Many years ago, back when George W Bush was the worst American president you could imagine, I received a call from a producer in RTÉ’s young people’s department wondering if I fancied coming out to talk to their evening kids news show about the major sporting events of the day ... or something. I’m a little hazy on the details.
The only memory I really have is of me walking on to the small set and having three people wish me luck before all three of them sat down beside me as I awaited further instruction. There was a camera set-up involving a prize of a mug, I think, which was to be displayed on a mounted stand.
I peered at the screen, awaiting this mug’s big moment. But before that could happen, the three producers looked at each other, and agreed that there was something slightly off with the angle at which it was perched.
One of them hopped up and very deliberately moved the mug 25 degrees to the left. She came back and peered at the screen. “No ... that’s not right”, one of her colleagues said. And he went in and moved it 15 degrees back in the other direction.
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After further deliberation, it was decided that it wasn’t perfect, but it would do. My major takeaway was that work expands to fill the time allotted to do the task. And the days of having three producers on a show like the one I briefly appeared on are now well and truly gone ... we all partied, after all. But in a gig like TV, it isn’t about being a jack of all trades – it’s about really sweating the one role you’re supposed to do, and that’s a very specific kind of responsibility.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that I’ve been thinking quite a bit about former Down goalkeeper Charlie Smyth this week, and the particular pressure he must have felt in Miami at around 9pm our time last Sunday evening. He is a NFL kicker, the very sporting definition of “you had one job”.
He has one job, which is to kick an oval ball from directly in front of the goal over the bar, from a variety of distances. If he proves himself adept at this job, he will become a millionaire several times over. If he proves himself incapable of consistently doing this, he will be dropped, “cut”, callously and mercilessly.
Smyth made his debut in the NFL last Sunday for the New Orleans Saints, having never played a minute of high school or college American football. This marks out his achievement even when put against the efforts from earlier in the year of former Derry under-20 player Jude McAtamney, who started four games for the New York Giants in September and October.
McAtamney had at least played college football with Rutgers, so had some frame of reference before being pitched into the NFL. And McAtamney started well, kicking flawlessly in a rare win for the Giants against the Chargers in his first game this season (he had played one game against the Washington Commanders last year). The Giants lost in his second game, but next time out he made four kicks out of five as they beat the Philadelphia Eagles 34-17. That was as good as it would get.
They lost their next game 33-32 to the Denver Broncos in calamitous circumstances. The Broncos scored all 33 of their points in the fourth quarter, the Giants blew a 19-point lead, and Jude missed two PATs (points after touchdowns), including one with 37 seconds left that would have left the Broncos needing to score a touchdown instead of a field goal to win the game.
PATs are kicks from about 33 yards out, kicks with a 96 per cent conversion rate in the NFL. Missing two in one game is deemed unforgivable, and when the rest of the team blew up so spectacularly, a scapegoat was demanded. McAtamney is no longer employed by the Giants. If Smyth is looking for a cautionary tale to help keep his feet on the ground, he need look no further.
Many GAA managers will have been left with the conundrum of having a fella that’s playing like a drain, but “we’ll need him to hit the frees”. And as long as that player keeps hitting those frees, he or she will probably be fine. But if they do happen to miss a couple of placed balls, maybe they could squeak an effort from open play, or they could track a runner, make a tackle ... they have ways of getting themselves into the game. So little is expected of those types of characters that a bit of effort would probably stand out a mile.
That’s not an option available to NFL kickers. If you miss, you stand on the sideline and you think about that miss until you get a chance to redeem yourself. It’s a brutally binary existence. You are what your kicking record says you are. No ifs, no buts. And right now, Smyth’s record looks good. He was given one attempt at a field goal on Sunday and he nailed it – from 56 yards.
What Smyth did in that moment is many people’s stress-dream – being put into a highly pressurised environment with absolutely no frame of reference whatsoever, and he stepped up to the plate. Getting to where he is right now is one of the stories of the Irish sporting year. Staying there will be another, better story altogether.
