We've all been misspelling Seattle kicker Steven Hauschka's name for years

Seattle Seahawks kicker Steven Hauschka is fairly well-known by NFL fans. He’s owned in 61 percent of Yahoo fantasy leagues. He has kicked in 106 regular-season games and appeared in two Super Bowls. And Hauschka is one of the NFL’s best, hitting 87 percent of his career field-goal attempts.

He’s not Russell Wilson, but Hauschka is relatively famous.

And in one of the weirder NFL stories you’ll find, it turns out we’ve all been misspelling his name this entire time. He never bothered to get it fixed.

The Seattle Times’ Bob Condotta wrote about the strange and hilarious tale. Hauschka appeared on a “Why Not Me Pets’’ segment on KCPQ-13 in Seattle. In most situations, reporters will ask people to spell their names, but that usually doesn’t apply when talking to someone famous. It’s easy to look up Hauschka’s name, if you don’t know it already. But the KCPQ cameraman did ask for some reason, and Hauschka told him: “S-T-E-P-H-E-N.”

Steven Hauschka's name has been misspelled by everyone his entire NFL career (AP)
Steven Hauschka’s name has been misspelled by everyone his entire NFL career (AP)

Wait, so all these years … ? Yep. Steven Hauschka is actually Stephen Hauschka.

Hauschka told Condotta that it dated back to when he enrolled at N.C. State in 2007 for his final college season, after spending the first part of his college career at Division III Middlebury (Vt.) College. N.C. State misspelled his first name. Hauschka didn’t want to make a scene.

“I never really said anything about it,’’ Stephen not Steven Hauschka said. “I was like the third kicker on the roster, the fourth kicker, when I started out. So I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to be a pain.’’

And at each additional stop along his football career – and there were a few, before he finally settled in as Seattle’s kicker in 2011 – he never corrected anyone when he arrived, even though Stephen is still what it says on his driver’s license. Hauschka said he actually told the Seahawks last year but they didn’t change it in any of their materials, which is fine. He’ll keep going by Steven, thank you.

“It’s my stage name,” Hauschka told Condotta. “Leave it that way.”

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!