December 2003: Vol. 83, No. 1

From walk-on to career scoring leader, Bennett is rewriting the record books
Billy Ball

Who would have guessed, as little Billy Bennett was leading his Athens Academy soccer team to region and state championships, that this mighty mite would one day loom larger than Herschel Walker, Garrison Hearst, and Kevin Butler in Georgia's football record books?

Barring injury, Bennett, who plays guitar in a band, will set career SEC records for scoring and field goals.

When Bennett kicked his third field goal against Florida State in the 2003 Sugar Bowl, he broke the Georgia season scoring record of 126 set by Hearst in 1992. A fourth field goal in that 26-13 victory over FSU gave Bennett 130 points for the year. He also has ice water in his veins when it comes to fourth-quarter accuracy, making 17-of-19 three-point attempts in his career—including game-winners against Clemson and Alabama in 2002 and UAB this season.

With two, three, or even four more games to play this season as GM went to press, Bennett had already set a new career school scoring record with 370 points, ahead of Butler (353) and Walker (314), and he was closing in on two major SEC marks. Bennett's 370 points ranked him second in career scoring behind kicker Jeff Hall of Tennessee (371). He was tied for first in career field goals with Alabama's Philip Doyle (78), one ahead of Butler (77).

Given the records he'll hold when his career is over, it's hard to imagine that the logical path for Bennett coming out of high school would have been to accept a soccer scholarship to Furman. But he liked the taste of football he'd gotten at Athens Academy, and he thought he could make it as a kicker at Georgia—even though the Bulldogs didn't offer him a scholarship. He earned the placekicking job in the third game of the 2000 season and led the team in scoring.

The 145-pound freshman proved he could hold his own both on and off the field. Singled out in a shower room confrontation by a teammate, Bennett got slapped in the face but shoved the guy right back. Bars of soap flew and Bennett retreated to his locker. By the time teammates broke it up, Bennett had gotten tossed into a trash can—and his adversary had a small cut on his lip. "Everyone laughed about it afterward," says Bennett. "I was the freshman, the kicker, but I gained a little respect from the guys."

That respect has grown to the extent that on three occasions this season Bennett was named special teams game captain.

"Most kickers think the conditioning and mat drills are dreadful," says head coach Mark Richt, "but Billy goes full speed and is one of the toughest mentally that we've got. I think the other guys on the team recognize and admire him for that."

Bennett's skills extend to the guitar, which he taught himself to play. He and fraternity brother Matt Cash picked the name for their band, Whole Lotta Angus, from a Rolling Stone headline about AC-DC guitarist Angus Young. On a recent Tuesday night at Last Call, a group of shaggy-haired 20-somethings sipped beer and sang along to a Bennett-Cash rendition of "All Along the Watch Tower" that wouldn't make anyone forget Jimi Hendrix, but that was pretty decent nonetheless.

Bennett lost his mother to cancer during his freshman year. As the baby of the family, he shared a close relationship with her: "She'd drive me to Atlanta on the weekends for soccer games and was with me during the week while my dad was working." When he would miss a kick during the subsequent football season, TV commentators would bring up his mother. But Bennett is more circumspect. "People like to make things personal so they can relate," he says. "Everything happens for a reason. I think God might be using my example to help someone going through the same thing . . . and that's nice to know."

It was during this time that Bennett really learned to appreciate his teammates, many of whom drove from out of town to be with him at the funeral. "Billy is a happy-go-lucky kind of guy," says Richt, "but he is much more mature [than when I first started coaching him]. I think his mom had a little something to do with that."

Bennett has hopes of kicking in the NFL. If that doesn't pan out, he will take his business management degree to Atlanta in search of a non-football career. For now, he divides his time between football, school, music, and a girlfriend. "I've always wondered what it would be like to be a normal student with nothing to do," he says. "I'd probably be the laziest person in the world."

Somehow that's hard to believe.

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