Mike Daly is in his fourth year as the kicking coach at Norfolk State University. Daly works with the Spartans’ placekickers, punters, holders and long snappers.
Daly has coached three All-MEAC performers in his first three seasons with the program. In 2012, punter Dylan Shaddix earned first-team All-MEAC honors and kicker Everett Goldberg was a second-team selection. Shaddix led the conference with a 40.5-yard average, second-best in school history behind only Brian Evans’ 41.5-yard mark in 1982. Goldberg led the MEAC with 17 touchbacks and booted four field goals over 40 yards, including a long of 51 yards at North Carolina A&T that was just two yards shy of tying the school record.
Daly made an immediate impact in his first year at NSU in 2011. The special teams units were a big factor in the Spartans’ MEAC championship season. Kicker Ryan Estep earned first-team All-MEAC and second-team All-America honors after making a school single-season record 20 field goals in just 22 attempts. Estep and Goldberg, who served as the long-distance specialist, combined to make 26 field goals in 32 attempts, which is also a single-season record for most field goals made by a Spartan team.
Prior to NSU, Daly was a special teams coach at three Chesapeake, Va. high schools from 1994-2010. Daly spent 13 of those years (1996-2008) at Hickory High School, where six of his kickers earned All-Southeastern District honors. One of those was Estep, who was a two-time all-district, All-Tidewater and All-Eastern Region selection. Daly also coached an all-region and all-state punter at Hickory.
After his tenure at Hickory, Daly coached from 2009-10 at Grassfield High School, also in Chesapeake. There, he helped produce two more all-district kickers.
In addition to his coaching experience, Daly was also a juvenile probation officer for 32 years and spent four years in the United States Air Force.
Daly played four years of college football, two years as the punter at San Diego Mesa Junior College and two more as the punter at California State University, Fullerton. At San Diego Mesa, Daly led his junior college conference in punting with a 42.7-yard average during his sophomore year. After finishing his career at Cal State Fullerton, he was offered a free agent tryout with the New Orleans Saints.
Daly earned his bachelor’s degree in behavioral science from Cal State Fullerton in 1972 and his master’s in public administration from Golden Gate University in San Francisco in 1982. He and his wife, Kathleen, reside in Chesapeake. The couple has two adult children, Jimmy and Michelle, and two granddaughters, Natalie and Molly.
