All-purpose kicker shines in sweltering heat

by Rob Benneian

Colella named Player of the Week

After helping the Windsor AKO Fratmen to a 38-7 over the visiting Brampton Bears on Sunday, kicker Dan Colella just wanted to get off the field.

“I was just drained after the game,” Colella said. “The heat didn’t help. There was a lot of kicking in that game.”

Tuesday evening, Colella found out his efforts had earned him the Ontario Football Conference special teams player of the week award. Colella successfully booted two field goals, four extra points and averaged nearly 36 yards on 9 punts, including a long of 52 yards.

In his second season with the Fratmen, Colella has assumed full kicking duties. During his rookie AKO season he was limited to kick-offs, field goals and extra points while Jason Schneider did the punting.

Still, that was a marked increase in responsibility from the previous season with the Essex Ravens. That year, Colella was only called upon for kick-offs and long field goals, a role to which he admits was strange to adjust.

“They’d put me in like ‘go hit a 43 yard field goal’ and it’s my first kick of the game,” Colella said. “It was hard to get in a rhythm.”

Colella played for the Holy Names Knights and Essex Ravens during a four year high school career. He was planning on returning to Holy Names High School for a fifth year of Knights football until suffering a serious injury.

“I was playing with Essex and completely blew my knee out, so I missed my fifth year of high school football in September,” Colella said. “I made a comeback with Essex the following year.”

Three years later, Colella still remembers how he wound up sidelined for the remainder of the 2009 season. His description of the play is not for the squeamish.

“I punted the ball and landed, and it gave out on me,” Colella said. “I heard a loud pop and a bunch of small cracks and then I had to get carried off the field.”

Colella had torn the ACL, MCL and meniscus in his right knee, his kicking leg. This was not the final injury of Colella’s football career.

“A year or two later, I had severe pain in my left knee,” Colella said.

An MRI revealed he had suffered a partial tear in his left ACL due to overcompensating for his injured right knee. Colella now wears a brace on both knees.

“They call me ‘Tin Man’ now,” Colella said with a laugh.

If history is any indicator, Colella could be lined up for another big week with the Ottawa Sooners coming to town. Colella was named OFC special teams player of the week in consecutive games last year, October 1 and October 4 in games in Brampton against the Bears and at Windsor Stadium against the London Beefeaters.

“(In Brampton) I had a kickoff that went right through the end zone, it was 85 yards,” Colella said, before adding: “I had a lot of wind at my back.”

If the wind flies in his favour Sunday, he could find himself going back-to-back again.