Mark Royals
Ask Mark Royals about perseverance.
He knows about it.
It took Royals five years to make an NFL roster. Once there, he endured continual trades and releases and punted for six different teams. By the time he retired in 2003, he had played 15 years.
The key to such longevity?
“I feel like I outworked everybody on the planet,” Royals said.
Royals, among inductees into Appalachian State’s athletics hall of fame last Saturday, began dreaming about playing professional football at age 8 and took a step toward that goal after graduating from a class of 90 from Mathews High School in Virginia and landing a scholarship at ASU, where he punted from 1983 through 1985.
He made it to camp as a free agent after finishing at ASU, and was a fill-in punter for single games with the Philadelphia Eagles and St. Louis Cardinals in 1987, but didn’t stick until he signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1990.
“I got cut four years in a row,” Royals said. “My fifth year of trying I made it in Tampa.”
Once there, he didn’t let go – punting for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Detroit Lions, New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccaneers again, Miami Dolphins and Jacksonville Jaguars.
“I felt like if I worked hard enough and trained hard enough it would work out,” Royals said. “I didn’t feel pressured to do anything more than what I trained myself to do. I felt like I would either be good enough or I wouldn’t. For 15 years, it was good enough.”
Royals led the NFL in punting with a 45.9 average in 1997, and wound up with a 42.1 career average.
“There are so many obstacles,” Royals said. “I look at myself growing up in a small town in Virginia and achieving something like that was a childhood dream but you never really think it will happen. A lot of things have to go right, but you keep at it if you want it.”
Tomorrow: Tyson Patterson