Player Spotlight: Logan Laratta, K | Written By St. John Fisher Athletics Communications Student Assistant Nic Bakker
After 15 years of kicking soccer balls, Logan Laratta expanded his horizons. Wanting to play at the next level, Laratta admitted that he “didn’t know if soccer was going to work out.”
So, the summer going into his senior year at Landstown High School in Virginia Beach, Va., Laratta began kicking footballs instead.
“I was just like, why not?” he said. “Football is fun, I enjoy watching it all the time, so I was like, kicking might be pretty easy.”
The biggest issue that Laratta ran into in this transition was not only inexperience, but the small number of local kicking coaches to turn to for guidance. He improvised by teaching himself.
“After trying out and making it (on the football team), I just watched a lot of videos on YouTube, set up a camera to compare myself with the people in them, and it kind of just took off from there,” he said.
Soccer gave him a feel for striking the ball, but kicking required a new technique. Laratta would review videos, take notes and tinker with his approach at practice. If one tip didn’t work, he moved on to another.
At the midway point of the season, his coaches eventually saw enough potential to bring college coaches to watch him.
“I didn’t really think anything of it,” Laratta said. “I thought what I was doing was just basic stuff, I was just kicking the ball and didn’t see it as anything too hard. If anything, I thought it was fun.”
Laratta had only attempted three field goals at this point in his senior year; the majority of his work came through extra points and kickoffs. With the minimal amount of data he had to provide, he was viewed through a different lens.
“When coaches came to see me, I really made a point of emphasizing my attitude, my coachability, and what I offer off the field, academically speaking,” he said.
St. John Fisher stood out to him because he wanted his college experience to mean something more than on-field activities. He had opportunities closer to home in Virginia Beach but valued Fisher’s business school and its focus on education. The distance, nearly 10 hours from home, was daunting. Talking it through with his parents helped him take the step.
“I need to know both sides of it,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s a student-athlete.”
Laratta spent most of his early time at Fisher behind other kickers, adjusting to a much stricter routine than what he was used to and wondering if he was ever going to get an opportunity to prove his worth.
Former St. John Fisher kicker Kyle Farewell served as Laratta's most influential mentor in his freshman year and helped him stay with it.
“He set the tone for me,” Laratta said. “Being a freshman in training camp and having no one to lean on, him bringing me under his wing was what settled me in.”
Laratta still talks to Farewell to this day and said that he has gone to his house for Thanksgiving on a couple of occasions.
The trust he built with teammates eventually gave him the confidence to succeed. Last season, he made all three of his field goal attempts and all 12 extra points. He enters St. John Fisher’s Week 8 road matchup against No. 11/12 SUNY Cortland having made eight consecutive field goals since the end of last season, the longest streak of successful attempts in program history. Earlier this season, in a 30-10 road win over St. Lawrence, he drilled a career-long 40-yard field goal as time expired in the first half. It’s a kick he will remember for the muddy grass and St. Lawrence’s attempt to ice him with a timeout before the attempt.
“They tried to ice me. I thought it was funny because I was like, ‘I don’t think that’s going to work,’” Laratta said. “So I turned around to the sideline, smiled, and everyone stormed the field after the kick because that was the attitude we were trying to maintain.”
Keeping himself and his holders engaged on the sideline is something that he prioritizes within his routine as well. “If you’re not in the game, you’re not really in the game,” he said.
That focus extends beyond football. Laratta completed a summer internship with a financial firm and hopes to pursue investment banking after graduation, with a possible opportunity in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Balancing work, his studies and football has helped him build the consistency and time management he expects to need in his career.
From watching YouTube videos of kicking in his backyard — having the ability to play back moments an infinite number of times — Laratta now focuses on living in the moment, with the same routine and a strong level of trust with his teammates.
