DEL.ICIO.USWHAT EVER HAPPENED TO ... SCOTT SISSON
Ex-Tech player tackles new careerThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/11/08
Scott Sisson once faced a 37-yard field goal with seven seconds remaining to upset the nation's top-ranked team in front of 49,700 screaming fans.
But his toughest crowd?
 JOHNNY CRAWFORD/jcrawford@ajc.com | ||
| Former Georgia Tech kicker Scott Sisson sits with his daughter, Avery, and wife, Beth at home. He also has a son, Connor. Scott Sisson is best known for his clutch, game-winning field goals that propelled Georgia Tech to a national championship in 1990. | ||
 JOHNNY CRAWFORD/jcrawford@ajc.com | ||
| Scott Sission now juggles his own Web site business and playing in a bluegrass band with his father. | ||
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His son's second-grade class on career day.
It seems that in the minds of 7-year-olds, the only thing that can upstage a former Georgia Tech and professional football player is a pilot.
"It's more entertaining when my dad talks. He brings in his model airplane and has all these gadgets," Sisson said of his father, Neal, a former Delta Air Lines pilot. "The kids will say, 'OK so you kick footballs, but tell me about the jets again. Have you ever crashed?' "
Scott Sisson kicked winning field goals in back-to-back weeks to propel Georgia Tech to a share of the 1990 national championship with Colorado.
Today, he owns his own company, Sisson Media Corp., which builds and maintains Web sites for other companies.
At age 37, he lives in a manicured-lawns-cookie-cutter-homes-kind-of-neighborhood in Canton, ironically surrounded by Georgia Bulldogs fans. He married his college sweetheart, Beth, in 1997 and the couple have two children, 8-year-old Connor and 3-year-old daughter Avery.
Connor, already a baseball and basketball player, is about to give his first season of football a try. No word yet if he's going to kick like his dad.
"He is very athletic, but he's very thin and wiry. He doesn't have an ounce of fat on him," Sisson said. "I don't know how he's going to play football, but it's going to be fun to watch."
Sisson converted six game-winning field goals and earned first-team All-America honors in 1992.
After his shining years at Tech, Sisson was drafted by the New England Patriots in the fifth round in 1993. He had mixed emotions about his future because New England had a new coach, Bill Parcells, who was tough on kickers. The town was notoriously known to be tougher.
When Sisson started missing field goals and the Patriots lost by three points or less seven times, it didn't take long for things to snowball.
"I was constantly reading the papers and seeing the bad press," he said. "When you're 21 and you're up there by yourself, the perception is somebody is going to whack me over the head with a baseball bat if I go to the grocery store. ... That's how bad it starts to feel."
He was benched for the last three games and finished the season 14-of-26. Sisson spent the next three years bouncing around teams during preseasons before landing a gig in Minnesota in 1996.
"I didn't really care if I played for 20 years," he said. "I just wanted to have at least one good season to prove to myself that I can do this. I can get through it and have fun with it."
Sisson finished the season with a satisfying 22-of-29 attempts and felt it was time to walk away from the sport.
He worked as a Web consultant for a couple years before joining HomeBanc Mortgage for eight years. He started in sales and then switched to an IT developer. When the company folded in 2007, he decided to venture out on his own with a Web site-building company.
His basement is now an office, a playroom for his kids and a shrine to his playing days. Amid the pirate ships and dollhouses, his NFL and Georgia Tech jerseys are framed on the wall.
There's also the Nov. 12, 1990, Sports Illustrated cover featuring Georgia Tech, and newspaper articles of his game-winning kicks. He inherited most of the memorabilia from his mother, who passed away from an inoperable brain tumor after his NFL rookie season.
He points to a photo and singles out Georgia Tech long snapper Stacy Parker, who he played with all four years.
"He was a walk-on, but he could snap like nobody's business," he said. "I have no idea where he is now. I was in his wedding."
That's what happens when kids become a part of the mix.
In his spare time, Sisson plays guitar in an eight-member bluegrass band along with his father. Ravenwood The Band has played every gig from a Marietta couple's 50th wedding anniversary to the fan pavilion outside of Turner Field. There, they plugged into the loud speakers and he was told afterward that you could hear "Dueling Banjos" blaring while driving on I-75.
Sisson occasionally is recognized and asked to recall his game-winning kick that upset No. 1 Virginia, which now boasts close to 7,800 views on You Tube.
He remembers an assistant coach trying to calm his nerves by telling a joke, only the coach was so flustered himself that he forgot the punch line.
He remembers chewing a piece of gum and thinking that with the national TV cameras around, he had to play it cool on the sideline while Virginia tried to ice him.
He remembers the holder asking the guys in the huddle before the kick what they wanted their national championship rings to look like? One diamond or two?
"I wish I had a camera to film what was going on," he said. "I just didn't appreciate the magnitude of it."
• "What ever happened to ..." is a weekly feature catching up with people and issues in the news. Are you wondering about the fate or fortune of former newsmakers? Tell us who and e-mail dgibson@ajc.com. Please put "what ever happened to" in the reference line.
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