pain to keep updated with replacement parts!

That holder was a bit too cumbersome to carry around for me, so I made my own out of PVC. The PVC version was lightweight, easy to transport and most importantly, it NEVER BROKE or wore out because it was PVC. Now, I did have to make more over the years after leaving one or two on a field or flat out losing them, but never because they broke….they were indestructible.