Nick Lowery’s Scottsdale house feels like an NFL museum. Chiefs red everywhere, alongside mementos from his years with the Jets and Patriots. The walls showcase career milestones, gleaming game balls, and the honors he’s most proud of including the NFL Players Association’s Byron “Whizzer” White Award, the league’s highest humanitarian honor, and the Golden Toe Award for being the best Kicker or Punter in the NFL. But there’s also the US Jaycees Ten Outstanding Young Americans award won by JFK and Elvis. It’s a living archive of a man who carved his place in football history, yet Nick himself is quick to steer the conversation away from trophies and toward legacy, purpose, and giving back.
He walks in with a presence that announces history: championship ring on his finger, a pendant that sparkles, and a lifetime of stories that follow him into the room.
“Patrick Mahomes’ mom has one (of my pendant necklaces),” he says with a grin, recalling a recent sideline exchange. “Then Patrick’s dad looked at mine and said, ‘I need one too… but not with the eight, your number. I want 15.’”
He sells the piece for $350 on his Foundation website, and proceeds go directly to his Champions for the Homeless program, providing clothing, necessities, flowers, food, and beyond to what he calls “our homeless brothers and sisters at St. Vincent de Paul.”
And the bling continues.
About the ring on his finger, he is precise.
“The closest I got was with a guy named Joe Montana in the AFC Championship game when another guy named Bruce Smith gave Joe his worst concussion ever,” he recalls. “Later, this ring was offered to me as the all-time scorer for the Chiefs after we finally ended a 50-year wait. I sat and watched us win that Super Bowl, and this became a symbol; not just of the team’s victory, but of the generations of players who fought for, suffered for, sacrificed for, and in the end, triumphed into this golden era where the Kansas City Chiefs have taken over as America’s team.”
The throughline of his life is persistence.
“In the two years where I tried out with multiple NFL teams 11 times; I went from being scared to death in my first game with the New England Patriots on national TV against the Oakland Raiders, to beating out the greatest kicker in history, Jan Stenerud.”
Nick walked away from “a wonderful job as one of the only 2 non-attorneys on the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, working for Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon on aviation safety and deregulation.”
Why?
“Because I owed it to myself to try one more time, and on the 12th attempt, it finally worked. The Chiefs gave me my first bonus: $2,500. After two years of rejection, I had paid my dues and was finally ready... strong enough, physically and mentally, to go head-to-head every day for four weeks with my idol, Jan Stenerud, who would go on to become the first placekicker inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. From there, I went on to play 18 years, setting records for accuracy, career field goals, and 50-yarders.”
The lesson lands plainly: “In two years, with dedication, focus, and a lot of persistence, unbelievable things can be achieved. Persistence, focus and courage are king.”
However, Arizona is home.
“I’ve been here now… the beginning of my 30th year.”
Nick remembers the moment it clicked: “I came to Arizona for the Super Bowl in ‘96. It was 75 degrees in early February, orange blossoms in the air, and that was it.”
His Arizona years brought proximity to greatness.
“A guy named Muhammad Ali moved in next door when I lived in Cheney Estates,” he says, and the stories come tumbling out. Like the time he drove Ali to the 2009 NBA All-Star Game and watched the entire locker room; Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Tim Duncan, Yao Ming, Kobe Bryant, Amare Stoudemire... all grinning like kids meeting their hero. Or the moment during the game when he found himself just a few rows behind Ali, sitting alongside Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
For Nick, those moments underscored a theme: “The great celebrities I’ve been lucky to meet… they are so at peace and at ease with who they are. They’re just people first.”
And now, Nick is putting his memoir to paper, in his upcoming book: Naked and Alone with 80,000 People.
“As a kicker in the NFL, I often feel vulnerable and exposed. It’s the single most pressured position in sports, and in those moments, managing yourself becomes absolutely essential. Everyone remembers even if you only miss one all season. “
He can still clock the mechanics in his sleep.
“It’s snapped back in .80 seconds… put down and spun in 0.2 tenths of a second… you have literally under 0.2 tenths of a second, probably 0.1 tenth of a second when the ball’s not spinning to see it and kick it… and you have 11 people 21 feet away, earning almost $5 million each… to block your kick.”
The metaphor widens: “Kicking is a great analogy for all these moments of truth in our lives.” Waiting on the sidelines, never knowing when our time comes…
And for losses, the discipline is the point: “Even at 80%, an all-time record at the time, you sometimes still miss. The Lesson is to learn and then move on… flush it down to your mental toilet.”
The compass of his life was set early by his parents.
“My dad was Chief of Station for the CIA in London; an expert on Russia and Eastern Europe.”
His mother “grew up in Cairo, Egypt… moved back to England at 13; her father passed away when she was 14. She was in the first full class of women at Oxford. As she spoke the best German in England, she was sent at the end of the war to question Hitler’s record keepers in Berlin.”
A decade after her death, he learned: “My mother had kept a dark secret: before the end of the war she was sent to document the death camps, like in Dachau near Munich, Germany, where I was born. I will be speaking against Anti-semitism in Munich this month."
Nick tears up when he speaks of his parents.
“They were married 57 years. I was extremely lucky to have parents that loved each other so deeply.”
Childhood also meant remarkable neighbors.
“On the day we moved into 6803 Hampshire Road, a guy named Justice Byron White moved in next door. He was the newest Supreme Court Justice and probably the greatest football player in the land. He led the NFL in rushing twice for Pittsburgh and later for Detroit, and finished number one at Yale Law School.”
The effect on young Nick was clear: “He inspired me to aim higher – even the NFL.”
Today, his life off the field reflects the same lessons that shaped him on it.
First, there’s Project Max, a mission to fight racism, antisemitism, hate and intolerance through sports. Through Project Max, Nick “toured Auschwitz and the Warsaw Ghetto,” and visited “the kibbutz that was overrun during the NOVA music festival attack.”
Here at home, Champions for the Homeless is his heartbeat.
“We serve, on average, 1,000 homeless brothers and sisters at St. Vincent de Paul in downtown Phoenix providing clothes, gift certificates, haircuts, even flowers. But most of all, we offer the deepest kind of human love. As St. Vincent de Paul has humbly taught me, there is no difference between the giver and the receiver.”
But the heart of it is not the material. “Look that person right in the eye and say… you are loved and you’re not forgotten.”
He calls St. Vincent de Paul “the best-run nonprofit in the Southwest, if not anywhere,” and what moves him most isn’t the numbers, but the people.
On Thanksgiving morning, Nick and a crew of his NFL friends- teammates and rivals alike- along with 200 remarkably big-hearted volunteers unite to pay it forward. They show up in their jerseys to serve meals, play music, hand out clothing, and remind each person they are seen. For Nick, that’s the real meaning of the holiday. “That’s Thanksgiving, that’s the music of life,” he says.
And yet, football images stay vivid.
“To look up after kicking a game-winning field goal, and see teammates like Derrick Thomas, Marcus Allen and Joe Montana make the field goal 'its good!' gesture, almost 80,000 people standing up in red and then seeing all my teammates running at me to share in the moment as a TEAM… those are the finest memories I’ll never forget.”
The line that centers him is one he wrote years ago: “It’s not the brightness of the spotlight on you, but it’s the intensity of the light within you.”
Purpose, he says, is a practice.
“Just keep asking yourself, what is my purpose in this world? Who am I playing for? What are my gifts? Align your golden soulful compass and stick with it. Consistency in personal growth and purpose is literally the painting of your own life’s masterpiece.”
nicklowery.com