Chris Sailer (born January 9, 1977) is an American football trainer of kicking specialists. He works with high school placekickers and punters and evaluates them for college football programs. Sailer was named an All-American as both a kicker and a punter while playing college football for the UCLA Bruins. He played professionally in the Arena Football League (AFL).
Sailer was born to Elisabeth and Hans Sailer, who had emigrated in 1969 from West Germany to Burbank, California. His parents were soccer fans who knew nothing about football. They exposed him to soccer early, and he excelled as a youth soccer player.[1] Sailer attended high school in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, where he was both the kicker and punter at Notre Dame High.[2] As a senior, he set a state single-season record with 22 field goals, making seven from 50 yards of more to help his team win a Division III title.[3][4] He was named to the USA Today All-USA team, and finished his prep career with a state record 33 career field goals.[3] He also played soccer as a defender.[4]
Sailer decided to attend the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), because Bruins football coach Terry Donahue and soccer coach Sigi Schmid allowed him to play both sports, even though the two teams' seasons overlap.[3] His athletic scholarship was rare for a kicker, a position which coaches often filled with walk-ons.[5] He put soccer on hold as a freshman to get acclimated to school while playing football.[2] Later, he decided he could not play both, and chose football.[4][6]
In his senior year in 1998, Sailer struggled with his field goals after being bothered for most of the season with a groin injury.[14][15] He suffered the injury during practice when he did not warm up before participating in a kicking duel with a local sports anchorman.[16]
After leaving college, Sailer signed with the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League (NFL), and played for the Los Angeles Dragons of the Spring Football League and four years in the AFL.[17] While still playing, he also ran organized camps and provided private tutoring to high school kickers and punters.[18][19] He started Chris Sailer Kicking in 1999,[20] taking financial losses on his camps to build his client base in pursuit of his goal of forming the first national recruiting camp for kicking specialists at the high school level. He held the first national camp in Las Vegas in 2003, when 125 kickers and punters participated in the presence of 30 NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision coaches.[18]
Sailer's kicking camp became the most prominent in the country.[21] He is routinely contacted by college coaches to assist in identifying potential college recruits for their special teams.[18][22] Players which he identifies as top recruits generally receive scholarships from major football programs.[19] Sailer partnered with former UCLA teammate Chris Rubio, who provides services for long snappers as part of Rubio Long Snapping.[18] Greg Biggins of Scout.com described Chris Sailer Kicking as "pretty much a monopoly".[18] As of 2009[update], Sailer's camps were drawing an estimate of 450 to 500 kickers, punter, and long snappers.[19] By 2014, thirteen of the 32 starting kickers in the NFL had attended his camp.[23]
Sailer is on the selection committee for the Chris Sailer Award, presented annually to the top high school placekicker in the nation.[24][25] The award began in 2011 as part of the Herbalife National High School Football Awards.[24]
