The man who has led the Virginia football team in scoring for the past two years stands just over six feet tall; weighs in at a (comparatively) delicate 204 pounds; and answers to the nickname "Beep."
Think that will intimidate Georgia Tech Saturday? You better believe it will.
You see, Chris Gould (pronounced "Gold") is not used to being the center of attention -- at least not the way he was after the Cavaliers' two-point victory against North Carolina last weekend. In fact it took a record-tying five successful field goals, including a 51-yarder in the first quarter, for the media to notice Gould and his hamstring from heaven. Talk about fairweather friends.
Not since Connor Hughes held target practice at Scott Stadium two years ago has a kicker been able to present coach Al Groh with the game on a silver platter the way Gould did against the Tar Heels. Dialing in from all over the field on a day when junior Cedric Peerman provided the Cavaliers' only touchdown, the senior from Lock Haven, Penn.? kept the Cavaliers one step ahead of Carolina's pass attack down the stretch.
You could almost hear Groh breathe a sigh of relief as Gould's fifth and final kick sailed through the uprights midway through the fourth quarter, allowing the Virginia defense to play like a last-place Pee Wee football team during UNC's final drive and still come out with a win.
While Gould doesn't have a touchdown dance, a mirrored visor or a sweatband on every appendage, the fact remains that ever since taking over the kicking duties for Groh and Co., he has been responsible for more Virginia points than anyone else on the roster. More than Sewell, more than Ogletree? and more than any of the half-dozen Peermans who enjoy hanging out in the Cavalier backfield.
This season alone, Gould's 25 points make up more than half of the team's total -- and this from a kid who must look like a chicken nugget in shoulder pads to most defensive linemen.
Although he may not be used to getting noticed for his understated performance, Gould has been groomed to quietly strike fear into opponents since he could walk.
Born into a family with freakishly strong legs (his father Robert played professional soccer in the 1980s, and his older brother Robbie kicked for the Chicago Bears in the last Super Bowl) the junior Gould grew up competing against the best at home and on the field.
"In our earlier years, we were really competitive," Chris Gould told virginiasports.com earlier this month. "I was always pushing to be better than [my brother] was, and he was pushing to be better than me. I think that's one thing that has really propelled us."
After arriving in Charlottesville, Gould was forced to push himself again, this time against Hughes, a player often considered the best to ever kick at Virginia.
While Hughes was busy setting school career records for points (322), field goals made (66) and attempted (79), and extra points made (134) and attempted (138), Gould took a back seat and played cleanup -- performing any and all foot-related tasks when needed.
This involved shouldering the punting duties in 2005, a year when Gould averaged 40 yards per punt and routinely dropping snaps inside the 20-yard line while Hughes kicked the lights out.
Gould's emergence as a reliable scoring threat for the Cavaliers this season could not have come at a better time. With offensive production all over the map in the team's first three games (Peerman had 18 yards rushing against Wyoming and 137 the next week against Duke), not the mention the offense's tendency to stall inside the red-zone, reliability on the Virginia sideline is hard to find. That's where Gould comes in, serving as Groh's security blanket in a year when a handful of games will surely be decided by three points or less.
If the Cavaliers can count on Gould to put points on the board within a square mile of the goalposts, as he has over the past three games, the team will have an enormous ace in the hole down the stretch (especially in those pesky situations when Mike Groh calls a three-yard swing pass on third and eight).
Oh, and in case you were wondering about the nickname? Although there was a rumor going around that "Beep" was the sound a Volkswagen Beetle made when Gould crushed it with his quadriceps muscle, it turns out the real story is a little tamer.
According to Jay Jenkins of The Daily Progress, Chris's moniker came from a game he used to play with his grandfather when he was young. Back then, the future Wahoo would climb up on the old man's recliner where his grandfather would tap him on the nose and say, "Beep!", causing Chris to tumble down giggling.
Now if that doesn't strike fear into opposing defenses, I'm not sure what will.
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