Catholic's Russo to participate in Under Armour All-American game

Gabe Russo was presented his Under Armor game jersey during a special ceremony this week at Catholic. (Tim Gayle)

By TIM GAYLE

Gabe Russo’s invitation to play in the Under Armour All-American Game in January may finally give the Catholic punter an opportunity to do what he can’t do during the regular season.

Russo has punted just nine times this season and just four times in the last eight games. If college recruiters want to see him punt, it’s not likely they’ll get the opportunity by showing up to watch a Catholic football game.

“That’s probably true,” Russo said, “and it’s not something I’m going to be mad about.”

Russo was presented his Under Armour game jersey in a special ceremony on Wednesday at the school, giving the Knights’ punter and placekicker a little more recognition than he normally receives on a Friday night.

“We talk about this all the time in the coach’s office,” Catholic coach Kirk Johnson said, “how the year we finally score a lot of points, the best thing we have on our field doesn’t even get to go out there.”

Russo is the state’s best-kept secret in football, a former soccer standout who worked during the offseason to develop into a championship-caliber performer that spends a lot of his time on the sideline.

 “I really don’t (get to play much),” he said, “but honestly I’m kind of thankful for that. I’m very glad we’re winning.”

Russo was an accomplished soccer player a few years ago, traveling with teams to play internationally in Portugal and Costa Rica.

 “I love soccer,” he said. “It was always my first sport. Eventually, it came down to football gets more money than soccer. I will miss (the international competition) but football is where my heart is now.”

He found his way to the football field almost by accident, filling in for his injured brother Michael almost as a competition to show which brother was the best.

“There is a lot of sibling rivalry,” Russo said, “because Michael started getting some attention because he’s a good kicker. When he first hurt his ACL, they needed a kicker so I came and started my freshman year, the last two games in the playoffs.

“I wasn’t even going to play the next year, but then my brother hurt his ACL again so I just stuck with it.”

It didn’t take Johnson and the Catholic coaches long to figure out they had a weapon on their hands.

“He was a soccer player,” Johnson said. “He had never played the game of football, ever. He just came out there and could kick it. When he first came out, he had his older brother, who is very methodical about how he goes about everything. Gabe having a stronger leg and being a little bigger, we were like ‘gosh,’ but he had to buy in to loving it.”

Gabe might have had the stronger leg, but it wasn’t always accurate, limiting much of his work to punting.

“I did struggle with accuracy last year,” he acknowledged. “That’s definitely something I worked on during the offseason. I worked with Mike McCabe and One-on-One Kicking in Birmingham.”

Russo became more accurate, but the Knights already had a kicker for extra points and short field goals. Because Callan Gadilhe has been accurate (he is 70 of 73 on extra-point attempts this season), Russo is limited to kickoffs -- where 71 of his 98 kickoffs have been touchbacks -- and long-range field goals, where he is 2 of 3.

He went to Kohl’s kicking camp this summer in an effort to improve himself, but suddenly became the talk of the college recruiting world when he won the punt competition in the National Invitational Scholarship Camp in July.

“I didn’t really see it coming,” he admitted. “I had hoped for it. I trained pretty hard for it.”

Winning the competition elevated him to five-star status as a punter, boosted him to No. 3 in the recruiting rankings (and making him the top uncommitted recruit) and suddenly put him on the speed dial feature of college coaches across the country.  

“I’ve talked to a couple of schools,” he said. “I’m really not worried about it just yet. Just finish out the season strong, hopefully get a state title and we’ll think about it.”

He hopes he has four more playoff games with the Knights. In any case, he now has an extra game in Florida in January on ESPN.

“The only way he gets into this game is to go win the punting competition,” Johnson said. “And he won it. It shows he is better than all those guys.”