Inside The Chart: Home Kicking

Home Kicking: From a midnight watch party to an uncle’s cow pasture to a leap of faith across the world, punter David Shanahan’s football journey finally comes home this weekend

Inside The Chart | By Andy Demetra (The Voice of the Yellow Jackets)

David Shanahan first sensed something was up when Brent Key called him over in the middle of a spring practice in 2023.

Head coaches never talk to the punter during practice.

“He’s usually doing whatever he does in practice, shouting at someone [laughs]. So it was kind of weird having a conversation in the middle of practice,” Shanahan recalled.

Key started peppering him with questions about stadiums in Ireland, the rugby scene there, and other seemingly offbeat topics about his home country. Shanahan answered them all earnestly. But after a while, curiosity took over.

“I finally caught on to it after about five minutes and realized the direction he was going,” he said.

Who else but Shanahan deserved to know first? For a second time, Georgia Tech would open its season in Dublin, Ireland, facing No. 10 Florida State in the 2024 Aer Lingus College Football Classic at Aviva Stadium. And with it, the native of Castleisland, Co. Kerry (pop. 2,536), three hours southwest of Dublin, has a most unlikely homecoming: Already believed to be the first Irish-born player on a full college football scholarship, he now has a chance to play on native soil to begin his senior year.

“I’m excited David has a chance to play in front of his family. I think that’s what’s important. Not everyone gets that in college,” Key said.

Added Shanahan: “I knew that there was going to be a game in Dublin. I knew they hadn’t announced the teams. It was probably wishful thinking that maybe we could be one. I was definitely blown away when I knew I would get the opportunity.”

Or to borrow the Gaelic phrase he tried in vain to teach Key this summer: “ar mhuin na muice.”

“Basically, it means ‘I’m extremely happy to be here.’ But the direct translation is ‘I’m on the pig’s back,’” Shanahan explained.

(He’ll give his head coach some grace – he spoke Gaelic in school through age 12).

Shanahan will try to be on the pig’s back this Saturday, in the country where his love for pigskin began. Technically, his older brother Rob was an American football fan first; one day he stumbled upon some highlights of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, and he immediately became enthralled with the Super Bowl champion’s intensity.

“His YouTube algorithm brought him there. It was the year he was retiring. I guess he was following along with the story. So he kind of got me to follow along with it too,” Shanahan recalled.

That led to the game that officially hooked Shanahan on football – a game that, serendipitously, involved a former Yellow Jacket. Rob, six years David’s senior, told him he needed to watch the 2013 AFC Divisional Playoff matchup between the Ravens and Denver Broncos with him. As he reminded his brother, it could be Lewis’ last time playing.

The game, however, kicked off close to midnight in Castleisland. Even for a Saturday night, watching it would require some covert planning for Rob and 12-year-old David.

“My parents had sent me to bed, but my brother came to my bed with a laptop, and we just kind of stayed up and watched it,” Shanahan said.

For the next few hours in their shared bedroom, the sound low to not stir their parents, David and his brother watched what became known as the “Mile High Miracle,” with the Ravens upsetting the Broncos 38-35 in double overtime in one of the most dramatic playoff games in NFL history. The game also featured a fourth quarter touchdown catch from Georgia Tech Hall of Fame wide receiver Demaryius Thomas (in another wink from the universe, Thomas hailed from, of all places, Dublin, Ga.).

A decade later, the game remains a core memory for Shanahan. Before long he began watching the one or two NFL games they offered each week on TV in Ireland. Sky Sports and the lone ESPN channel in Ireland started showing a trickle of college football games. When that wasn’t enough, Shanahan got resourceful.

“I just kind of scoured the Internet for an hour or two and find a link to whatever game I could watch,” he said.

Were those links… legal?

“We’ll plead the Fifth,” he replied, proving that in addition to American football, he’s also well-versed in American legalese.

