Editor’s note: Longtime Baton Rouge sportswriter, author and television host Lee Feinswog takes his unique approach to sports to dig deeper into LSU Athletics. Look for these features online and in official athletics department publications throughout the 2014-15 season.
Jamie Keehn was 21, working in retail outside Melbourne, Australia, when he first kicked a football.
Real far.
Of course it was a line drive and no one was watching, so much as 100,000 people and a nationwide American TV audience. Yet today the LSU junior leads the Southeastern Conference in punting yards this season (2,969) and is second in average (45.0).
Which is more or less incredible when you consider he’s 25 years old and just four years ago when a friend told him he should go punt, he asked, “What do you mean, go punt?”
He gets it now.
In 2004 Keehn had his appendix out and from his hospital bed watched the New England Patriots beat the Carolina Panthers.
“I had nothing else to do. That was the first time I ever watched a game. And then I finally really started paying attention to it in 2010, 2011, and then once I started to kick a ball a half decent way I paid more attention.”
And that began the path that eventually led Keehn to LSU,
Six-foot-four and lanky, he played some soccer as a kid and threw the javelin in high school. His efforts led to a blown-out shoulder and reconstructive surgery.
“I never really bounced back and took a year off, kind of a soul-searching year, and when I was 21 I picked up an Australian football (which is longer and fatter) just to kick with some buddies at our local club. Like a rec league.
| Aussies Are Kicking All Over |
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The SEC has three other Australian punters, Will Gleeson of Ole Miss, Sam Irwin-Hill of Arkansas and Matthew Shiel of Auburn. Gleeson, a redshirt freshman from Melbourne, also trained at Prokick. This season he’s averaged 43.6 yards on 43 punts, 21 inside the 20. His brother, Tim, punted at Wyoming and is now a junior at Rutgers. Irwin-Hill, a senior from Bendigo, has averaged 40.0 yards on 49 punts, 18 inside the 20. Auburn’s Shiel, a freshman from Doncaster, has punted twice for the Tigers this season. But there are Aussies nationwide, booting the ball with authority. Utah’s Tom Hackett, a junior from Melbourne, was first-team All-Pac-12 last year and this season is likely going to be an All-American. He’s punted 73 times for a 46.5 average with 34 being downed inside the 20. Hawaii’s Scott Harding, a junior from Brisbane, doubles as a wide receiver and has 34 catches for 457 yards and three touchdowns. As a punter, his 81 kicks has averaged 41.5 yards with 32 inside the 20. Wake Forest’s Alexander Kinal, a junior from Adelaide, has averaged 43.8 yards on 78 punts, 26 inside the 20. Cameron Johnston is a sophomore at Ohio State from Geelong and this season in 31 punts has averaged 43.6 yards with 19 inside the 20. Penn State freshman punter Daniel Pasquariello, from Melbourne, has kicked 36 of his team’s 66 punts, averaging 37.4 yards. Also, whereas Tom Hornsey won the Ray Guy at Memphis last season, the Tigers have a back-up freshman punter in Nick Jacobs from Melbourne. And Brad Craddock of Maryland is a junior from Adelaide who is perfect this season as a kicker, hitting all 36 of his PATs and all 17 of his field-goal tries, including 9-for-9 from 40-49 yards and one from 57. |
“And I started kicking a ball a long way.”
His friends noticed.
“One of my buddies told me, ‘You are wasting your time doing this, go punt.’ ”
Which is when Keehn asked the magic question.
His friend responded, “You know, on fourth down when they just boot the ball high and long.”
Said Keehn, “Oh, yeah, I know that.”
He went to a computer and Googled “Australian punting.”
He found Prokick Australia and a coach named Nathan Chapman. As it turns out, Chapman is the Aussie punting guru with plenty of his students dotting U.S. college football rosters. One of them, Tom Hornsey, won the Ray Guy Award for the nation’s best punter in 2013 as a senior at Memphis. Chapman’s Twitter account says “Prokick Australia is the leading facilitator in transitioning Australian kickers, punters and athletes to the grand stages of American Football!”
Keehn said it took five punts for Chapman to tell him he was accepted.
“He told me I had the leg to do it but I would need to train for 12 months and I figured why not, I’d give it a crack,” Keehn said.
He kept his day job where he was living in Miners Rest and every few days would go train with Prokick in Melbourne.
The American football “felt tiny.” Keehn got better, learning about angles and hang time and the like and started considering going to an American college.
“Jamie has always been ‘sports mad’ and even as a young child would give anything a go, so when he rang and told me he was going to try out for an American university scholarship for football it did not surprise me at all,” said his mother, Anna Keehn, who lives where Jamie grew up in the tiny town in cattle country of Gracemere in northern Queensland.
“I did remind Jamie though at the time that ‘University’ meant study and assignments, etc. but he just said ‘Mum, it will be OK.’
“Jamie had told me when he was in year 9 at the Rockhampton Grammar School not to worry about wasting money on trying to get him through a university degree, as he would rather be outdoors playing sport.”
He got some walk-on offers with the best scholarship coming from Jacksonville State in Alabama.
“I was ready to commit,” he said, but Chapman of Prokick told him to wait.
Keehn was concerned with the cost of going to an American school and didn’t want to pass up the offer. But he didn’t know that Chapman had been talking with LSU’s special-teams coach at the time, Thomas McGaughey, now with the New York Jets.
One day while at work he got a call that hooked him up with Chapman and McGaughey and was told that LSU wanted him to come for an official visit. It didn’t hurt any that his LSU player host at the time was another Aussie, punter Brad Wing, now the punter for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He knew of Wing from watching LSU play Alabama in the 2011 BCS national-championship game.
