By Jim Irish
Courtesy photos, video from Tabor College
Nathaniel Heilig warmed up his right foot on the Tabor College sideline, kicking a football repeatedly into a small net.
With two games remaining in the 2024 season, the Bluejays were a mediocre 4-5. Earlier in the season, they had dropped four consecutive games, including two by shutout.
Heilig wasn’t impressed with his season either. He had converted 6-of-11 field goals, slightly above 50%.
"I wasn’t happy with the way my season started and my stats,” said Heilig, a former kicker for Bastrop (Texas) Tribe Consolidated, a six-man football team. “I was looking to finish.”
At that point in the third quarter at home in Hillsboro, Kansas, the Bluejays, who compete in the NAIA Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference, trailed the University (Kan.) of St. Mary 17-14. They then failed to complete a pass on third down.
"Field goal. Field goal,” Heilig heard someone shouting.
Not big at 5-foot-8, 165 pounds, Heilig had been booting field goals in competition for seven years. Before that, he had played select soccer for about 10 years in California and Austin. He knew the drill.
”It’s just muscle memory,” he said. “Get my steps, get my breath and go out and make it.”
Heilig jogged onto the field for his first attempt of the day other than an extra point. This attempt wouldn’t be a chip shot.
"I wasn’t fully prepared,” Heilig recalled, "(but) I wasn’t overthinking the situation. Line up. They snap. Hold is perfect.
"I know if I got it up in the air (it had a chance). I felt the wind. It was a little bit of a cross wind. I kicked it outside of the left upright, knowing that the wind was going to push it in. I hate to miss. It caught the wind perfectly, and it went in there.”
The two officials at the goalposts signaled with their upraised arms.
In front of about 500 spectators, Heilig had converted a 56-yard field goal, a Tabor football record and one yard shy of the conference record. Heilig’s record field goal tied the game at 17; Tabor won 24-20.
"I knew I had an awesome opportunity,” Heilig said. "That was totally a God moment. He gave me that opportunity when I didn’t think I deserved it.”
After the successful kick, the Tabor sideline exploded, and Heilig’s teammates on the field congratulated him.
"... That was totally a God moment. He gave that opportunity when I didn't think I deserved it."
-- Nathaniel Heilig, after kicking a 56-yard field goal, a Tabor College record
During the week before the game, Tabor trainer Jim Moore had mentioned to Heilig about Texas A&M Seth Small’s field goal that upset No. 1 Alabama as time ran out in 2021.
Heilig had been reading Psalm 23: "The Lord is my Shepherd. I lack nothing.”
"I was really meditating on that all week,” he said. "Before the kick, I said, 'I lack nothing.’ It gave me peace.”
The 56-yard field goal wasn’t the only Tabor record Heilig established in his four-year career:
Most field goals in a single game, 5 in his first game as a freshman against Arkansas Baptist College;
Most career field goals, 33;
Most consecutive point-after-attempts converted, 86;
Most consecutive field goals, 13.
The consecutive PATs ended at 86 in his final game at Tabor, a 20-7 win over Ottawa (Kan.) University.
"I kicked that one low into the wind,” he said. "It got blocked.”
In his Tabor career, Heilig converted 95 of 98 PATs (97%).
"I remember every single one I missed,” he said.
"He was the ultimate weapon."
-- Brent Golemon, Heilig's high school coach
Tabor College head coach Mike Gardner recruited Heilig after watching him kick for Tribe Consolidated on a video clip. Heilig sailed most of his kickoffs into the end zone. In high school, he converted 11-of-16 field goals with a longest of 43 yards.
"He was the ultimate weapon,” former Tribe coach Brent Goleman said. "He had the ability to pin teams deep (inside the 10-yard line).”
Gardner has recruited only a few athletes from six-man teams in his 20 years as a head coach. He himself was an All-American kicker three seasons at Baker (Kan.) University with a field goal of 53 yards.
"I was pretty impressed when I saw (Heilig on video),” Gardner said.
Gardner admitted that he had high expectations for Heilig.
"I speak the language,” he said. "I was pretty hard on him. There were times when I felt he over trained. I had to say, 'Don’t take so many reps.’ ”
However, Gardner praised Heilig as a kicker — on field goals and kickoffs — after his final game. Tabor allowed only one kickoff for a touchdown in Heilig’s four seasons. Heilig was selected second-team all-conference two seasons.
"He’s one of my top three,” Gardner said. "He has the ability to approach the ball without fear. He was very quick from snap to kick. He was probably the best I’ve been around at doing that. He was very, very fast out of his first step.”
"... I wanted to go to a big university, be at parties. I wanted the worldly things."
-- Heilig speaking of his disenchantment
Looking back, Heilig had considered leaving Tabor at the beginning of his sophomore year because of disenchantment.
"I was doing my own thing,” he recalled. "I had stepped away from the faith. I was not happy I was at this small Christian school and forced to go to chapel (services). Jesus was all around me, and I was not about it. I wanted to go to a big university, be at parties. I wanted the worldly things.”
By chance, Heilig attended a business seminar at the college one night during this difficult period. The speakers entered the audience after the seminar. Heilig spoke with one.
"He was talking about how favorable the Lord had been over him and his business,” Heilig said. "He mentioned freedom. My spirit just jumped. That’s what I had been looking for.”
The businessman asked if he could pray for Heilig, who accepted. Heilig closed his eyes and repeated the prayer.
"... It was a prayer of repentance, acknowledging that I was a sinner and needed a Savior. I fall short, (but) Jesus Christ makes me clean."
-- Heilig
"… I’ll never forget it. I got this vivid vision of a gold altar ring in front of me and me holding all my sins in my hands,” he said. "And I place the sin on the altar and see fire come down and burn it up, and water washes it completely away. I open my eyes after the prayer, and I feel free, a peace and joy that I hadn’t felt. It was a prayer of repentance, acknowledging that I was a sinner and needed a Savior. I fall short, (but) Jesus Christ makes me clean.”
Heilig had believed that he possessed the ability to play football at a Division I university.
"It didn’t happen, and I’m thankful it didn’t,” said Heilig, who graduates in May with a double major in business administration and strength conditioning.
Jim Irish is a freelance writer in Bastrop, Texas
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