Shanahan primarily played rugby and Gaelic football growing up; the latter is an ancient national sport where players can score points by kicking a ball (slightly smaller and heavier than a soccer ball) through a pair of uprights. Shanahan was talented enough to play on Kerry’s U17 Gaelic football team that won the equivalent of an Irish national championship. But he had grown tired of rugby, and he felt he had reached his ceiling in “Gaelic.” As he watched those college football games each Saturday at home, he noticed how many Australian-born punters dotted the rosters.

It gave him an idea. Maybe, he thought, he could turn his passion for football into a pursuit.

“Seeing their backgrounds, I figured they were similar enough to mine. It was probably around 16 when I started to think about actually playing it,” he said.

Shanahan punted on his rugby and Gaelic football ambitions and began transforming himself into a specialist instead. He ordered “cheap, plastic footballs” from Amazon and practiced his punting technique on his own. When the athletic fields in Castleisland weren’t available, Shanahan practiced at another expanse of land nearby: his uncle Martin’s dairy farm, where he raised 60 to 70 Friesian cows.

“I’d try to find a plot of grass that the cows hadn’t ruined. I’d basically kick it and Rob would catch it and throw it back to me. We’d stay out there for a couple of hours. It was a lot of fun,” he recalled.

He also studied up on the backgrounds of those Australian punters. He learned that almost all of them trained at Prokick Australia, a Melbourne-based academy that has produced dozens of NFL and college punters. With his parents’ blessing, Shanahan left home after high school to become Prokick’s first Irish student, hoping his leg could earn him a college scholarship.

As he refined his craft at Prokick, Georgia Tech was searching for a successor to Pressley Harvin III, its all-ACC punter and future Ray Guy Award winner. The Covid-19 pandemic forced Shanahan back home after nine months in Australia; his uncle’s cow pasture became one of the few places he could keep practicing. After watching his film and getting some recommendations from their contacts at Prokick, Georgia Tech offered Shanahan – still in quarantine in Ireland – a full scholarship in its 2021 signing class.

They knew their recruit would be raw – so raw that when he debuted in the Yellow Jackets’ 2021 season opener against Northern Illinois, it was the first American football game he had ever played in. His parents needed some adjusting too: Later that fall against North Carolina, Shanahan got clobbered by a Tar Heel player on a blocked punt attempt. Georgia Tech won the game and Shanahan dusted himself off quickly. But afterwards, in the wee hours in Ireland, he received a flustered phone call from his Mom.

“She was like, ‘I thought you said you weren’t supposed to get hit!’ I was like, ‘Yeah, me too,’” he said.

He can laugh about his naivete now. “Sometimes I look back at my freshman year and I’m like, I have no idea how I even played or how I functioned. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I would just kind of run out there and basically just swing my leg as hard as I could and hope for the best,” Shanahan joked.

Raw as he may have been, he hasn’t relinquished his starting job since coming to Tech. Shanahan’s net punting average has steadily climbed in his first three years, from 41.5 yards as a freshman to 42.8 as a junior. He’s emphasized finesse heading into his final year, working hard on his situational punting this offseason. He’s also tried to become more consistent with his rugby-style kicks.

“I’ve had a really good offseason kicking them. I’m looking forward to showing them off,” Shanahan said. And yes, he sees the irony in improving his rugby kicks, the sport he once abandoned in favor of football.

Around 50 people plan on making the three-hour trip from Castleisland to watch him play against Florida State (12:00 p.m. ET, Georgia Tech Sports Network). His mom, Eliza, a high school teacher, and his dad, Jack, a pharmacist, will be in the cheering section at Aviva Stadium. So will Rob, the man who first piqued his interest in football, ready to watch his brother’s kicking journey come full circle.

Shanahan hasn’t minded the media attention, though he admits he looks forward to next week when he can “just be a punter again.” But speaking this week, it’s clear that four years in Atlanta hasn’t robbed Shanahan of his Irish brogue or his Irish wit. As he points out, if Georgia Tech’s offense gets rolling on Saturday, his friends and family members won’t get to see him punt at all.

“I’d be perfectly okay with that as long as we won,” Shanahan said.

Ar mhuin na muice. Whatever happens in Dublin, Ireland’s native son, playing on native soil, will be happy to be there.