Now, Koo will be the second-highest paid kicker in the league getting signed a five-year contract extension with all the Atlanta Falcons recording.
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for your South Korean indigenous.
Despite a collegiate profession with Georgia Southern in which he converted a team report 88. 6% associated with his field objective attempts and was obviously a finalist for the Lou Groza Award for that nation’s best kicker, Koo went undrafted in 2017 plus signed a free realtor contract with the La Chargers shortly after.
He quickly impressed, successful the starting role in preseason more than incumbent kicker Josh Lambo, but a long-term place in the team proved evasive.
“I felt like I made it my rookie year when I won the job going into 7 days One. I was like: ‘Oh, this is this, I did it, ‘ you know? The next 4 weeks, I was cut, ” Koo tells CNN Sport’s Coy Wire .
It was this moment early in his career that taught the particular then-23-year-old rookie regarding life in the NFL.
“It taught me this really is never over. A person gotta compete each day. You gotta generate; it’s a production company. That’s what the mind coach told me once i was getting launched. That was a big understanding experience for me. inch
With nowhere else to go, Koo has been forced to turn to instead familiar surroundings — somewhere he did not think he would ever find himself once again.
“When I ran out of money with the Chargers, I moved back home to my mom which is when you’re just waiting for a phone call, awaiting a workout, ” he admits that.
“And when it comes it might be like: ‘Oh yeah, good. I’m all set. ‘ Then right now there goes [the] offseason [and] two or three months go by [and] simply no phone call comes: ‘What am I performing with my life? ‘”
Football players, and sports athletes in general, are especially conditioned to always having their daily activities planned for them, whether it be film study, meals or even training. Without that, Koo lost their sense of path.
“I guess my football career, like high school, college after which getting to the Chargers, I always had something to do, on a team. You almost really feel empty because [when] a person wake up, nobody’s telling you anything, ” Koo says.
Connecting with many other NFL free agencies helped him to regain that feeling of team ethos and structure he missed.
“I discovered a lot. I wasn’t the only one going through this. It was almost healing for me to go to workouts [with] guys that are going through the same stuff and we’re competing but also sharing our journeys, ” Koo describes.
He credits these moments of earlier adversity with helping him become an expert and an even much better student of the game, although he says he still has a much more to learn as their career progresses.
“Coming out of college, We felt like I understood everything, but [in] fact, I didn’t know anything, ” Koo says.
“I made a decision to drop that ego [and] ask questions. I wanted to understand, I wanted to see exactly what went wrong, and extremely soon after that, I actually realized I was the puppy in this business. I had to keep wondering questions. I got a lot to learn and a long way to go, obviously. ”
He signed his $24. 5 million agreement with the Falcons within March, officially making him the league’s second-highest paid kicker in total dollars, trailing only Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker in average yearly value, according to the NFL .
‘Tough’ beginnings
Koo lived in South Korea until the regarding 12 before moving to the United States to attend sixth grade.
“I grew up playing football for the school group. That was really our main focus. I wasn’t really great at school, ” he says.
He or she describes the transition to the United States since “tough, ” an event that was further compounded by his lack of English. Koo cites sports as a catalyst to learning the language and making friends within an unfamiliar country.
“I feel like I picked up English a lot quicker because I played sports, ” Koo says. “I was forced to throw personally out there and socialize with different friend groupings and meet different people. It definitely bridged that gap for me. inch
Koo first found soccer via his friends, who noticed his soccer talent plus wanted him to punt or start in their games.
“And that’s when everyone saw my leg strength because [of] football, so kicking arrived naturally for me. Gowns when I was requested to sign up for football and I signed up that will summer. ”
Koo remembers specifically sitting in the car with teammates heading to practice one day not even knowing how in order to communicate with them.
“I didn’t know how to request, like: ‘Hey, so what do you guys perform on the weekends? ‘ I didn’t know how to phrase that as well as form a word at that time, ” Koo explains.
Despite a fear of sounding “stupid, ” he was able to muster a phrase that changed his fortunes.
“I remember just saying, ‘I’m bored, ‘ and they were just inquiring [me] questions like: ‘Now? In the car going to practice? ‘ I had been like: ‘No, no, no, on the week-ends. ‘ So then that weekend they called me to hold out. ”
‘Bulletproof’
As a South Korean immigrant in the United States, Koo says he observed racism growing up yet chose not to “respond to it or respond to it. ” He didn’t take any racist comments in order to heart, knowing everyone has their own opinions, whether or not valid or invalid.
“Everybody has something to state. Everybody can say something if they wish to. It’s not really our responsibility to saturate that all in and absorb [it]. I choose what I want to pay attention to [and] what I don’t want to pay attention to. I think that’s the mindset which i had when I has been younger as well, ” Koo says.
As for how he deals with negative thoughts now as one of the NFL’s top-earning kickers, Koo likens it to a diet where he chooses which comments he or she wants to eat plus digest. He says his mindset must be “bulletproof” when he requires the field; adversity through outside could hurt his performance.
“Whether it’s coping with racism or be it dealing with adversity, all of us shank a golf ball… we gotta head out there and next time, we got to today focus on the next snap. That can’t stick with me because it can affect my next kick, ” Koo says.
“My father taught me from the young age [that] if you’re sufficient, your talent talks for itself, ” he adds.
And when the particular kick is in the air, all that matters may be the result.
“You’re White, Black, Asian or whatever. [The] football isn’t going to know who is throwing it. And when the ball’s flying, they will not know who kicked it and they just see the results plus they see the ball and they’re like, ‘Alright, that kick’s good, ‘” Koo says.
‘Set up a plan plus go after it’
Koo understands the place football can play in the world and what his story can mean for the lastest of Asian sports athletes wanting to play in the top American league.
“It’s [something] we discussed a lot. It’s an extremely diverse group of people in that locker room. Everybody comes from different locations, backgrounds, families, yet we all have one typical goal, and we work towards that together and that sacrifice to work hard for not only for your self, [but] for something gowns bigger than you, ” Koo reflects.
“I think representation is big because, growing up for me personally in football, there is nobody that looked like me. It was more difficult for me to imagine, [if] he’s doing it, I can do it.
“If a person look at my story, I didn’t talk English, I did not know what football has been. I was struggling to state: ‘What are you achieving this weekend? ‘ I think anybody, if they have the dream and just pursue it and work hard, can set up an idea and go after this. ”