“It was mid-March 2012. I spent 36 hours in Baton Rouge and spent 48 hours traveling. Came here, loved every moment of it, and Coach Miles offered me a scholarship on a Sunday and I committed on the spot. I was happy and had no qualms. Coach Miles asked if I wanted to talk about it with my family and I said I was ready to sign the paperwork. I was coming.”
His mother back home was not surprised.
“As a mother you want the best for your children and allow them every opportunity, but at the same time I was thinking this will never come to be, as he didn’t have any football experience at all,” Anna Keehn said, “so I just assumed he would go through the process and enjoy the experience of the application but have to face the disappointment of not being chosen.
“On that first day when he flew out to the USA I shed a tear or two and wondered if that was the last time I would ever see him.”
So off to America he went, rooming at first with two future NFL receivers, Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry. He got close to both of their families.
And the academic side has gone well, Keehn said, because going to college at an older age has been great.
“I love it,” Keehn said. “I kind of know how it works. Back in high school I barely scraped by. Today I have a 3.3 (gpa). You know how to go about things a different way.”
His first year was Wing’s last, and he welcomed the apprentice season.
“I was glad I didn’t get thrown in there from the start,” he admitted, although he did play in the first game of the season against North Texas, and when Wing was suspended, Keehn played in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.
Keehn punted nine times that game for a 44.6-yard average, getting two downed inside the 20.
Back home in Gracemere, his parents and sister kept up with Keehn often through Skype.
“I guess like any parent when your child is involved at such a high level in a totally foreign sport in a foreign country to what they have grown up knowing, it is truly amazing,” Anna Keehn said. “I am very very proud of what Jamie has achieved not only with LSU and the punting experience, but his whole outlook on life in general.”
Last year, he had all 43 of LSU’s punts, averaging 41.0 yards with 18 downed inside the 20.
But he was hardly consistent, admitting he made way too many mistakes.
“I had a learning curve, that’s for sure. I probably put too much pressure on myself to punt at an All-American level instead of learn,” Keehn said.
“I tried to be that guy straightaway and I put too much pressure on myself and made some bad decisions and had some bad punts. It showed on the field.”
Of course, a punter’s mistakes are in the spotlight and especially glaring.
“It was interesting and I wouldn’t take anything back for the life of me. I learned a lot last year and struggled at times. We only punted 33 times in the regular season (and 10 in the Outback Bowl victory over Iowa). But the boys were scoring points, so I’m not going to complain, that’s for sure.
“But I grew up as a player. I had never experienced playing fulltime in my life.”
During his time at LSU he’s become friends with former Tigers punter Donnie Jones, now with the Philadelphia Eagles, and he’s helped Keehn learn so much about what the position entails.
“Unfortunately for a punter, you can be a 10-year vet and be a millimeter off in your drop and you shank one,” Keehn said. “You see guys in the league shank punts. You don’t want to do it, so you just have to look at your next kick as your most important kick, whether you’ve just hit a 60-yard bomb or shanked the heck out of one.”
This year, with LSU’s offense not nearly the juggernaut is was in 2013, Keehn has already punted 66 times. He might have been inconsistent the first few games – “I’d like to have four or five back — but he’s had a long of 64 and 24 have been inside the 20 and only three going for touchbacks.
It’s a lesson learned from last year and having confidence in himself after making a mistake.
“I’ve had a good run,” he said.
“He’s got a big leg and will continue to get better,” LSU coach Les Miles said. “The great thing about Jamie Keehn is he’s someone who is constantly grooming his punting and practicing it and understanding what he needs to do. He’s going to get better and better.”
What’s more, Miles, praising Keehn’s maturity, tabbed him as one of the captains for LSU’s Thanksgiving Day game at Texas A&M. And if the camera shows him during the ESPN broadcast, his hair will almost look normal, since he’s letting the sides grow back from the Mohawk he was sporting earlier.
Which is something else for a guy who said he was a conservatively dressed mama’s boy until about age 13, when he started pushing the appearance limits.
“My hair might get trimmed again for A&M, but I might just keep it how it is,” he said with a wry smile.
“I flirted with the idea of a little pink for the month of November (and breast cancer awareness), but I thought the head coach might not like that. He’s a traditional guy and I thought I was pushing it as it was.”
And Keehn is not a traditional guy in any sense of the American football way.
“No,” he said, “I’m not a traditional guy.”
Except when it comes to family. He misses everyone back home in Gracemere and when he does make it back Keehn admitted doesn’t have time to see everyone.
Luckily his family has visited him here.
“Jamie had tried to tell me about the LSU football ‘culture’ and his exact words were ‘Mum, you just won’t believe it till you get here and experience a game.’
“Nothing prepared me for Death Valley for two home games at the end of the 2013 season,” Anna Keehn said.
“There were just not words enough to describe that time except to say it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life to date.”
“Jamie’s sister was there just recently for the Alabama game and I am so disappointed I missed that epic game, but I am really looking forward to November 2015 when I will revisit Tiger Stadium.”
And when she goes back she can share what her son says about living in Baton Rouge and playing football at LSU.
“This is a dream,” he said. “This place is amazing. I love this place.
“The facilities, the people, the fans, they love you, they hate you, they chant your name, they’ll curse you out. I just love it. I love everything about it. It’s a movie, really. Everyone back home asks what it’s like and I tell them it’s a movie, it’s what I’m living right now.
“It’s everything you could ever dream of.”
Especially when you go punt.