An Aussie Takes A Punt: Mat McBriar's journey from Australia to the NFL

By Forbes A James

mat mcbriar grew up in melbourne, australia. very few people in australia knew anything about gridiron and mat never played the game growing up. but somehow mat went on to be named as the best punter in the history of the dallas cowboys in 2010. how is that possible? this book is an adventure story about what can happen if you follow your passion rather than do what others say you're supposed to do. In mat's case his passion from childhood was to kick a ball as far as he could - but your passion could be music or art or science. mat followed his passion to another country even though his prospects of success were remote. way out of his comfort zone he had to deal with moments of public humiliation and rejection before success eventually came his way. while this book traces his sporting achievements, the story is really about what can be achieved with perseverance, a dose of good fortune - and the willingness to ignore people telling you it can't be done. the book also explores the history of the fans' apathy towards punters. punters aren't even thought of as real sportsmen by many fans. the book traces the history of the role of punting and puts the case for why punters probably deserve a bit more love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Forbes A James
• Release date: Sep 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9780992561413

Forbes A James

Forbes A James is a an Australian author. Born in Scotland he moved to Australia as a child where he grew up trying (but failing miserably) to have a professional career in any of the sports he loved. Now he's turned that passion into writing about the people who actually had the talent to achieve sporting success.

Book preview

An Aussie Take A Punt

Copyright 2014 FA James

Published by FA James at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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An Aussie Take A Punt

Mat McBriar’s journey from Australia to the NFL

By F. A. James

To Will Bennett

All profits from this book will be donated to charities

involved with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Published in Australia by F.A.James

Edited by Suzannah Shwer

Book, cover design and typesetting by Joanne Marchese

Marchese Design [e-mail]

Set in Sabon 10/13pt

Printed in Australia by Southern Colour (VIC) Pty Ltd on recycled paper

ISBN: 978-0-9925614-1-3

Text copyright © F. A. James, 2014

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research criticism or review permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be stored or reproduced by any process without prior written permission. Enquiries should be to the author – F. A. James

[e-mail] or www.anaussietakesapunt.com

Front cover

Top photo: Mat at age 3 – photo courtesy of Bruce & Sally McBriar.

Bottom photo: Mat punts for Dallas against New York, October 2005 – photo by Sports Illustrated/Getty Images.

Back cover

Top photo: Mat at age 3 – photo courtesy of Bruce & Sally McBriar.

Bottom photo: Mat punting for Dallas, 2010 –

photo by Jeff Hanisch USA Today Sports

Visit www.anaussietakesapunt.com for details of how to acquire copies

of this book.

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 The best in Cowboys’ history

Chapter 2 Growing up in Melbourne

Chapter 3 So who is Darren Bennett

Chapter 4 Gridiron (NFL) 101

Chapter 5 Myth: No one else wants the job

Chapter 6 Australian Rules Football (AFL) 101

Chapter 7 Myth: Anyone in the AFL could do it

Chapter 8 Should I bother Dwayne?

Chapter 9 Myth: College sport is just like intervarsity sport in Australia

Chapter 10 Mr McBriar goes to college

Chapter 11 Life on campus

Chapter 12 Mat gets drafted (no he doesn’t)

Chapter 13 Myth: An NFL contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on

Chapter 14 Mat does Dallas

Chapter 15 Punting for professionals

Chapter 16 The debut from hell

Chapter 17 Learning to live with uncertainty

Chapter 18 Myth: the Pro Bowl doesn’t matter

Chapter 19 Mat McBriar and the nervous fiance

Chapter 20 Mat becomes ‘Mr Reliable’

Chapter 21 Living the Dream in the NFL

Chapter 22 Who said massages are good for you?

Chapter 23 Becoming an Eagle

Chapter 24 Off to Pittsburgh we go

Chapter 25 Mat’s future in the NFL

Chapter 26 Some observations

Preface

WHY I WROTE THIS

Mat, age 3 – photo courtesy of Bruce & Sally McBriar

Mat McBriar is a great Australian success story – but hardly anyone in Australia knows about him.

Let me start with a disclaimer before you read any more. Mat is my wife’s nephew. I’ve known him since he was a toddler: in fact one of the first dates with my wife was when we were asked to babysit Mat (then aged three) and his younger brother, Jon. So this isn’t going to be a ‘warts and all’ exposé (I doubt I’d have found much dirt even if I’d looked).

Here are the questions that intrigued me regarding Mat. How does a kid growing up in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia – a country where only a small proportion of the population knows anything about gridiron, and virtually no one has ever played the game – end up playing for the Dallas Cowboys, one of the most iconic sporting teams in the world? And how does he go on to be named as the best Punter in Dallas’ 50-year history?

How is this even possible?

Mat doesn’t get much publicity in Australia. This is partly because he remains modest about his achievements and doesn’t actively seek public acknowledgement. The other reason is that the focus of the Australian media is on the mainstream sports in Australia, so success in major sports in other countries usually attracts limited coverage.

