The Halifax Daily News (Nova Scotia)
July 21, 2005 Thursday

A tale of two kickers

Canwest News Service

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 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 opposite approaches to their 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.

Job is to win

Duncan O’Mahony couldn’t 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? Judging from a recent incident, in which
Prefontaine took a shot from teammate Robert Baker on the sidelines,
O’Mahony seems to be a leg up.

Baker was incensed 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 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 would not 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.

Will keep trying

“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 to way. 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.