Dirk Borgognone

Dirk Ronald Borgognone (born January 9, 1968) is a retired former National Football League placekicker who currently holds the record for the longest field goal ever kicked in the history of high school football, 68 yards.

Borgognone attended Reno High School, initially playing as a soccer player. He soon switched to football and was trained in a "straight-on" kicking style. On September 27, 1985, he kicked the longest field goal in high school football history, during a Reno High School game at Sparks High School. The kick measured 68 yards, and was longer than any that had ever been successfully kicked in the NFL or the NCAA.^[1] Borgognone was thereafter relegated solely to kicks of over 50 yards after his kick and missing all eight of his subsequent attempts, not kicking a single successful field goal the rest of his high school career. He would convert three field goals in a subsequent all-star game, being named the game's MVP.^[2] After high school, Borgognone attended Truckee Meadows Community College before transferring to the University of the Pacific. Borgognone's college career, however, was derailed by a 1988 change to the NCAA rule books that banned kicking off tees for field goal attempts. This not only reduced the general range for field goals (the record off a tee was 67 yards, without, only 65), but Borgognone had always kicked off a tee and was unprepared for the change. Frustrated, Borgognone left college early to pursue an NFL career as a kickoff specialist.

Much like Ove Johansson, whose 69-yard field goal in the NAIA in 1976 is the only field goal on record to have bested Borgognone's kick, Borgognone struggled to make the National Football League. He spent many years bouncing between NFL training camps, mainly as a kickoff specialist (the NFL had prohibited the use of kicking tees for field goals and extra points for decades). He received unsuccessful tryouts from the Minnesota Vikings in 1990, the Atlanta Falcons in 1991, the Cleveland Browns in 1992, and the Indianapolis Colts in 1993. Both the Miami Dolphins and Washington Redskins gave him a tryout during the 1994 NFL season, but neither team signed him.^[3] He was picked up by the Green Bay Packers for the 1995 season and was on the roster for two games before being cut. Borgognone became upset and after a poor tryout for the San Francisco 49ers in 1996, never played professional football again. He briefly considered a comeback in 1999 at the request of Ray Pelfrey, but, despite feeling physically able to do so, decided against making another run at the NFL.^[2]

Borgognone currently lives in Reno, and is a widower; his wife, Nevada Highway Patrol officer Kara Kelly-Borgognone, was killed in a car accident while on duty in March 2008. She was driving at high speed to the scene of a false report of a bomb. He has two children.^[4]

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