Trevor Kennerd Bob Cameron Winnipeg Blue Bombers 1989. Photo John Bradley
June 7, 2016
Veteran Winnipeg sportscaster Joe Pascucci, inducted into the media wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame last fall, writes weekly on the Bombers past and present.
Justin Medlock was just one of a number of huge free agent signings this past offseason by the Blue Bombers. A punter and placekicker, the 10-year pro will give Mike O’Shea’s special teams unit a real stability and confidence.
But Medlock wasn’t the lone kicker on the field when training camp opened. Holdover Sergio Castillo and punter Billy Pavlopoulos, a 2013 pick of the club, were right alongside him. And while competition is always critical in any training camp, it’s more likely the pair were invited primarily so Medlock wouldn’t be overworked.
Training camp is an opportunity to forge relationships with fellow teammates, but it can also be cut-throat. Jobs and careers are on the line and this is not the first time Medlock and Castillo have been together – both spent time on the Tiger-Cats roster together.
“We didn’t have as great a relationship as right now,” said Medlock. “Now we’re cool.”
Part of professional sports is trying to psych out your competition, especially during training camp. And it’s a part of the game Bob Cameron knows all too well. The Canadian Football Hall of Fame punter had to fend off a number of challengers in the early part of his 23-year Bomber career, including those days back in 1983 when he was convinced his career might be done.
It was at the ‘83 training camp, the first with Cal Murphy as head coach, that Cyril McFall and Tom Dixon were brought in to compete with Cameron and placekicker Trevor Kennerd.
Cameron was familiar with McFall, as the two had butted heads dating back to 1977 in Calgary. McFall was the veteran then, Cameron the rookie. The two were told to share a locker, but McFall would have none of that and booted Cameron out. Five years later in Winnipeg, with Cameron the incumbent and McFall the challenger, Cameron returned the favour.
But the real competition was Dixon, a 23 -year old with a powerful leg who showed up a week into training camp. As Cameron tells it, he and Kennerd greeted Dixon and learned the newcomer was both a punter and field goal kicker from B.C.. Digging for some information, Kennerd asked Dixon what his punting average had been in his last year in junior football.
“So Dixon says ‘my punting average was 48 yards’ … 48!” Recalled a stunned Cameron. “Trevor looks right at him and says, ‘did your mom take those stats?’”
That morning during a friendly kick around between the kicking candidates, Dixon began to back up his numbers. In those years, Bombers training camp was held at the now long gone Winnipeg Velodrome. Cameron and Kennerd were on one sideline, and across the field 65 yards away were Dixon and McFall.
“Dixon’s first kicks were so unbelievable he blew them out of the stadium over the Velodrome track onto the field behind us in the air,” Cameron recalled. “And I’m going, ‘Oh my God!’ I brought the ball back and punted and could barely get the ball back to him and I’m punting them 55 yards. So after that I said to myself, ‘this is it. I’m in trouble’.”
Recently engaged, a downcast Cameron headed home for lunch and told Louise, his bride-to-be, “listen… this punting thing, I don’t think it’s going to last a whole lot longer. I may be looking for another job before we get married, dear, because there is a guy in camp that looks like he’s going to take my job.”
But Cameron wasn’t going to give up without a fight. That same afternoon he returned to Bomber camp and, along with Kennerd, devised a plan to deal with Dixon with a little mental warfare.
“Every time (Dixon) shanked one, Trevor and I would sort of get on him in a joking way. But we weren’t joking.”
Bob Cameron
Dixon had yet to sign a contract and needed to put his signature on a deal in order to play in the exhibition games. On game day, Dixon asked Cameron for a ride to the stadium so that he could sign and get ready to kick that night.
Sensing another opportunity, Cameron took advantage to plant some seeds of doubt in his rival’s mind.
“I hear you’re doing the opening kickoff,” Cameron said to Dixon as the two drove to the Bombers office. “I know you’re supposed to kick it into the corner, but you don’t ever want to kick that ball out of bounds because they’re going to cut you right away. You know that, right?”
Cameron recalls a somewhat shaken Dixon turning to him and saying, “don’t even talk like that! I don’t want to think about kicking the ball out of bounds!”
As it turned out, Dixon began his night by doing exactly that – hammering the opening kickoff out of bounds.
He was released the next day.
Dixon would surface with the Edmonton Eskimos a few years later and was chosen as a Western Division All-Star in both 1985 and ’86. And by this time, he’d become aware of how Cameron set him up and for years, when the Eskimos played the Bombers, Dixon was out for revenge.
“Every time he would kick a great punt against us,” said Cameron, “he’d go running by our bench and yell, ‘what do you think of that Cameron? What do you think of that?’ He was trying to psych me out, too.”
Nothing has changed in the years since.
Medlock, for example, had a similar experience when he tried out with the Kansas City Chiefs.
“I was working with a holder and the kicker asked me how the holds were going,” said Medlock. “I said something like, ‘It’s coming along. It’s getting better. It was kinda rough in the beginning.’ Well, the kicker went right over and tried to tell the holder that I said he was bad. He tried to create a rift.”
The passage of time means we can look back and laugh now at these kicker training camp stories. Cameron, to this day, has no regrets.
“You do whatever you can to hold your job, that’s the bottom line,” said Cameron. “This is pro sports.”
