Punting To Heaven

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SMALL TOWN, USA — Woosh. Catch. Thwack. 

Woosh. Catch. Thwack. Woosh. Catch. Thwack.

This process repeats itself over and over on a humid Wednesday night at Greeley Memorial Park. 

Stetson McManaman is standing on his head, snapping footballs to one of his senior teammates as they practice something that their Central Valley football team rarely does when they play a game. 

Punt. 

Some 45-50 yards away in the north end of the outfield, Cougar assistant coach Ben Ramold and the punter's little brother are shagging the balls. They are having a hard time keeping up. 

If you know anything about football in Nebraska, you have met this punter. Well, you’ve seen him anyway, but you wish you hadn’t. Still, he’s not yet been an all-stater; maybe because he doesn’t get the chance to show crowds his talent. 

But watch him punt for just a few minutes and you can see it’s perfectly in his DNA. 

“I guess it always kind of did come naturally to me,” the punter says. “It seems like I was always kind of ahead of everyone my age when it came to kicking. But, I had my uncle training me, too.”

Now closing in on 18, you met our little punter 10 years ago this fall. His name is Lane Foltz. 

Sam Hahn’s memory is still tremendously clear from that awful end to July 2016. 

His best friend, Sam Foltz, Nebraska’s All-Big Ten punter, was in Wisconsin working his way through a Kohl’s Kicking Camp. They were battling rain most of the week. 

In the late evening of July 23, Foltz and Michigan State punter Mike Sadler were killed in an auto accident when the vehicle they were passengers in lost control on a wet road and struck a tree. 

An entire state mourned. 

“We were supposed to have the next five days off before camp started,” Hahn recalls. 

Most of the local Huskers, like Hahn, went home. They came to Grand Island for the visitation on Friday and Saturday’s funeral. It’s where Sam met Lane.

The Huskers would start practice the following Monday. 

Hahn said the team took on the personality of their fallen teammate. It was the last time the Huskers won nine football games in a season. 

“I mean, we started so hot in 2016 and part of the reason we didn't lose a game at home was because we knew,” Hahn continues. “We knew what Sam would have wanted us to do, which was work hard, get better and win games. 

“And to do it for each other. I remember Coach Riley always said what made our group special was our enthusiasm for the work. Which means we had enthusiasm at practice, and we could just get after it.”

If you didn’t already meet Lane, by the evening of September 3rd you had. He and younger brother Max, led the Huskers out of the tunnel before the opening Fresno State game. 

Hahn held the flag that Foltz normally carried out on the field. He was in the backfield as Nebraska ran its first punt formation with just ten men. Fresno State declined Nebraska’s delay of game penalty.

“I think being in the tunnel that night with them was pretty cool. But, after that, I don’t know how to answer,” Sam says of the feelings of that summer. “I know two little boys lost their hero. We watched Sam’s parents mourn in front of a national audience every week.

“It was difficult, but we knew what Sam would have wanted us to do, and we did it.”

Ten years on, the Central Valley Cougar seniors enter the 2026 fall with a high school record of 33-3. Jokingly, they are annoyed it hasn’t been better. Losses in the state quarterfinals as freshmen and state semifinals last year ended perfect seasons. 

When they were sophomores in 2024, they steamrolled their way to a Class D-2 state title. The only loss — in the regular season — to eventual Class D-1 runner up Stanton.

There are eight seniors. 

“We have been running around and playing flag football together since we were four,” Lane says. “We play baseball together all summer. It’s just what we have always done.”

An outsider will joke there is nothing else to do in Greeley (or Wolbach, or North Loup or Scotia). And they might be right. But it’s a group of towns that have built young men for years. 

Guys like Lane’s grandpa, Gerald, and his dad, Jordan.

It has built this powerful Central Valley football team. It has helped keep Friday nights sacred here, where they have drowned in similar places. On September 11, they will all come together to honor the state finals teams of the past from the four towns — 18 in total.

A week earlier, at the Nebraska, Ohio game, Sam Foltz will be enshrined in the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame.

“It’s special to coach here,” Cougar head coach Chip Bartos said. “I certainly don’t have to go recruit in the hallways. We don’t have to talk to parents about getting their boy to go out. Kids want to play football here. All those final teams, to have that in four towns, that is so special."

“So many of our kids have a parent or a grandparent or a relative that have been on those teams.”

His seniors, well, they are ready for one more run. And, they don’t even mind losing if it means a state title awaits in the new Class D-3. The schedule reflects this desire to be prepared for November.

The first four games include perennial powers Archangels Catholic, St. Mary’s and two-time defending Class D-1 champion Sandy Creek before district play starts.

“Our schedule is a gauntlet,” Lane Foltz tells me, “there will be some hard games. I’d honestly rather lose one in the regular season and be prepared for that game in the playoffs. Last year was not what we wanted.

“We want to be ready to go when the big games come around.”

You know right where he gets this.

“They are a pretty special group,” Bartos said of his senior class, student managers during his first season in 2022. “When we had postseason meetings last year, they all said they want to toughen up the schedule and so we did that.

“A lot of them are three year starters so what we are doing in practice is fine tuning. What they have given to this program has been very special.”

“No buckles on a shelf collecting dust; Still his memory shines inside of all of us; Some miss their hero, some miss their friend.” — July in Cheyenne by Aaron Watson

Just beyond the outfield of Greeley Memorial Park — over the scoreboard and past the trees — is the Sacred Heart Cemetery. Where Sam Foltz rests. You sense on this Wednesday, he’s watching his prodigy punt.

Lane will tell you he feels his uncle when he steps on the field. He dreams of being a college punter and holds an offer from two-time NAIA national champion Grand View (Iowa), among a few other Nebraska GPAC teams.

“Normally in big situations, I just try to center myself and connect with him real quick,” he says, “and then I just let it rip. My pre-kick ritual is thinking what he would do and then to go do it.”

You wonder, too, what Sam Foltz would think about these practices in Greeley. These perfect Friday nights in the outfield at Wolbach. Lane’s coach has a good idea.

“I am not sure there has ever been a kid that has been as focused on wanting to be a great punter — especially in 8-man — like him,” Bartos said. “He’s been working at that for a long time. I think he’d tell you all he wants to do is make Sam proud.”

Bartos and I joke, too, that Sam might even be an assistant for the Central Valley team were he still with us. A couple days later, Sam Hahn corrects us.

“I don’t think he’d be back in Greeley, just yet,” Hahn says. “I think he’d still be punting in the NFL.”

And, surely, mentoring his little nephew who is now trying to do it all on his own. Catching each snap and sending it as far as it can go; or to a little corner of the field, pinning an opponent against their end zone.

All with a special eye watching over him, Lane Foltz is punting to heaven.

You can learn more about the Sam Foltz Foundation here where Sam Hahn is on the board of directors and they award scholarships each year to a senior at Central Valley High School and Grand Island Senior High, where Sam graduated from.

“Discipline, drive, and dedication. Competitive spirit. A commitment to constant improvement. These qualities make great athletes and coaches. They also make great financial advisors. Northwestern Mutual advisors educate clients to make important decisions to live differently and achieve their goals of financial security. Learn more about joining our team. Karges Financial Group and the Great Plains District are proud supporters of Nebraska high school athletics.