The NIU soccer team’s all-time second-leading goal scorer hopes to make some different types of goals come next fall.

Willy Roy Jr., a senior who led the 1990 soccer team to the Mid-Continent Conference crown, decided to come back to NIU for graduate school and to kick field goals and kick-offs for NIU football coach Charlie Sadler.

Roy Jr. tallied 33 goals, 43 assists for 109 points in his four-year career.

“I messed around with (a football) before, but it was never anything serious,” he said.

But Roy Jr., who was snubbed in the Major Soccer League draft last February, doesn’t see any big difference between a soccer ball and a football. “(A football) is a soccer ball with two points, that’s about it.”

An advantage to kicking a field goal is “there is no limit on how high you can kick it,” he said. “In soccer there’s a cross bar at the top.”

Roy Jr. said NIU assistant football coach Russ Graham asked if he was interested in kicking for the team.

“He’s got a strong leg,” said Graham. “There’s a big transition between kicking a soccer ball and a football. Some guys can do it and some guys can’t. We’re going to work him out this spring and see how it goes.”

Although Roy Jr. used up his four years of soccer eligibility, Dr. Robert Brigham, a special assistant in compliance and eligibility, said Roy Jr. could participate in football because an athlete has five years to complete four years of eligibility in every sport.

Since Roy Jr. completed four years of eligibility in soccer in four years, Brigham said Roy Jr. has one year of eligibility in football.