Coaching for kicks: 4th Down University founder Dan Lundy fills the void coaching football's specialists

Lundy offers his expertise coupled with cutting-edge technology to kickers, punters and snappers.

  • By Michele Meyers
  • | 3:00 p.m. July 24, 2026
  • Ormond Beach Observer
  • Sports
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In 2004, Dan Lundy was a senior kicker for the University of Miami football team. His career had been plagued by an inner adductor injury sustained during a warm-up for a game against Boston College. He kept reaggravating it and tore it again the following spring. By that point, he hated football.

One Sunday afternoon, roommate and Hurricanes punter Freddie Capshaw asked Lundy to be the kicking coach at a youth clinic in South Florida. Lundy told Capshaw he would go but only once. He went more than once and never looked back. For 23 years since then, he has been coaching kickers, punters and snappers.

“I did it reluctantly, and I fell in love (with coaching),” Lundy said. “I think my mission shortly after that was, if I could have done it all over again, how would I fill the voids? That defines who I am. I was always given gray answers (as a kicker). I never really had a good process. I never really knew how to talk to myself. No one ever told me not to focus on others’ performances. These things add up.”

Lundy played soccer at Seabreeze High School his freshman year, when Sebastian Janikowski, a soccer player-turned-NFL kicker, was a senior. They played one soccer season together. He watched as Janikowski turned down a multi-million dollar offer to play professional soccer with San Lorenzo of Argentina’s First Division, opted to be a kicker on the Florida State University football team, and was a first-round NFL draft pick by the Oakland Raiders in 2000.

“That appealed to me,” Lundy said. “Because of him, I got to train in the summers. He’d come to the Ormond Beach Sports Complex; that was our training ground … It was just really surreal because he was a hero to me. I didn’t think there was anyone better in the NFL at the time, and then he proved it to me.”

Lundy transferred to Mainland in the spring of his junior year, where he played football and soccer. He was getting offers to kick at big Division I football schools, offers to play soccer at Division II schools, and from larger schools in the north, where Lundy said the cold weather was a deterrent. He graduated in 2000, then attended UM, where he double-majored in finance and management with a minor in English.

Then Mainland assistant coach and former Daytona Beach mayor Bud Asher became Lundy’s mentor when he moved home in 2006. Lundy started working at Mainland, where he taught Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) courses. He took over Asher’s position as Mainland's special teams coach.

“I used to go eat with Bud on Tuesday nights, pretty much till the end,” Lundy said. “He was getting pretty rough with health, but he lived on Riverside Drive and just lived a great life. Coach was around football for 61 years.”

The Bud Asher football camp was founded by Lundy in 2014, while working with One On One Kicking, in memory of Asher following his death in 2013. Lundy said the camp was sponsored by adidas and grew so large that one year, over 500 kids attended.

He continued to work with One On One Kicking until he officially launched his business, 4th Down University, in 2016. Lundy retired from teaching in the fall of 2019 before in-school instruction was shut down due to COVID-19. The Bud Asher football camp did not survive.


One thing I know for a fact is that I’ve changed people’s lives. I’ve really made an impact with not only the athletes but the parents. Do I think I’m a good businessman? ... No. I’m a good football coach.
—DAN LUNDY

Transitioning from teaching to coaching was tough, Lundy said. He started a podcast and did a myriad of things to get his name out to the public, including clinics. Coaching coaches, he discovered, was definitely his niche.

“I tried to get my name in the hat at these big clinics,” Lundy said. “Finally someone bit on a big clinic. You give me 51 minutes on the stage. I get a PowerPoint, and I get to have a football and grab someone out of the audience to model good behavior versus bad. I killed it.”

Lundy currently offers private, semi-private, virtual, and small group training for kickers, punters, and snappers through 4th Down University. His website scrolls the message: “we’re all about instruction, details, and preparation,” and Lundy backs it with extensive knowledge and technology.

“Football has gotten exponentially smarter, and that’s what I’m more concerned with,” he said. “I don’t want you to think I have a strong opinion; I want you to know that I’ve done the due diligence and research enough to know that this is objectively the best decision in this situation.”

Trackman football analytics are part of Lundy’s on-site training. Trackman technology uses Doppler radar to track ball flight in real-time. For kickers and punters, the system provides data on metrics such as ball velocity, launch angle, hang time, spin rate and apex height.

Recently, Lundy teamed up with Bethune-Cookman University football coach Raymond Woodie Jr. to train the team’s punter, Isaac Gallagher, long snapper Cole Hash and new kicker Ryder Goodwin. Lundy held a small-group training session for the specialists, which also included Albany State University long snapper and Seabreeze alumnus James Lyons, as well as Cypress Creek kicker Keenan Santiago.

Santiago started playing soccer at age 4 and has been kicking for his high school team for a year. Lafayette kicker Jack Simonetta, who was trained by Lundy, got Santiago interested in 4th Down University.

“I went to one of our football games and said, ‘This kicker sucks. I can do so much better,” Santiago said. “I showed up to one of the spring practices, and the coach said, ‘This kid can kick.”

He quit soccer and started playing football full time. He said that in training with Lundy, he has gotten a lot quicker off his punts and is working on his kickoff tempo.

“I’m trying to go to Lundy as much as I can to get ready for my senior season,” Santiago said. “I like how his sessions are strict but fun. He’s a nice guy, but he wants to help you improve. It was cool having the B-CU guys out here.”

Matanzas High School graduate Cole Hash is B-CU’s long snapper.

“We have to tone everything down to each minute and fine detail to the point where it can sometimes be stressful,” Hash said. “But that’s why I come out here daily and rep it.”

Lundy said the one thing missing from his career was guidance. He said he is determined to change that for specialty teams everywhere.

“One thing I know for a fact is that I’ve changed people’s lives,” he said. “I’ve really made an impact with not only the athletes but the parents. Do I think I’m a good businessman? ... No. I’m a good football coach.”

Lundy resides in Ormond Beach with his wife, Aryana, and their children, Blake, Leighton and Max.

 

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