FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Most kickers envision making the final kick to win the Super Bowl. Plum's Pat McAfee dreams of making the one that starts it all.

McAfee, a rookie for the Indianapolis Colts, led the National Football League in kickoffs this season. And while he would like nothing better than for his team to win the coin toss Sunday so Peyton Manning and Co. can get a head start on the expected scorefest against New Orleans, he'll do his best if he has to start things off with another booming kick into the end zone.

"Ah, man, that's something you dream of if you're a kicker with all the flashes going off," McAfee said. "Granted, in Indy with Peyton we always want the ball. But that would definitely be a cool thing to be part of. Who knows, it might happen."

He has a 50-50 chance, after all, which is more than having a kicker or punter playing in the NFL at any given time from Western Pennsylvania. McAfee is a rare bird, an NFL punter/kicker who hails from the WPIAL.

You could build a separate Hall of Fame wing on the shoulders of quarterbacks from Western Pennsylvania, or offensive linemen or defensive players. What you won't find is a punter, not a Hall of Famer, not even one who stuck around in the league for long.

The most famous was Youngwood's George Blanda, who made the Hall of Fame based more on his play at quarterback than as an ageless kicker. There also were kickers Fred Cox of Monongahela and Dave Trout of Southmoreland High, and punters Tom Skladany of Bethel Park, John Bruno of Upper St. Clair and Mike McConnell of Sharon. You won't find many other WPIAL alums who booted a football for a living in the NFL.

"It's so blue collar there, nobody wants to take the job of kicker or punter," McAfee surmised.

McAfee has the job of punter and kicker with the Colts, sort of. On a team that has two all-time kicking greats on its roster in Adam Vinatieri and Matt Stover, McAfee kicks off for the Colts -- his 70-yard average led the NFL last season. He also punts, averaging 44.3 yards as a rookie with 21 of his 64 punts winding up inside the 20.

What he does not do is place-kick, which is what he did best at West Virginia. When Stover or Vinatieri kick, however, they do so off McAfee's hold.

The genesis of all this occurred in Plum when McAfee entered football's Punt, Pass & Kick competition while playing soccer for the Mustangs. He won it all, doing so after the 2003 season in Nashville, Tenn., where the Tennessee Titans ushered the Steelers out of the playoffs after a controversial penalty on a blocked kick.

McAfee remembers that as when Titans kicker "Joe Nedney did that flop" to draw the penalty. After that, Plum's football coaches asked him to kick and he agreed, provided he could still play soccer.

"I'd play soccer all week and show up Friday for the game and that was it," said McAfee, whose agent also comes from Plum, Eddie Edwards Jr. "I didn't take it too seriously."

West Virginia did, though, and he took a football scholarship to kick there rather than those offered to him to play soccer in college. His football punts at WVU looked more like those in rugby because then-coach Rich Rodriguez favored a kick in which his punter would roll to the right and practically boot on the run. It was not the best kind of audition for the NFL.

But McAfee showed he could punt in the Senior Bowl and Indianapolis used a seventh-round draft pick on him. The Colts told him to just punt and later turned the kickoff chores over to him.

In the NFL, no one punts and handles the place-kicking. It's just not done. The season is long and the pros worry about the leg wearing out. McAfee thinks he could do it, but on a team with Stover and Vinatieri, he's the punter. At least for now.

"They said in the future they might give me a shot," McAfee said.

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