Kadie Smith
Terra Leone
Richie Leone steps onto the field in the dying seconds of the Lions 2015 home opener, fingers twitching. The kick is a 56-yard field goal, the longest one of Leone’s career and the longest one in BC’s 60-plus year history. No pressure, kid.
One month prior, the University of Houston alum landed in the headlines replacing the Leos long-standing field-goal kicker Paul McCallum based off the leg strength the 23 year old showed in Training Camp. Now Leone was in a position you probably couldn’t think up if you tried: in tight for a last-minute field goal to tie the game in the Lions home opener against their boisterous Western rival Saskatchewan Roughriders…with his predecessor McCallum on the other side.
Down for most of the game, BC had stormed back with a crucial stop on third and one to give them the ball late in the fourth. After failing to find the end zone on the turnover possession, Jeff Tedford made the decision to call in his rookie kicker.
BC Place was silent. The big screen went in tight on the kid from Georgia; if you watched closely you could just make out his signature head tilt, his concentration move. The kick went up, and the breath went out of each fan in attendance. The ball seemed to hang in the air forever, in slow motion. While everyone was watching the uprights, I was watching Leone, already laying out in my head the story I would write if he hit it.
He had the target, and as the ball snuck in over the crossbar, Leone’s hands went up in a celebration. Not too showy, not too high; kickers don’t celebrate big, but every other person in the stadium was on their feet screaming. Tie game with 15 left seconds and Leone had just landed in the history books and the hearts of Lions fans.
BC would go on to win that game 35-32 in overtime on a touchdown from Manny Arceneaux and afterwards in the locker room, the special teams unit gave their kicker the game ball. “Heck of a kick”, said Travis Lulay.
“I was just lucky to hit it,” Leone said at the time. Quietly humble, maybe even blushing. That’s just Richie though. Ask him to sum up that moment and he’ll just say, “I just put my best foot on it.”
Triple Threat
One of Wally Buono’s favourite stories about his rookie kicker is the first time the two were in BC Place together. “Think you’ll hit that scoreboard?” the Lions GM asked Leone.
He did. Multiple times. He also nailed the massive one last year at AT&T Stadium, but no big deal. “Thought we would have to crank it higher for games,” Buono said, laughing. Kid’s got a leg for sure.
In Week 12, Leone’s 50.1-yard punting average is first in the league. In the Lions’ Week 7 win over the Edmonton Eskimos, he out-
punted his Eskies’ counterpart Grant Shaw by 11.7 yards on nine kicks for a total of 101.7 yards…or almost an entire free field for BC. He can place punts almost at will. He made his first 13 career field goals, setting a new standard for CFL kickers. Not bad for a guy who had to relearn how to kick field goals.
Also, he’s quite possibly the most down-to-earth guy you’ll meet.
Leone fits the stereotype bill of the oddball kicker in some ways, and in others he fights fiercely to avoid that label. He has a wicked sense of humour off the field, jovial, taking nothing too seriously. He’ll catch you off guard with a sharp-tongued joke, or a perfect impression.
Try to catch his eye before a game though and you’ll find yourself staring away for a long time. He rarely talks on the sidelines. Rarely celebrates. He has the same hat that he puts on in between each kick. He puts his helmet in the same place every time, next to his net and his in-game power bars. He’s a creature of habit and ritual.
Richie’s a hard one to pin down. But doesn’t that fit the stereotype?
“It kind of comes with the territory,” he says, laughing. We’re sitting in the boardroom at the Lions training facility. Normally, Richie would be cracking jokes, but he’s earnest today. We’re talking about football, and he takes that very seriously.
“Kickers get put into a group that says we are a little oddball. You kind of have to be. We’re in a very mental position. We spend a lot of time by ourselves, thinking about very specific mechanical things. It’s all stuff that really only we understand.”
“Mental” is an understatement. No one focuses more on detail than Leone. He’ll kick for an hour before games, adjust the field-goal tee by mere millimetres in practice. “You have to do that,” he says. “It’s a game of inches. You can’t move the field or the uprights. My job is so mental that if I don’t stay in my routine and feed myself good thoughts a bad kick can throw off your whole game.
He gets it from his dad.
Growing up in Roswell, Georgia, Leone played quarterback for his peewee team where a made convert after a touchdown was worth two points. When the team realized they needed a kicker, Leone volunteered. Yes, he would score a touchdown and then kick his own PAT.
When it became apparent that the lanky 12 year old had some serious leg strength, he and his dad started travelling around the country to visit kicking coaches and specialists; they entered Leone in contests where he outkicked high school athletes.
In college, Leone’s dad went to every one of his games, making the trip from Roswell to wherever his son was playing. “It’s kind of been a journey for the both of us, Leone says. “In college he used to have signs and signals for things during games so I’d make sure I was doing this or that.
You might chuckle at that image until you realize that Leone is the same way.
“I’d look over in the stands and there’s my dad. He’d watch my warm ups and he’d have a stopwatch making sure I’m hitting good 
hang times. He still brings it. He’ll call me after games now and go over each kick.”
You could say he’s very cerebral, he’ll agree with you…and then turn around three seconds later and say he’s doesn’t like the sound of that word. “I get this vision of guys in games who just turn into these monsters and start yelling and screaming when they’re not like that in real life,” he says. Although a lesser version of that juxtaposition is exactly Leone. I point that out to him. “Fine; I’m cerebral,” he says, jokingly rolling his eyes.
If I had to try to sum him up it would be this: Richie is, above all else, hyper aware, at all times. He hears and feels everything. Thinks everything. He has to lock himself out during a game; otherwise the world gets in his head. A bad kick can take over.
“I’m definitely sensitive. I might overanalyze everything,” he says laughing. “I have the most fun in doing what I do. We strive to be perfect; we chase it. I take it very seriously. I don’t want to be tied into the that stereotype that kickers aren’t serious or they don’t work hard.”
Perhaps that intense mental side of him, those hours spent alone going over minute mechanics is why he seems so much older than his 23 years; Leone has a self-awareness that is refreshing. He takes his time with each answer, thoughtful in his approach. He never says anything off the cuff. For a young athlete thrust into the spotlight the way Leone has been so far, you’d expect him to be a bit more cavalier or boastful, but he’s the opposite.
“I’m a realist and realistically, I’ve had six decent games,” he says, looking off to the side. He pauses for a moment and nods his head.
“Part of the reason I stay so serious or part of the reason I’m so quiet in interviews is that I know it’s very easy for things to go either way. I have a lot more to prove and a lot more that I need to do better. I feel like I haven’t done much. Just looking back on what Paul’s done here, that’s a not an easy task to live up to by any means.”
It’s safe to say that Lions fans are excited to see what the rookie can do.