Kicker Lee most reliable weapon for Pitt football

Conor Lee’s high school coach Jim Render calls him “the most consistent thing about the Pitt… Conor Lee’s high school coach Jim Render calls him “the most consistent thing about the Pitt football team over the last two years.”

Lee, Pitt’s starting placekicker, and a graduate of local Upper St. Clair high school, extends his record for consecutive extra points almost weekly.

Last week, he kicked his 71st.

“The main goal for the kicker is to go out there and finish it off for the team,” he said. “You’re the one who goes out there and puts it away. That’s how I look at my job.”

While Lee often refers to kicking as his job, he hopes to own his business someday.

“I don’t know what, though,” he laughed.

Lee will graduate from Pitt in the spring but will be eligible for one more year of play, during which he said he’ll hopefully be at Katz Business School. He’s a business and economics dual major.

He’s putting off studying for the GMATs until after the season, but will take them in March and see what happens.

“I don’t really know what I’m going to do if I’m not in [Katz],” he laughs.

However, he didn’t know what he would do out of high school, either.

Lee had played soccer all his life and had traveled worldwide doing so, but began playing football in his freshman year when Render needed to fill in for an injured kicker.

“If you know the Lees,” Render said, “that’s the kind of challenge that they would thrive on. From midway through his freshman year ’til graduation he was our kicker.”

But that’s not all he did.

“He wound up being a defensive back,” Render said. “When you ask him something he’s not a guy to respond, ‘No, I’m just going to stand over here on the sidelines and wait to kick.'”

The Lee family then had two sons playing side-by-side. Lee’s older brother, Sean, is a linebacker at Penn State.

Render said he knew Lee would be able to make the transition from one sport to another.

“Not all soccer players can kick a football,” he said. “Plus I think the football mentality is a little different. When a football guy kicks the ball, he’s the only one being watched. He’s on an island, so to speak. It requires a physical skill and it requires a mental skill, and Conor has both those.”

From high school Lee received one soccer scholarship to Virginia Tech, but told them he wanted to play football, later receiving only one football offer from Edinboro.

He went to Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia to try to receive more offers and finally, he came to walk on at Pitt just in time for the Fiesta Bowl four years ago.

Lee’s favorite football memory is his first field goal for Pitt.

“Going to military school and not getting recruited at all, and putting a lot of time into to and finally just seeing the results was so fulfilling,” he said. “Military school was just spending every Saturday hoping I could play Division I level, and this is kind of my dream come true.

“Every kick’s like that [first],” he said. “I just take it really seriously. It’s fun to get out there and see the results pay off, but that’s my mindset every week, to not worry about the past.

“I could go out there this week and be 0-5 and be the worst kicker in Pitt history,” he laughs.

With a kicking range of up to 60 yards, although Lee humbly says he’s only done a 55-yard snap-and-hold, that’s one concern he need not have.

But football means more to him than just kicking a ball.

“Make the field goal, make the field goal, win the game – that’s real temporary,” he said. “But if you can affect somebody’s life, that’s permanent – so I try to incorporate that every day.

“Everything I do I just try to feel like the grace of God and how powerful he is, and be a good person,” he said. “Right now that’s a big focus of my life – to try to be a good example to show that through my faith you can do good things and accomplish good things and not cut corners.

“You don’t get many opportunities to be playing football at Division I and be an example for people around the area, and I try to take full advantage of that opportunity.”