Wile Continues Michigan Family Lineage
10/17/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- It's been awhile since there has been a Wile who didn't matriculate to the University of Michigan.
Wolverine placekicker Matt Wile's connection goes back to the late 19th century, when his great-great-grandfather, Julius Wile, graduated from the Michigan Medical School.
Matt Wile, the Big Ten's co-Special Teams Player of the Week after hitting three field goals Saturday against Penn State, has made it five consecutive generations of Wiles at Michigan.
His great-grandfather, Udo, helped establish the Department of Dermatology and was a professor and chairman. He's buried along with his wife, Katharine, on a hill in the northeast corner of Forest Hill Cemetery near the Nichols Arboretum.
In the distance, the U-M Medical Center that Udo couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams has risen. And a short walk away from his tombstone is the final resting place of the first great coach of the Wolverines, Fielding H. Yost.
"Udo went to Johns Hopkins and was a professor here for 25 or 30 years," Matt said. "My dad, during my freshman year, we were walking around the cemetery and found it. We found my great-grandfather. And it was like, 'Hey, four tombstones over, that's Yost there. Wow!'"
His grandfather, David, and father, Peter, continued the family line by graduating from the Michigan Medical School. David moved his family to San Diego when Peter was a young boy, and that's where Matt was raised.
"I come from a long line of doctors," Wile said. "All of the family is related to the medical schools except me. I'm just engineering -- a fifth-generation 'Michigan Man,' but I'm ending the four generations of Michigan doctors."
And yet, had Brady Hoke not replaced Rich Rodriguez as coach while Wile was being recruited, he would have broken the family line at Michigan because Rodriguez was not recruiting Wile.
"He's a very intelligent guy," Hoke said of Wile, "and his dad was our team physician at San Diego State. He was the orthopedist for the team, and we were recruiting the heck out of Matt to go to San Diego State. And we obviously, when we came to Michigan, recruited the heck out of him to come to Michigan.
"Matt would come over to practices, and he played (linebacker) at Francis Parker (High), too. You just knew that he was a guy who was athletic and was a soccer player. It was the fact that he had a really strong leg."
His longest kick for the Wolverines was a 52-yarder at the Outback Bowl during his sophomore season, and his longest this year is a 45-yarder against Penn State. He's made seven of his last eight attempts after missing three of his first four and has found his groove.
Wile said, "I was trying to think about what I had to do too much instead of going out there and kicking. I would think about the hold and everything instead of just getting out there and kicking and trusting Kenny (Allen) to get a good hold and Scott (Sypniewski) to get a good snap. That's been the biggest change. Now, when I go out I'm not really worried about it at all. I was over-thinking it.
"I make sure I keep my abs tight when I kick. If I keep my abs tight at the point of contact, I tend to hit the ball real smooth, and I hit the ball very cleanly. And I try to think only about the kick in front of me; not the ones in the past. Regardless of what I've done in the past, there's nothing I can do to change it. If I missed one, I'm not going to tie myself in knots over it. Now, I'm just going out there and having fun. I'm not nervous at all. I'm relaxed, and I trust myself."
Now he has the focus to go with that strong leg, which he realized he had at a very young age.
"They used to have me take the goal kicks in soccer," Wile said. "And when I kicked it, the other goalie came out, and I kicked it over his head and into the goal. Now, when you are eight, the field is only about 50 yards long."
Still, he was kicking soccer balls half the length of a football field as a third-grader.
"So, the next day my dad went out and bought one of those three-pronged, orange football kicking tees," Wile said. "He said to take three steps back and two steps over and kick it through the goal post. After a couple of tries, I went 20-for-20 on PATs."
He worked with an accomplished kicking coach, Lance Ortega, at 12. And as a high school senior, Wile made 10-of-13 field goals with the longest being a 49-yarder and was invited to the prestigious U.S. Army All-American Game in San Antonio as a punter.
Wile has hit a 67-yard field goal with a one-inch tee and booted a 63-yarder at a Northwestern camp. He believes 59 yards is makeable with a slight tailwind and feels comfortable at 55 yards with no wind.
Both of his legs are strong, and he's made a 40-yarder left-footed.
His longest at Michigan is a 52-yarder, and he's averaged 40.1 yards per punt while placing one-third of his efforts inside the 20-yard line. Though, Will Hagerup has returned as the punter this season.
Wile said he visited San Diego State and Air Force before coming to Michigan and committing. He canceled trips to Nebraska and Washington.
"My dad comes to all of my games," Wile said, "and he helps out at San Diego State however he can. But he's on a four-year hiatus from the football team. He still does surgery, and he gets in athletes during the week. But his partner has kind of taken over all of it while he's doing this with me. But he still helps out during basketball season.
"My freshman year, when we played (Michigan), they ran over to the San Diego State bench looking for my dad. They said, 'Where's Dr. Wile? Where's Dr. Wile?' But he was up in the stands wearing maize and blue. They were just laughing. My dad loves this; he's a huge fan. He didn't really try to sway me during the recruiting process, but he would say, 'You know, Michigan is a really good school.' Then he would slow down his speech, 'It's realllly goood.' "
Wile chuckled as he recalled that.
In 2004, when San Diego State visited Ann Arbor, Matt got on the Michigan Stadium field during the Friday walk-through for the Aztecs and kicked a 20-yard field goal. Little did he know that it would someday be his home stadium.
But when you learn of his family history, it's hard to imagine Wile anywhere else.
