Louth goalkeeper among those trying to become an NFL kicker

Louth goalkeeper Tiernan Markey was among those at a try-out for American Football kicking last month to earn a scholarship.

The 20-year-old was part of the Louth panel this past campaign as reserve keeper. He was one of several young goalkeepers, including Dublin’s Sam Moloney and James McCaghy, in Ireland’s Kicking King talent spotting programme.

The programme took place across 10 events nationwide in August, with the final 20 getting to kick at half-time of last Saturday’s Aer Lingus College Football Classic at Aviva Stadium.

That group of 20 will now be whittled down to 10, who will train across September and October before going to Chicago to take part in an exhibition in the hope of landing a scholarship.

The organiser of the try-outs is former Connacht rugby player and kicker in the Canadian Football League Tadhg Leader, and he spoke to The42 about the high calibre of Gaelic footballers coming in. "I don’t watch a huge amount of football, but I know a lot of the athletes would have been going, 'Jeez, that’s X player' or 'that’s Y player' during the try-out evenings.

"These are the athletes themselves, so they would know them. So I wouldn’t really know the names, but we have had lads walk in the door, and then you find out he’s played X amount of times for his county.

"Some just came to learn about kicking because we had guys a few years ago, top Gaelic football players, do it and they learned more about kicking that they took back to their own sport. So some have no intention of going any further with this, it’s just to learn more about ball striking."

Leader says that around 800 to 1,000 players tried out over August, and he thinks as many as 15 could earn a "life-changing" scholarship to the US later this year.

This programme was also the one that helped Charlie Smyth on his journey to joining the New Orleans Saints in the NFL, starting towards the end of last season.

*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.