15 untold Will Reichard stories: Duck disputes, dog negotiations and his flu prom

Michael Jordan had his flu game. Will Reichard had his flu prom.

Illness couldn’t slow Jordan in the 1997 NBA Finals, and it couldn’t keep Reichard away from the Hoover High School dance in spring of 2019. Reichard was in Tuscaloosa, having early-enrolled to start practicing with Alabama football, but he had made plans to come back to Hoover to take his then girlfriend, Amelia, to the prom.

Then the day before the prom, Reichard got the flu.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is all ruined’ because I was going with all his friends and I didn’t want to go with his friends by myself,” Amelia said.

She wouldn't need to go alone, though. By the time the prom arrived, Reichard had made the drive from Tuscaloosa. He and Amelia only spent about an hour at the dance, but they made it nonetheless.

“Just the effort he has always shown to show up for things,” Amelia said.

Reichard has certainly shown up for the Crimson Tide over five years. He put together a perfect 2020 season with no missed kicks on the way to a national championship, and this season, he has also not missed a field goal or extra point. Thanks to his efforts, Reichard owns the title of all-time leading scorer for Alabama and the SEC. He’s also chasing the NCAA’s all-time scoring record, sitting 35 points away from sole possession of the record with four games remaining in the regular season.

Simply put, he has become a legend. And in the making of every legend, there are plenty of stories.

As No. 8 Alabama (7-1, 5-0 SEC) prepares to face No. 14 LSU (6-2, 4-1), here is a collection of some of the best stories about Reichard from his life via several people who know him well.

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A collection of Will Reichard stories

2. Duck disputes: To this day, Reichard and his close friend, Jack Henry Milligan, disagree who shot the duck. One day, Reichard was hunting in Guntersville, Alabama. He and a group of close friends and one friend’s dad went out looking for ducks. The group didn’t have much success, but at one point, some ducks flew by about 50 yards away. Reichard and Milligan shot at about the same time, then one of the ducks dropped. Reichard starting screaming that he shot it. Milligan thought he did. Then an argument ensued. “It got pretty heated,” Milligan said. After 15 minutes of arguing, Milligan devised a way to settle it once and for all: He would throw a Mountain Dew bottle in the air about 15 yards away. He told Reichard to try to shoot it. Reichard missed. Milligan had fuel for his argument; If Reichard couldn’t hit that, how could he have shot a duck 50 yards away? The arguing didn’t stop then, though. Finally, Milligan conceded. “Alright fine,” Milligan told Reichard. “If you killed it, go get it.” So Reichard had to wade out 30-40 yards into frigid water to get the duck. That bird is hanging on Reichard’s wall to this day, but Milligan still has a different version of the story: “I know I shot it and killed it.” Epilogue: The two remain great friends and ultimately did not let the duck divide their friendship long-term. It's probably best not to bring up the duck, though.

3. A persistent high schooler: As a kicker, Reichard doesn’t miss much, but he did when he first approached Amelia. It was homecoming week when Reichard met her and asked for her Snapchat. She didn’t give it to him, though. “I wasn’t interested,” Amelia said. She didn’t know anything about him outside of the fact he was a year older than her. But Reichard didn’t give up. He kept trying for a month, and eventually, Amelia gave him her Snapchat. What changed? A friend of Amelia's told her in the car at one point that Reichard was a nice kid. Said Amelia: “Finally I’m like, ‘I’ll just give it to him and see what happens.’” The two got married this past January.

4. The memorable LSU offer: The room went silent. Gabe Rodriguez, at the time the Hoover special teams coordinator, looked over at Reichard, and Rodriguez started to tear up a little. He saw Reichard processing the moment. They were sitting in the office of Ed Orgeron, the former LSU coach, in Baton Rouge. Orgeron had just offered Reichard a full-ride scholarship to play for the Tigers, the first such offer for the kicker. Reichard didn’t say anything initially, but Rodriguez could tell what was on his mind: His dad, Gary Reichard. “I could just see it being processed in his brain,” Rodriguez said, "like, ‘Thank you Dad. Thank you for everything you did.”

5. A dog-ged negotiation: Seven months into marriage, Reichard agreed to get a dog. Amelia had to bargain with him first, though. They could get a dog if Reichard could get a PlayStation 5. Deal. As a result, the Reichards added Denny, a miniature golden doodle. Yes, Denny as in Bryant-Denny Stadium and Denny Chimes. How well behaved is Denny? “Oh he’s terrible,” Amelia said. He always sleeps in the same corner, and one day, Amelia went to vacuum there. She discovered Denny had created a hole in the wall to try to get outside. He’d been working on it for about a month, they estimated. “The dog loves Will way more than me,” Amelia said, “which is funny because I wanted the dog.” Denny must be a fan of good kicking.

6. The elementary school kicker: Ben Hendrix always saw Reichard training with his dad on the sideline during elementary school football practices. Reichard wouldn’t really participate in any drills. He would just kick. “You’re like, ‘What is this guy doing?’” Hendrix said. Soon, Hendrix discovered Reichard could kick field goals from a considerable distance. No other kids in the league were kicking field goals, but Reichard was. “Opposing fans and teams would be like, “What are they doing? Who’s kicking this?’” Hendrix said. “Next thing you’d know, he would punch one through the uprights.”