To address this, I wanted to write a book to document what Mat has achieved so far. What I discovered is that some amazing things can happen if you have a passion for doing something (in Mat’s case, it was simply a passion for kicking a ball as far as possible) and you then combine that passion with the right mix of natural talent, luck and hard work – and a willingness to ignore people who tell you it isn’t possible!

Here is that story.

F. A. James

March 2014

Chapter 1

THE BEST IN COWBOYS’ HISTORY

Mat (wearing no.1) under pressure when punting from the End Zone against New York, 2005

– photo by Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

Picture yourself in this position.

Your team’s attack has failed miserably and they are trapped just 1 yard away from the opponent’s scoring zone. The coaches have called the punt unit on, so you’re now running back to your place deep in the End Zone.

You’re standing alone, 15 yards away from the rest of the punt team. Your opponents are lined up facing you, shouting at you and working themselves into a frenzy. The opposing team’s fans are screaming at you, hoping you’ll fail. They feel so close you’re sure they could reach out and grab you. Most of the 50,000 people in the stadium are yelling, elated that their defence has held your team in such a dangerous position.

As well as the crowd in the stadium, there are probably at least 25 million people watching you on TV. And the temperature is below zero, the wind is gusting around you, your feet and fingers are numb from the cold, and snow is blurring your vision.

Any second now your teammate, the Long Snapper, is going to throw the ball to you through his legs. You rely on him throwing the ball to the right spot, and not somewhere out of reach or in a direction that will throw you off balance. Assuming he throws it OK, you’ll have a maximum of 2 seconds to catch the ball cleanly, move it to the correct position, and then swing your leg with perfect timing so that your foot hits the tiny sweet-spot on the ball and it flies the length and direction that the coaches have ordered. During that time you have to have faith that your teammates will hold off the opponents who are running towards you, and who are so fast they could probably qualify for the 100 metres at the Olympics.

Even if you do it perfectly you know that not many people will notice your work – but if you do it wrong, the consequences are huge; you and your family might even be packing your bags the next day.

Welcome to the life of an NFL Punter.

Despite growing up in an environment where virtually nobody knew anything about the NFL, let alone ever played the game, Mat McBriar has become one of the best Punters in NFL history.

In 2010 Jeff Sullivan wrote a book called America’s Team – The Official History of the Dallas Cowboys. Jeff researched the first 50 years of the Cowboys from their creation in 1960. The Cowboys have won five Super Bowls (the season-ending game to decide the champion team for the season) and have set many records for games attendance. They get more TV exposure than any other team, have the largest fan base, and are probably also the most disliked team as a direct result (akin to Collingwood in the AFL). Forbes magazine rated them as the 3rd most valuable sporting franchise in the world (ranked behind Manchester United and Real Madrid and tied with the New York Yankees). They are a powerhouse of US sport with a culture of success and excellence.

In writing his history of the Cowboys, Jeff Sullivan selected a team representing the best player in each position over that 50-year period.

When it came to selecting the best Punter in the Cowboys’ 50-year history, Sullivan selected Mat McBriar.

Chapter 2

GROWING UP IN MELBOURNE

Mat as a baby –

photo courtesy of Bruce & Sally McBriar

I read a lot of biographies and they often record a childhood in which the subject of the book suffered the absence or loss of one or both parents; exposure to alcoholism or other substance abuse; physical abuse; poverty; and, sadly, in some cases all of these.

Clearly, those adversities had a huge influence, and overcoming them helped drive the person to achieve later in life. I’ve apologized to my own children many times that I’ve reduced the chances of them being globally famous through my selfish refusal to die early, develop some drug or alcohol dependency, or become bankrupt.

When I went looking into Mat McBriar’s background, happily I didn’t find anything from that list.

Mat was born in Melbourne, Australia in July 1979. Melbourne is a city of over 4 million located at the south-eastern tip of the Australian mainland.

His parents, Bruce and Sally, have been happily married for nearly 40 years (or at least they’ve looked happy for most of the time I’ve known them; a clear exception being when I interviewed them for this book and they kept arguing about events in Mat’s childhood!). Mat has a brother, Jonathan, who is about three years younger, and a sister, Sarah, who is about seven years younger. He remains close to both.

Mat grew up in the bayside suburbs of Melbourne and attended the local primary school for three years before moving to Brighton Grammar School (BGS) in 1988 for the final ten years of his schooling.

At BGS he was a popular kid with teachers and pupils and in the Junior School (up to Year 6) he was appointed a School Officer, in the Middle School (Years 7 and 8) he was the School Captain, and in the Senior School (Years 9 to 12) he was a prefect.

His brother, Jon, also went to BGS and remembers a few disputes they had as they grew up. They had a long-running series of fights when Jon’s voice broke as a teenager. His voice suddenly became very raspy (not quite Tom Waits but that gives you some idea). For months Mat was convinced Jon was deliberately faking it to annoy him and would get very agitated every time Jon spoke to him – he’d start yelling out Mum, he’s doing it again! and Sally would have to separate them.

