Shortly after his arrival, his Las Vegas teammates pegged him in a way most kickers aren’t thought of: as a leader. So they voted Graham Gano a captain.
“Our guys loved him,” said Las Vegas coach Jim Fassel.
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With good reason. Gano made 11 of 13 field goals for the United Football League winners, including the game-winning 33-yarder to upset Florida in the championship.
The 2008 Lou Groza Award winner out of Florida State was signed by the Redskins to replace Shaun Suisham. If he feels any pressure, Fassel said it will be tough to notice.
Before the game-winning kick in the inaugural UFL championship game, as chaos reigned on the sidelines, Gano stayed calm.
“Everybody is running around and I’m trying to direct things and when I asked if I’d be icing my own kicker [with a time out], he said, ‘Whatever you need coach, I’m fine,’” Fassel sad. “Then he came out and boom, right through. That’s the type of guy you want.”
Soccer and the military blended together to form the ice water in his veins. As a goalkeeper growing up, Gano was used to having to take charge and perhaps settle others.
Meanwhile, his father was a career military man and three brothers are in the Marines.
And even if Florida State has slipped in national stature, it’s still a school where pressure is a constant companion. Not that it bothered Gano.
“You have to have fun with it,” he said. “If you don’t have fun with it, you’ll be nervous and then you’ll mess up. All my coaches growing up instilled that discipline into me and to not worry what’s going on around you. Just control what you do.”
Gano has a chance to impress the Redskins not just to hang onto the job for next season, but beyond. Though Suisham had made 18 of 21 kicks, his three misses impacted two losses. And his tenure here was marked by inconsistency.
But that’s how the kicking position has unfolded for Washington the past decade. Gano is the Redskins’ 12th kicker in that time.
He obviously hopes to change that and find a permanent home for himself. He was born in Scotland — as was Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes — and also lived in Canada and Germany before settling in Florida.
Perhaps that’s why moving around as a kicker — he was in Baltimore’s camp and headed to Las Vegas after he was cut – doesn’t faze him.
“I’m hardened to it,” he said.
It wasn’t hard to adjust to the UFL, whose facilities he enjoyed and he didn’t mind the same-day-as-game flights. The four-team league included numerous former NFL players — running back Tatum Bell, defensive end Simeon Rice and quarterback J.P. Losman among others. Las Vegas trained at the same facility as California.
“We’d be practicing and you’d look a few fields down and you’d see California practicing so we’d wave to their kickers and see them kicking,” Gano said. “Yeah, it was a little different.”
But it gave him what he needed: a chance to improve.
And now the Redskins are giving him a chance to prove he belongs.
“Teammates will love him,” Fassel said. “He’s a clutch kicker; he’s a money player.”
