Panthers’ Gano aiming to make Scotland proud
Jan 24, 2016; Charlotte, NC, USA; Carolina Panthers kicker Graham Gano (9) celebrates a field goal during the first quarter against the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC Championship football game at Bank of America Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 24, 2016; Charlotte, NC, USA; Carolina Panthers kicker Graham Gano (9) kicks a field goal during the first quarter against the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC Championship football game at Bank of America Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports
SAN FRANCISCO — Jim Fassel is telling a story and it’s, well, beyond fantastic:
“It was 2002 and I was coaching the New York Giants and I cut our kicker early in the season. So we pick up another kicker, a real little guy, and a few weeks later he makes a game-winning field goal for us against Seattle on the last play at home. Everyone is going crazy and jumping all over him and the stadium erupts. I give the guy the game ball and everything.
“So after all the celebrating, (defensive end) Keith Hamilton comes up to me and says, ‘Coach, is that guy our kicker? I thought he was the equipment manager. I’ve been handing him my dirty laundry every day for weeks and he didn’t say anything.’ Keith was oblivious to anything but the 2-gap. A bomb could go off and he would be like, ‘What was that?’ The kicker was Matt Bryant, who has been with Atlanta now for years.
“Moral of the story is, I’ve been around a lot of kickers, and the best ones are the stable ones, the guys who if you were hanging out in a locker room, you wouldn’t know they were the kicker.
“Graham Gano was like that for us. A real good guy. A stable guy.”
The United Football League existed between 2009-12, during which Fassel coached the Las Vegas Locomotives to two championships before the league ceased operations four weeks into a fourth season for all the standard reasons of frequent interruptions stemming from systemic financial shortfalls.
Translation: The money ran out.
Or, put another way, really rich guys stopped writing checks.
But before its inevitable fall, the league gave hope to several players dreaming of parlaying UFL experience into an NFL dream. Gano was one.
On Sunday at Levi’s Stadium, nearly seven years after scoring the UFL’s first points and later making the field goal that would win Las Vegas its initial championship, he will again try and earn a title.
This one in Super Bowl 50.
Gano is Carolina’s kicker and far removed from those days in Las Vegas, where Fassel gave him a chance after the former Lou Groza Award winner out of Florida State was cut by both the Ravens and Redskins.
“I definitely remember making that (championship kick for the Locos),” Gano said. “Right after it, I thought one of my teammates was going to break my leg because he hit me so hard. That was a fun year in Las Vegas, a great opportunity for me to get my confidence back. We had young guys on that team, veterans, everyone was just having fun. You got the love of the game back.”
He was born in Scotland, the son of an American naval officer, and as you might expect, grew up playing a more popular form of football. But then his family returned to the states for his high school years and Gano’s soccer skills moved to the football field.
It’s hardly ever a smooth journey for NFL kickers. Coaches have little patience for misses. There is always someone ready to be picked up.
But time has seemed to benefit Gano, now in his fourth season with the Panthers and having last year signed a contract extension worth $12 million. He led the league in touchback percentage in 2013 and 2014 and has scored a career-best 146 points this year. He is perfect on all three playoff field-goal attempts and 30-for-36 on the season.
There isn’t a kicker who hasn’t dreamed of it, who at one time or another growing up didn’t line it up in the back yard, who hasn’t closed his eyes and imagined approaching the attempt that what would win a Super Bowl.
Not a kicker alive.
“I’ve been thinking about that since I first started playing,” Gano said. “I am hoping for it, so hopefully it does come down to that. I don’t get nervous. I used to get nervous earlier in my career, but not now. I think you only get nervous if you aren’t prepared.”
It’s traditional for players with foreign roots to carry their country’s flag as the national anthem is performed at the Super Bowl, and Gano will indeed fly the Salitire for millions to see before Carolina opposes Denver.
It has happened before for a Scottish-born kicker. Lawrence Tynes won two Super Bowl with the Giants.
There is even talk that should the Panthers win, officials in Arbroath, Gano’s birthplace, would honor him with a special ceremony and letter of recognition, which apparently in the United Kingdom’s northernmost country rivals a certain ring he would receive from Carolina following a victory.
Gano’s hope is to show his children in Scotland and have a cup of tea with Angus Provost Helen Oswald, head of the civic council whose role is to celebrate achievements by Scots and promote the county.
Kicking the game-winning field goal for the Locos was memorable.
Kicking one Sunday … that would be some cup of tea.
Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. On Twitter: @edgraney