7. Number on the check: Reichard learned he has to be careful when he steps away from the dinner table if his closest friends are there. Reichard found that out one day in Navarre, Florida when he was in high school, before he was dating Amelia. At dinner near the beach, Reichard had to step away to take a call from a college coach. In that time, his buddies made a request to the waitress. “We were like, “Hey, he’s on the phone with some coach. He’s about to be this big recruited guy that’s going to go somewhere … when he comes back, flirt with him, make it obvious,” recalled Connor Dubble, a longtime friend of Reichard. The waitress said she was game and agreed to go along with it. Soon, the kicker returned to the table, and the waitress flirted with him. Then shortly after, Reichard had to get up again. When he returned, she flirted with him some more. “You could see the look in his eyes of, ‘What did y’all just do?’” Dubble said. “He couldn’t put his finger on it until we had left and she put her number on the check.”

8. Where’s Will? One of Reichard’s fifth-grade games was about to start, but he wasn’t there. His coaches knew he might not make it on time because of a conflict but they still hoped he would arrive in time to kick. They could try to find someone on the team to line up and kick it as far as possible on the opening kickoff, but Reichard was far and away the better option. The only problem? He wasn’t there yet. Then, right before kickoff, he got dropped off behind the field. He made a dash to join his team, in full uniform ready to go. His teammates went nuts, said David Tucker, a family friend. “They are going crazy for the kicker who kicks it down to the 15-yard line or something,” Tucker said. “Just something ridiculous.” Talk about an entrance.

9. International celebrity: A few years ago, a guy and his friends at a resort in Cancun, Mexico kept staring at Reichard and Amelia. Why? The Reichards couldn’t tell. Said Amelia: "I was like, ‘That’s weird.’" Nothing came of it, though. Then, the Reichards looked at Twitter later and saw a Tweet that read “Will Reichard is at my resort in Mexico.” It’s not the first time he’s been recognized in public, and it won’t be the last. This past spring, multiple people came up to talk to Reichard and his wife at Disney World. “No matter where you go,” Amelia said, “there are Alabama fans everywhere.”

10. Working from home: The room was the stuff of a kicker’s dreams. It had artificial turf and a kicking net, just inside the garage. That’s where Reichard could train whenever he had the opportunity. Hendrix, who was his snapper in high school, said he often came over and snapped to Reichard through a hallway door that cut through to the kicking room. With Hendrix snapping, that allowed Reichard to get full practice punting, something he also did in high school. Try to find a better home office than this one.

11. Who is that kid? Varsity practice had just wrapped up at Hoover High School, and Rodriguez couldn’t help but hear the kicks. “You can hear the ball coming off his foot,” Rodriguez said. “You can hear the pop and the power in every single kick.” Rodriguez spotted the underclassman off in the distance on the grass field behind the high school. Rodriguez was easily 100 yards away. He had to turn to another coach to ask who that was kicking. Said the other coach: “That’s Will Reichard."

12. Dominating church-league hoops: Reichard isn’t too shabby off a basketball player, if you ask his friends. He played some travel basketball early on. Milligan said Reichard was one of the best players growing up. He also took part in a church basketball league one year with his friends in high school. “We beat teams to death,” Milligan said. “We were so competitive. Teams and refs didn’t like us very much. Church league is supposed to be for fun and doing it for good reasons. We would take it so far being super competitive. We would get so many technical fouls.” Reichard, who Milligan described as super competitive, fit right in. “A really good athlete,” Milligan said, “and physical.”

13. The origin of the Auburn tackle: Remember Reichard’s tackle during a kickoff in the 2022 Iron Bowl? It’s hard to forget, considering he stood over Auburn running back Jarquez Hunter afterward. “I play with some fire at times” Reichard explained. Making that tackle was impressive, but it wasn’t by accident. He worked it in practice as a kid. “It wasn’t the most graceful thing ever,” Milligan said, “but he would stick his nose in there.” Reichard’s dad, Gary, is to thank. When he wasn’t working with his son on kicking to the side during practices, Gary had Reichard participate in tackling drills to prepare him for kick coverage.

14. The man who got him ready for Saturdays: Gary Reichard died at 53 on March 28, 2016 from pancreatic cancer. That left Reichard, then a freshman in high school, without not only his dad but also his longtime kicking coach. Milligan, who has known Reichard since they were about 5 or 6, recalled Gary taking Reichard up to the field to train everyday for as long as Milligan can remember. Saturday mornings were a popular time for the father and son to work together. It's fitting considering Reichard's success on Saturdays years later. "He was for sure the biggest reason Will got into kicking in the first place," Milligan said, "and the reason he is as good as he is."

15. Reliable Reichard: He had no shortage of duties on May 22, 2021. In the morning, Reichard served as a pallbearer in a funeral for Amelia’s grandmother. Afterward, he had to run over to the wedding for his sister, now Taylor Cathers. With Gary having passed, Reichard stood in for him and walked Taylor down the aisle. “He had a lot of commitments that day,” Amelia said, “but I know it was very special for him.”

Nick Kelly covers Alabama football and men's basketball for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at nkelly@gannett.com or follow him @_NickKelly on X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Will Reichard: 15 untold stories about Alabama football kicker