Hard to break out of the stereotype: While some fit the mould, others try to do more
by Lowell Ullrich, The Province

The Vancouver Province (British Columbia)
July 20, 2005 Wednesday
Final Edition

Maybe it’s all the fault of Garo Yepremian.

He was the soccer-style Armenian field goal kicker with the NFL’s
Miami Dolphins, who was built like George Costanza and specialized
in making men’s ties.

If football was looking to redefine the typical kicker in the 1970s,
Yepremian didn’t do much to shape the image of his colleagues when
he awkwardly tried to throw a pass in Super Bowl VII off a blocked
field-goal attempt against the Washington Redskins.

Kickers have lived with that stereotype ever since. In the social
hierarchy of most teams, these guys have virtually no status. They are
dismissed by teammates because they are not real athletes, but flakes.

Fair or not, it’s a perception that isn’t changing quickly.

The Lions’ last game against the Toronto Argonauts featured two
kickers who take completely opposite approaches to the job.

Noel Prefontaine set out to change the image of a kicker, then allowed
it to define him. The Toronto kicker/punter is fearless when it comes
to throwing his body at a special teams defenders on kickoffs.

Duncan O’Mahony could care less how fans see him. The Lions specialist
knows his job is to win games when they are on the line, and says he
doesn’t do his team any good if he’s injured trying to make a tackle.

Which approach is best?

Off a recent incident, in which Prefontaine was punched by teammate
Robert Baker on the sidelines, O’Mahony seems to be a leg up.

Baker was incensed, in part, because it was a kicker who engaged him
when he was upset, which caused Prefontaine to alter his outlook.

“Some moulds you can’t break,” Prefontaine told a small group of
reporters. “Out of three people standing here I might change the
opinion of one of you but two are still against me. That’s life. You
don’t get everybody on your side.”

But not everyone feels every book can be judged by its cover.

“It’s lazy journalism and convenient to attach the kicker label to
every kicker,” Toronto coach Mike Clemons said.

Lions coach Wally Buono wouldn’t dream of asking his kicker to make
a tackle, even though O’Mahony made one on his own when he nudged
Bashir Levingston out of bounds last week.

Nor is O’Mahony making an effort to alter prevailing public opinion.

“I sit around in practice. I kick a few balls. I go home. I’m not
beat up. [Other players] beat their bodies up,” he said.

“But when the games are on the line it’s a whole different mental
approach. When we went to the Grey Cup last year too many guys were
like, ‘You may be a kicker but I wouldn’t want to be out there kicking
the winning field goal.’ Well, I don’t want to be out there pounding
my body all game long.”

O’Mahony accepts that any mistake, such as his two misses against
Toronto, means he’s instant fodder for talk-show radio. That said,
Buono made the unsolicited observation that his icy approach with
some media members might aid in shaping his reputation.

“I don’t know how well liked Duncan is,” Buono said.

So Prefontaine will keep trying to make a tackle, and O’Mahony will
likely keep his thoughts to himself the day he sees his colleague
injured.

“I gave up trying to change people’s opinions years ago. It’s a waste
of your energy,” O’Mahony said.

“I know only one way to play. It’s like telling a duck not to swim,”
Prefontaine said. “But regardless of what I’ve done, I’m still
a kicker.”

Blame Garo.