Different sport, different color, different team

The balls are almost the same shape.

Almost the same size.

The colors are almost the same – just a different shade of blue.

But for USU kicker Chris Ulinski, there will be no confusion when he takes the field Saturday. Certainly not about what sport he’s playing or what team he’s playing for.

Last fall at this time, Ulinski was suiting up for Utah State’s opponent this weekend, the University of Nevada-Reno Wolf Pack, in a different sport – men’s rugby.

That Wolf Pack team wasn’t his first choice, though.

“I went there with the intent of walking on (to the football team),” Ulinski said. “But I went and talked to the coaches, and it always seemed like they were blowing me off, giving me the cold shoulder. It was always like, ‘Oh, email me in a week. Come and see us in the spring, we’ll give you a tryout then.'”

This treatment by the Nevada coaches created some hard feelings between him and the team he grew up rooting for.

And it’s those feelings that not only remove any confusion about Ulinski’s shade of blue, but provide extra motivation for Saturday’s game.

“Who wouldn’t want to kick it out of the end zone right in front of those guys’ faces?” he said.

Although Ulinski will be trying to kick the football out of the end zone this weekend, it was a different, much rounder ball that started his kicking career. Until his senior year of high school, Ulinski was a soccer player.

When he got tired of playing soccer, he said he decided to try out for football, a sport a lot of his friends were playing. It happened that his high school team needed a kicker, and he won the starting job placekicking, punting and kicking off.

Ulinski said after a good senior season he started getting letters from colleges, but nothing ever materialized. So, in the fall of ’05, he went to UNR, a place that was close to his home in Grass Valley, Calif., and full of friends.

One semester of being just a student, with no footballs to kick, left Ulinski wanting more.

“I’d always played a sport, and when football fell through, I didn’t really like the feeling of just going to class and being a normal student,” he said.

That’s where rugby came into Ulinski’s life.

In the spring of 2006, he was invited to a rugby practice, and took to the game. Ulinski ended up playing rugby that spring and again the next fall, where he shared kicking duties and played outside center.

But, like his decision to play football and to be a member of the Wolf Pack, a friend would soon help change Ulinski’s sport – and his locale.

Last fall, Ulinski got a call from high school teammate and current Aggie offensive lineman Brennan McFadden. McFadden called to tell Ulinski he had given his high school highlight tape to USU coaches. The next day, Ulinski got a call from USU’s kicking coach Tony Flores, who wanted to know if Ulinski was interested in possibly kicking for the Aggies, he said.

After talking things over with his parents, Ulinski traded Reno for Logan and rugby for football, showing up at Utah State in spring 2007 – grateful for the opportunity.

He said his transition was eased by McFadden’s presence, along with another teammate, sophomore safety James Brindley – who Ulinski spent time with in the dorms.

Now settled in Cache Valley, Ulinski has a chance to show his friends, who are coming from UNR, and – maybe most importantly – the Nevada coaching staff exactly what he can do.

“I know what I’m capable of,” he said. “Going to (Nevada’s) games and watching their kickers, I know I can be equally as good as that guy, and for them to not even give me a chance definitely makes me anxious to play these guys.”

-da.bake@aggiemail.usu.edu