Jon & Mat McBriar: not sure what Jon found in his pocket –

photo courtesy of Bruce & Sally McBriar

As the older brother, Mat was also keen to assert his alleged superiority over his younger brother from time to time. One day Mat decided to show Jon how he’d learned how to hit golf shots left-handed using a right-handed club. The end result was that the ball flew sideways straight into Jon’s mouth: Jon ran home crying, with blood flowing freely, and holding the remains of some of the seven teeth that were broken – and Mat ran the other way and hid.

In his final year at BGS Mat studied a mix of subjects (English, Mathematics, Accounting, Economics and Biology), keeping his career options wide open. He recalls being a ‘solid’ student without being a star academically. The Valedictory Report written by his teachers shortly before sitting the final exams included some interesting comments. The teacher who wrote must work very hard in the remaining time to ensure a pleasing mark clearly wasn’t expecting much. Far more optimistic was the teacher who wrote in the time remaining he can easily improve with thorough revision. However, one teacher had given up even talking about exam results and instead wrote I have enjoyed having him in my class and will miss his quiet, rock-like strength.

Mat was disappointed with his final year results. He’d had a lot of skin problems as a teenager and his parents suspect now that the medication he’d been put on to help with his skin condition had an adverse impact on his ability to concentrate (in extreme cases the medication has been linked to depression and even suicide in teenagers). Still, he did well enough to get admitted to a commerce course at Deakin University. He still wasn’t too sure what he wanted to do as a career after university.

Mat’s grandfather, Ken McBriar, and father, Bruce – photo courtesy of Jon McBriar

Sporting life

Sports form a significant part of life for most Australians. As children we grow up in an environment where the climate and culture encourage outdoor activities and participation in sports. Olympic sports (especially swimming and athletics) attract massive attention every four years, but the most prominent professional sports during summer are cricket and tennis. And during winter the most prominent sports are Australian Rules Football, rugby (union and league) and soccer. But most sports you can think of will find a willing participant somewhere in Australia.

Even as they get older and stop participating in sports, most Australians tend to be great attendees or watchers of sports. Melbourne, in particular, has a history of attracting huge crowds to sporting events – the world-record attendance even for baseball is said to be have been in Melbourne: 114,000 at an exhibition game during the Melbourne Olympics in 1956; and Liverpool Football Club played in front of the largest crowd in its history when 95,000 turned up for a friendly against a local team in Melbourne in 2013.

So it’s not surprising that Mat’s biggest passion at school was playing sport. He tried most sports at BGS but in his final years his passions were rowing in the summer months and Australian Rules Football in winter. He also joined Victoria Golf Club (VGC), where his father and grandfather were members, as a junior member. VGC is located next to Royal Melbourne Golf Club on the world famous ‘sand-belt’ and is rated in the top ten courses in Australia (and was recently rated 94th in the world by Golf Digest USA). Mat showed a lot of golfing talent and quickly got down to a single-figure handicap (and currently plays off about 3).

Mat’s father, Bruce, had a successful amateur career as an Aussie Rules footballer, playing over 200 games in suburban leagues in Melbourne and Sydney. His mother, Sally, doesn’t volunteer to any particular sporting prowess but her father, Jack Catchlove, was a gifted sprinter, boxer and footballer.

Like most kids growing up in Melbourne, Mat received an Australian Rules football as a Christmas gift almost as soon as he could walk. Mat spent many hours with his dad out in the yard kicking a ball. Mat remembers those times fondly. When he’d exhausted Bruce’s interest, or Bruce was away at work, Mat developed a game in the yard where he’d kick the ball against a neighbour’s fence so the ball would rebound to him (I’ve since met the neighbours and they don’t remember this noisy practice quite as fondly!).

He also kicked a lot with his brother, Jon, as they grew up. Jon remembers that they started by kicking to each other in their yard. Once Mat started kicking it well enough to go over the back fence he switched to kicking it with his weaker left leg. Once the left-footed kicks were also going over the fence they then migrated to the neighbouring golf course. This started a long running skirmish with the golf course warden, who would order the boys off the course and put a padlock on the boundary gate from the McBriar’s home into the golf course – which the boys would immediately cut off the next day and replace with their own padlock to try to fool the warden.

Mat joined the local suburban Australian Rules Football team (the East Brighton Vampires) as an eight year old, and they won the premiership in his first year. He was a gifted player for the Vampires and played over 100 games with them. He became a skilled kick, using either his right or left foot, and he was usually chosen as the captain of the team each season. At school he was selected in the BGS senior team when he was in Year 10 (and probably would have been picked in Year 9 except for some school rules protecting younger kids from playing against the older boys). In his final year in the team in Year 12 he was the vice captain. While this was a great honour, the coach had led him to believe he would be captain.