[10/09/02]The reality for a football kicker is that the pressure of the game can eventually come to rest on a small pair of shoulder pads.

The game lights that had illuminated the field for miles around can seem to focus on the five feet of grass that mark the runway for the deciding field goal. The stands seem to hush to a murmur as the action of the game slows to a crawl.

For anyone that has actually stood in front of the crossbars even from a seemingly paltry distance of 20 yards the kicker’s job would command a little more respect than what is given from the average fan.

But for the kicker, the biggest challenge is not the angle or the distance, but the mental game that precipitates each kick. And no one knows this better than Lake Providence’s Ronnie Bass.

For the 15-year-old Panthers’ first-year kicker, the challenge has always been in his head.

“This is Ronnie Bass’ first year out here trying to play with us, but the main thing is that he came out here after brain surgery,” Panthers coach Calvin Thomas said. “He had a brain tumor, but he wanted to play, so the doctors cleared him to come out and try to be a kicker.”

Bass has been in a constant battle with brain tumors since he was an 8-year-old boy, making the pressure of a field goal seem rather tame in comparison.

This fact doesn’t always ease his mother, Tomazina Bass, who wasn’t excited to have her son throwing himself into one of the most violent sports available to high school boys. But she soon realized how important it was to her son.

“I didn’t want him to play, but he wanted to, and I didn’t want him to think that he couldn’t do what others could,” she said.

Bass has yet to see playing time in his short stint with the Panthers, but with a year of soccer experience under his belt, he has the confidence that he can get the job done when his number is called.

There hasn’t been a game created that could be as difficult as what Bass has been through.

“I don’t know if I was born with the tumor or if it came from a different asthma medicine I was taking, but I’ve had four surgeries for it. Three of them brain surgery and one of them laser surgery. Last surgery I had decreased the size of it,” Bass said. “It’s shrinking, from what they’ve told me, but it’s not all the way gone yet.”

Entrenched in a seven-year battle, Bass has never allowed the tumor, nor the surgeries, to distract him from sports, and he has never allowed anything to get him down.

“The first brain surgery I had, they said I wouldn’t be able to walk and talk, because the first brain tumor was in the center of my brain, but I overcame that,” Bass said. “The last couple ones I had weren’t as bad as the first one, and after the first one, I felt I could do anything after that.”

Even as a boy Bass showed a sense of bravery and resilience that few men could show in the same circumstances.

“He played little league baseball for me when we first found out that he had a brain tumor,” Thomas said. “He played the entire season, and he finished the season.”

A far cry from professional athletes who sit with turf toe and labor disputes.

“I’m just thrilled that he would want to even try to be out here, because we’ve got some people that are able-bodied and don’t want to do anything,” Thomas said. “It’s a blessing for him to even want to try after they cleared him to play.”

Bass has aspirations of being able to help others like so many doctors have helped him along the way. Bass has already earned a half credit in high school with his volunteer work at the East Carroll Parish Hospital, and has plans of going to college and becoming a doctor.

“He wants to be a neurosurgeon,” Tomazina said. “His doctors did so good he wants to help like they helped him.”

And even if Bass doesn’t ever get to line up for a game-winning field goal, his victory comes from the fact that he still has the option to play.

“I just wanted to show everybody that I could do it,” Bass said. “I have the will to do anything and I can overcome anything.”