Georgia on his mind

Castleisland teenager David Shanahan earns US college scholarship to play American football

A CASTLEISLAND teenager has taken a small but crucial step toward a possible career in American football and a chance of playing in the rarefied air of the NFL after he signed a four-year full sports scholarship with Georgia Institute of Technology in American.

Nineteen-year-old David Shanahan will be heading to Atlanta next January to take up a four-year college scholarship at Georgie Tech, where he will take his place on the college football team as the team punt kicker.

Shanahan’s journey from Kerry to Georgia isn’t a straight line one, however, as the former Kerry minor footballer started to learn his trade in Melbourne, Australia.

Fostering an interest in American football in his early teens, Shanahan started practicing kick the oval ball near his home in Castleisland, and some research into that side of the sport led him to Prokick, a Melbourne organisation that helps Australian athletes transition to be American football place kickers and punters.

Prokick is run by two former NFL players, John Smith and Nathan Chapman, and twelve months ago Shanahan met Smith in Dublin for a try out after peeking his interest with a video clip of his kicking he had sent to Prokick coach.

With Smith suitably impressed by the Kerry man’s kicking techique, it was suggested that a six to 12-month training programme in Australia could secure Shanahan a scholarship at a US college. And last week that offer came through from Georgia Tech after a video conference call with four coaches from the college, which is home to about 17,000 undergraduate students.

Shanahan is a talented footballer who played underage with the Desmonds club, and he was part of the Kerry Under-17 panel that won the 2017 Munster title.