Raiders’ King began punting just for kicks

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The Raiders are thankful that Marquette King didn’t kill time in front of the television set or hanging out with friends as a kid in Macon, Ga. The story of how a high school receiver turned into one of the NFL’s top punters starts with a typical teenager malady.

“I got bored,” King said.

“I was always running routes, and trying to get the quarterbacks to come out and throw the ball with me. And nobody wanted to come out,” King said. “I got bored of running routes all the time. So, I started kicking the ball.”

He would kick it down the field. Walk. Get it. Kick it back. And again.

“Then I got tired of walking to school just to run routes and kick the ball to myself, so I started kicking it in my backyard,” King said. “I started trying to kick it over this ditch. About 30 yards away.”

He eventually got the ball over the ditch. Which was pretty fun for a while.

“So I just kept kicking knuckleballs into the neighbor’s yard. And then one day, it spiraled. So I tried to get it to always spiral. Then I started aiming for over the trees.”

Oakland Raiders' Marquette King reacts to a long punt in 1st quarter against Arizona Cardinals in preseason game at O.co Coliseum in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2015. Oakland Raiders' Marquette King reacts to a long punt in 1st quarter against Arizona Cardinals in preseason game at O.co Coliseum in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2015. Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Raiders’ King began punting just for kicks 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

And now, King is aiming for the corner of the field, booming high punts that have helped turn around games and led to Oakland wins in Denver and over San Diego last month.

King was named the AFC Special Teams Player of the Week on Wednesday after dropping six punts inside the 20 in last week’s win over the Chargers. The fourth-year punter had kicks for 400 yards (50.0 gross average, with a net of 49.8). including a 65-yarder.

“I think he’s a young player that is gaining confidence,” Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio said. “He is certainly still developing. He is a player that has a lot of raw talent that is still refining himself. He should have room to grow and continue to ascend as a player in this league, but he’s done a nice job.”

King set a franchise record with his 39th punt inside the opponent’s 20 this season. That’s the eighth most in a season in NFL history (the statistic became official in 1976).

And it’s all because the new coach at Rutland High asked the players who could punt, and it just so happened that the backup receiver was clearing trees behind his house.

King would go to Fort Valley State as a receiver/punter/film guy.

“I used to go up in those towers and shoot practice and games my freshman year,” King said. “It was kind of fun, because I got to watch and figure out how everything ran and worked. Just like my first year here.”

In 2012, the Raiders signed King as an undrafted free agent and were awed enough by the power of his leg that they stashed him on injured reserve for a year. Even though they had seven-time Pro Bowl punter Shane Lechler.

“Man, he was good,” King said. “Shane gave me confidence. We were sitting around at training camp one day and he told me I had one of the strongest legs he’s seen. I was trying to keep a straight face but in my mind, I was like, ‘Oh, snap!’

“I knew then that I could be really good at this.”

That year, King learned how to change from a two-handed to a one-handed drop from special-teams coach Steve Hoffman. The next year, the Raiders didn’t re-sign Lechler and the job was King’s once he beat out Chris Kluwe.

There wasn’t a lot of subtlety to King’s punting game back then.

“I just wanted to kick bombs every time,” he said.

Jamie Kohl, the director of Kohl’s Kicking, Punting and Snapping Camps, and new Raiders special-teams coach Brad Seely have been drilling it into King’s head that layups are good, too.

“Jamie would tell me that if I really wanted to be a good punter, I had to learn directional stuff,” King said. “I would tell him that I didn’t want to do that. I just wanted to blast it down the middle. But we started setting up cones and kicking the ball to them.”

Seely, meanwhile, picks King apart on video, but in the nicest way possible.

“Great punt, but you took a long step,” King says, in his best Seely voice. “Great punt, but your leg crossed over. Great punt, but your foot came over your left eye.”

Kohl is blown away by how much better King is since he first arrived at an offseason camp in 2010.

“He came out of Nowhere, Georgia, a piece of clay, but you could see his upside,” Kohl said. “How important punting was in his life.”

Every offseason since then, King travels with Kohl’s camps on their tours of Texas, California and the Midwest.

“The kids love having him there,” Kohl said.

And now it’s not only for the big, booming punts and the mischievous smile. They can learn from one of the best punters in the game.

“He used to have one big golf club in his bag, and now he was a whole bunch of clubs,” Kohl said. “His ‘A’ ball is one of the top five in the NFL, but he’s learned the importance of coffin-corner kicks, and putting his team in better position to win.”

King will be a free agent after this season and though he hopes to return to the Raiders, he said he doesn’t think about it much, either.

And though he’s following orders from Seely to save his leg and not kick on his own anymore, King still lets his mind wander back to his high school and college days when he was free to do what he wanted.

“Some guys would go out and party and drink,” King said. “I would sneak to the stadium and hit the lights and kick balls. I used to get in trouble for doing that, but I didn’t care. I was in my own little world.

“Trying to kick the ball as high and as far as I could.”

Vic Tafur is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vtafur@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VicTafur