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The Charlotte
JE>VISH
Vol. 30, No. 8
Elul-Tishrei 5768/9
September 2008
An Affiliate of the Jewish Federation of Greater Charlotte
; Just
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Kicks
I Julian
Rauch
Aims for
the NFL
Photo cour$esy
By Steve Goldberg
There are large green signs that
name the stretch of 1-85 through
Gaston County for Marshall
Rauch, honoring the man who
served 24 years as a popular and
effective North Carolina state sen
ator, a man who built a small tex
tile company that milled crochet
yam and kite string into one of the
largest Christmas tree ornament
manufacturers in the world.
Obviously, the former politician
and successful business leader is
an important man.
Since last September though,
he’s not even the most famous
Rauch in his family. With one
swing of his leg last fall, grandson
Julian Rauch took that mantle with
a field goal that lifted Appalachian
State University’s football team
over the mighty Michigan
Wolverines.
It was a classic David and
Goliath story that grabbed nation
al attention and exponentially
spiked the sale of ASU merchan
dise in the state of Ohio.
Appropriately, this David, at least
one of them, was Jewish as well.
Unlike Long Island where
Marshall Rauch grew up, being
Jewish in Gastonia much like
Charlotte and the south in general
has been something that takes
a little extra commitment.
Gastonia’s Temple Emanuel, of
which Julian’s maternal great
grandfather was a founder about
80 years ago, has about 65 mem
bers in a city of nearly 70,000. The
only Jewish kid in his elementary
school with maybe one or two
families more than that when he
moved to high school, Rauch was
Bar Mitzvahed in the same temple
as his father and later visited Israel
on a Birthright tour.
As with most southern football
programs, Rauch notes that,
“Appalachian is a very hardcore
Christian based football team.”
That was never an issue but it
made the family focus more
important. “Within the family it’s
very strong,” says Julian, “but
when you get outside and you’re
on your own, it’s kind of hard to
make it part of everyday life. A lot
of it is within myself because of
where I am or what I do.”
Like his father Pete, Julian was
bom and bred in Gastonia. They
both graduated from Ashbrook
High School and were athletically
inclined. Pete played about every
sport possible while Julian devel
oped into a soccer star, starting for
his high school squad as a fresh
man and traveling to Europe with
his club team. Their athletic genes
came fi’om Marshall who came
south as a teenager from
Woodmere, New York to play bas
ketball and study at Duke. After a
stint in the array during WWII,
where he continued to play basket
ball for the 222nd Infantry team
and even boxed, Rauch returned to
North Carolina, forgoing his
degree at Duke to work at his in
laws textile business and eventual
ly settling in Gastonia.
Pete’s brothers Marc and John
were also athletes as were sisters
Ingrid and Stephanie. John earned
a basketball scholarship to
Catawba College while both sis
ters played tennis at UNC.
Burnt out on the seemingly
endless soccer season, a 145
pound Rauch first tried to double
as a kicker and linebacker on the
high school football team, soon
deciding to focus on kicking. By
the end of his junior year, he had
bulked up to 200 pounds. After
finishing the regular season 6-5
his senior year, Ashbrook went on
an improbable run, winning four
playoff games on the last play of
the game, three on kicks by
Rauch, including the state champi
onship for which he was named
MVP. After the game, he learned
that he kicked the winning field
goal with a broken foot. After
scoring only three field goals in
eleven regular season games, he
had ten in the playoffs and sud
denly college football was an
option.
Originally offered a scholarship
to Appalachian, Rauch decided to
walk on at East Carolina but left
after one semester. He transferred
to ASU only to have the coach tell
him that he now had to earn his
scholarship. He started every
game for four years.
After three straight national
championships at ASU - with
rings the size of Volkswagens to
prove it - Rauch is facing uncer
tainty in the football career he
wants to continue. Undrafted, he
was signed as a free agent by the
Pittsburgh Steelers. That in itself
was a problem as the Steelers
already had an established veteran
kicker in Jeff Reed, coincidentally
an East Mecklenburg and UNC
graduate.
With limited rosters, it’s a rarity
for an NFL team to carry more
than one kicker so his chances of
staying with the Steelers were slim
from the start. Reed joined the
Steelers mid-season as a free agent
in 2002, helping them to win the
Super Bowl in 2006. Before head
ing to the Steelers camp, Rauch
assessed the situation matter-of-
factly, “I could be cut tomorrow, I
could be cut ten years from now.
You don’t know.”
Rauch set the reasonable objec
tive of working through training
camp as best he could and getting
the chance to kick in a pre-season
game. That was taken out of his
control when injuries to other
players forced the Steelers to let
him go in early August in order to
bring a 323 pound center into
camp.
“That’s every kicker’s story. I
don’t believe any kicker’s gone to
a team and gotten the job that day.
They bounce around until they get
that opening. And then you’ve got
to produce to keep it.”
Rauch returned home, telling
his grandfather, “I’m going to
work out every day. I (also) want
to work in the office with you, not
to hang out with my friends but to
do something productive and kick,
so when and if I get a chance, on a
moment’s notice I’ll be ready.”
About Julian’s maturity,
Marshall says, “We talk a lot about
those things and Julian knows
where he’s at in life and his plans.
He knew he would be cut; he did
not know when. And he already
had his plans for when he was
cut, what he would do. He has
perspective.
“He’s got his feet on the
ground. He knows what he wants
and I believe he will play pro foot
ball.” '
When pressed to rank Julian’s
achievements in the pantheon of
Rauch family accomplishments,
his grandfather, whose biography,
available at the Levine Sklut
Judaic Library, is titled “Success is
a Team Sport, The Marshall Rauch
Family Story,” displays the diplo
matic skills that made him an
effective legislator.
“I’ll never answer that ques
tion,” he says with a laugh. What
is clear is that Julian is the product
of his family, as an athlete and as a
person. To those who know them,
the attributes of his parents and
grandparents are obvious in him.
It wasn’t a Miracle of Light that
led Julian and his Appalachian
Maccabees to victory against an
overwhelming opponent but con
fidence in themselves and the
work they had done to get to that
point.
So as he lined up for that kick in
Ann Arbor with more than a hun
dred thousand people screaming
for him to miss, Rauch recalled
what his high school coach told
him before his first ever game
winner, that one in the playoffs
with the season on the line.
“Coach Briggs said, ‘This is
what you want; this is what you
kicked for, so go out there and do
it. This is what’s going to make it
or break it.’ And I’ve always men
tally prepared myself (saying)
‘this is what you want.’”
What he wants now is an NFL
career. Whether that happens or
not, Julian Rauch is still another
great chapter in the family story.
Steve Goldberg is a Charlotte-
based journalist, marketing and
media consultant. His work has
been published by Time, USA
Today, and Charlotte Magazine
among others. He was a walk-on
place kicker for the University of
Geofgia in 1976.
Julian and his dad, Pete Rauch. Julian is serious about learning the
family business and about football.
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