On a sunny day at San Francisco’s Levi’s Stadium in October 2021, Australian Mitch Wishnowsky created a small piece of NFL history.
Wishnowsky, the 49ers’ punter, was called on to attempt an extra point following a touchdown against the Seattle Seahawks after the team’s kicker Robbie Gould injured his leg during warm-up and was unable to be replaced.
Despite only punting or taking kick-offs previously, he nervelessly nailed the extra point, becoming the first and, so far, only Australian to have scored a point in a regular-season NFL game.
On Monday morning (AEDT), Wishnowsky will be hoping to create a far more significant piece of history, becoming the first Australian to play in and win a Super Bowl.
Ten years ago, former Seattle Seahawks defensive tackle Jesse Williams became the first Australian to be awarded a Super Bowl ring after his team comprehensively defeated the Denver Broncos in the showpiece game, although the Queenslander didn’t play any part in the game due to injury and won the honour as a squad member.
Wishnowsky will punt in his second Super Bowl in just four years when he takes the field against the defending champions Kansas City Chiefs in Las Vegas, after facing and losing to the same opposition on the NFL’s grandest stage in February 2020.
Before he laces up his cleats at Allegiant Stadium to renew acquaintances with the Chiefs at Super Bowl LVIII, the former glazier can reflect on the long and unorthodox punt that took him from flag football in Perth to reportedly making over $4.5 million a season in the NFL.
Wishnowsky never imagined that he would make it as a professional athlete. He had enjoyed soccer and Australian rules football at school, and only took up flag football at the local oval as something to do when he downed tools in the evening. The decision ultimately changed his life.
Nathan Chapman, former AFL player and co-founder of Prokick Australia, remembers the first time he came across Wishnowsky and was convinced that the tradie had the raw components to make it as a top-level punter.
“Someone actually sent us some film from Perth, a colleague of ours, and he said, ‘listen, this guy has just come down here and he’s playing a bit of flag football, I’ve seen him kick, and he kicks the absolute shit out of it’,” Chapman says.
“I said, ‘OK, send us some film’. Anyway, we saw it and he was just so natural and raw, and it wasn’t beautiful, but he just had great timing. He was a good size and there was a real natural ability there with it.”
After his eight-year AFL career with Brisbane and Hawthorn, Chapman had spent time in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers, and understood the untapped potential of Australian athletes as punters in American football. He has subsequently mentored and coached hundreds of athletes who have gone onto play in college and professionally.
Wishnowsky was self-taught as a kicker and had zero pedigree in competitive sport, but Chapman knew that he had something special and helped persuade the then 20-year-old tradie to pack up his life in Perth and move to Melbourne.
“We said ‘we know we can send you to college’,” Chapman says. “He sold his house to get to Melbourne and moved over within a couple of months and said, ‘yeah, let’s go’. He gave up everything that he was doing and, and just jumped in.”
Wishnowsky started to live as a full-time athlete as soon as he started training with Prokick in Melbourne, but had to also focus on his academic work alongside perfecting the perfect spiral of the football.
He had left school at 16 to start his career as a tradie and had to study hard to gain admission to community college in Santa Barbara, proving his worth as an athlete and a student, before winning a scholarship to the University of Utah, who play NCAA Division 1 football.
After impressing for the Utah Utes, Wishnowsky was drafted 110th overall by the 49ers in the 2019 NFL draft. Former Philadelphia Eagles punter Arryn Siposs, who has recently returned home to Melbourne to coach with Hawthorn after two seasons in the NFL, explains what makes Wishnowsky so special as a footballer.
“It’s really just the time and dedication that he puts into himself,” Siposs says. “It also helps that the 49ers have instilled that absolute trust in him to deliver. Once you have that trust from the organisation then it’s only going to help you have confidence in yourself as well.”
Siposs is well qualified to discuss the exacting pressure that Wishnowsky will face on Monday, having experienced the Super Bowl’s brutal reality last year playing for the Eagles against the Chiefs.
With 10 minutes left in the game and the Chiefs leading by a point, Siposs didn’t get quite enough hang time on his kick. Kansas City punt returner Kadarius Toney evaded the Eagles’ coverage defence for a 64-yard return, just short of the end zone, that set the game on its head. The Chiefs utilised their field position from the punt, scoring a touchdown on the way to a three-point win.
It didn’t matter that Siposs had made spectacular plays in the past or that the defence should have made their tackles earlier. That was all forgotten instantly, and it arguably cost him his NFL career. As an NFL punter you have a single job to execute and have to do it perfectly when called upon. Asked how he’s dealing with the memories of that game, Siposs is still looking for answers.
“I’m probably still trying to figure that out,” Siposs says. “I came back for two (pre-season) games to give myself a crack at going on in the season and played well, but things happened in the past and I completely understand that. They obviously wanted someone else to come in to do the role.”
How did the Eagles coaches deliver the final news that he wouldn’t be continuing his NFL career?
“It’s very short and sharp,” Siposs says. “It’s not really much of a conversation, if any at all; it’s pack up your things, pack your locker and away you go.”
Siposs is enjoying his role as a development coach, passing on his experience from the NFL to the next breed of players at the Hawks. He will watch the Super Bowl from his sofa in Melbourne and has no doubts that Wishnowsky will deliver when it matters.
“He’s a pretty relaxed kind of guy and he has this personality where nothing really seems to faze him, he knows what he needs to do to get the job done,” Siposs said. “He’s a great person and I wish him nothing but the best.”
