Alan Pringle
Alan Keith Pringle is a Venezuelan-born former American football placekicker who played one game in the National Football League for the Detroit Lions. Born in Venezuela, he played college football for the Rice Owls and was also a member of the Houston Oilers and New England Patriots.
Early and personal life
Pringle was born on January 20, 1952, in Los Taques, Venezuela, and spent his early years in Caracas. His parents were from England. He later moved to England, where he attended Rugby High School. He grew up playing soccer and rugby. Pringle is, along with fellow placekicker Pat Ragusa, José Borregales, and Andrés Borregales, one of only four Venezuelan-born National Football League players. Pringle married Ann Dillard in 1974.College career
Pringle later moved to the United States to attend Rice University. As a freshman at Rice in 1970, he was noticed by an assistant coach for the Rice Owls football team, who saw him kicking a soccer ball at a P.E. class. He was invited to tryout for the team and "was shown a football and told to kick it through the uprights." He recalled "That was on a Tuesday. On Thursday I kicked for some more coaches and on Friday I was playing against Wharton Junior College in a JV game."Pringle's first appearance was the first American football game he had ever seen. "They told me when someone yelled 'touchdown' I was supposed to go in and kick," he said. He showed inexperience in his first game, however, mistiming his kickoffs and wearing backwards hip pads. He later improved and set a school record for the freshman team that year with a 48-yard field goal.
Pringle made the varsity team for the 1971 season but was dismissed from the team early on for disciplinary reasons. By that point, he had made all five extra point attempts and tied the school record with a 48-yard field goal. Afterwards, Pringle dropped out of school for a year. During this time, he said that he just "piddled around" and "was living on crackers and peanut butter." In 1973, he returned to Rice and was given another chance on the football team. He was the team's top kicker for the 1973 and 1974 seasons, setting a school-record with a 50-yard field goal in the latter year. Pringle concluded his career at Rice having made 27 of 28 extra point attempts and 20 of 29 field goal attempts. He was invited to the Coaches All-America Game where he set the all-star game's record with a 54-yard field goal.