AUSTIN, Texas — The right foot of senior Nathan Ellisor is making the case to follow in the footsteps of some Lake Travis legends.
In head coach Hank Carter's tenure, the Cavaliers have sent four kickers to Division I schools.
“Obviously I want to follow in the footsteps especially of Cameron [Dicker],” Ellisor said.
Two weeks ago, Ellisor joined Dicker as two of the four players in Lake Travis history who have made a 50-plus-yard field goal.
For Ellisor, the kick had been four years in the making.
It was the first field goal of his high school career and felt even sweeter because of his journey to get there.
"I tore my ACL meniscus in the spring game of my sophomore year," he said. "I went through surgery. I came back for the Weslaco game last year. I kicked in that, kicked in the Judson game, and then I tore my groin."
So before Ellisor saw even one kick go through a high school upright, he had to relearn how to stand upright.
“Just small steps, literally just learning how to walk and do all that stuff again,” he said.
But for his senior year, Ellisor has kicked the injury bug to the curb. He's now finally healthy and is finally tapping into the potential his coach saw in him from the beginning.
"When I met him, he was our kicker on the freshman A team," Carter said. "And then when I watched him kick off, he kicked it into the end zone. So as a freshman doing that, you’re kind of like, 'Hey, uh, Cameron Dicker used to do that.'"
Dicker's 53-yarder still stands as the Lake Travis school record, but Ellisor could challenge that this season. He estimates his max distance at 60 yards.
His goal isn't to wipe away the footsteps of his predecessors though.
“I want to be known as the school for kickers and that’s really rare to hear,” he said.
Instead his goal is to follow them and then kick them to new heights.