Australian punters making their mark in Florida schools

Like most kids growing up, Alex Mastromanno would spend hours kicking the football around the nearby park.

And like most kids, Mastromanno dreamed of playing as a professional, but football was slightly different for a child in Australia. For a 5-year-old, it was Australian Rules Football that first caught his attention.

Mastromanno was naturally drawn to the kicking and excelled at it.

But when the Melbourne native realized he could make a living punting a football, he was sold.

“I liked the idea that there was a job where you’re just punting the football,” said Mastromanno, 24, who is in his third season at Florida State. “When I found out about that at [age] 12 or 13 watching an NFL game, I thought, ‘What an awesome job that would be,’ because that was my favorite thing to do as a kid.

“When I saw a lot of people making the switch over in training for college to be a punter, that’s when I thought, ‘Hey, I can do this. It is possible to pursue this.’”

Australians have long been known to be some of the best punters among college and NFL teams.

Academies like Prokick Australia helped groom individuals interested in American football. Many have gone on to successful playing careers, including Max Duffy (USFL), Michael Dickson (Seattle Seahawks), Mitch Wishnowsky (San Francisco 49ers), Tom Hackett (N.Y. Jets) and Tom Hornsey. All claimed the Ray Guy Award, given to the top punter in college football.

John Smith, along with Nathan Chapman, founded Prokick Australia, which has helped connect many of those athletes with schools.

“We’re pretty low key. We’re not interested in saying, ‘Hey, look at us, great,’” Smith said. “It’s got nothing to do with us, which is sometimes a little different from how things are done over there. Our main gig is about the lads, ensuring we can put them on the right track.”

Prokick has about 90 players at the college and NFL levels.

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To that point, every Football Bowl Subdivision school in Florida has at least one punter from Australia on its roster: Mastramanno, Lou Hedley (Miami), Jeremy Crawshaw (Florida), Mitch McCarthy (UCF), Riley Thompson (FAU) and Jordan Doelling (FIU) while others such as Benjamin Lennon (Bethune-Cookman) and Matt Clements (Stetson) are at the Football Championship Subdivision level.

“The sun shines in Florida, so it’s a pretty good place to be,” said Smith.

Even at 29, Lou Hedley is relatively a newcomer to American football.

Hedley picked up the sport at 22 when he joined Prokick Australia after having played on a professional Australian Rules team.

After attending a junior college in San…