Jeter hopes change to start times can help
Earlier games could increase attendance
MIAMI — Hoping to boost their league-worst attendance, the Marlins will be experimenting with earlier start times next season.
In a schedule change for 2020, Miami is moving up all Monday-Thursday home games in April, May and September by 30 minutes. The Marlins, who’ve traditionally started night games at 7:10 p.m., will now play those contests at 6:40 p.m.
The decision seems to be an appeal toward attracting younger fans to the ballpark. The three months coincide with the school schedule for kids. Speaking with reporters, Marlins CEO Derek Jeter elaborated on the move, citing a willingness to be open to change.
“The size, the accent, the tattoos, the big leg, the attitude —all of if fits here,” tight end Brevin Jordan said.
Hedley’s full-body tattoos don’t just made him look like a brother from another continent in some rebel fashion. It also tells of his backstory. He owned a tattoo shop, often sampling the wares. He played Australian Rules Football until that dream died. He lived in Indonesia for a couple years, often in the jungle. He worked construction for five years or six years.
Somehow it doesn’t add up to being 24, he’s told.
“I quit school early,” he said. Now he’s back in school, because a former teammate who got involved with a school exporting Australian kickers to America and said Hedley should give it a try.
So Hedley ordered an NFLcertified football off the internet. When it arrived one rainy night, he was so excited he drove to a field, used his car lights to see and began punting.
He hasn’t stopped. He got a tryout with the school, ProKick Australia. That led to him moving a across Australia from his native Perth to Melbourne, where the school was located. This “Leg U” was full of hopefuls. It has placed more than 60 kickers into American colleges and four into the NFL.
After six months of legwork, Hedley became the fourth straight Australian punter, sight unseen, to attend the City College of San Francisco. The first American football game he saw he played in. This was 2017. He didn’t know the rules, much less when to punt.
“I just sat on the bench and waited for them to say, ‘Punt, ready,’ to get up,’’ he said. “Then I ran on the field and punted.”
He sat out last season to preserve eligibility that had dwindled to a year because of his age. Miami ranked 115th in punting and needed a punter. It was a quick connect-thedots move of signing perhaps the best college free agent out there.
“We needed help,” Diaz said. “It was a good fit for us.”
For Hedley, too. Defying what he’s found most Americans know of Australia, grew up by the ocean, first in a small, fishing town of 700 and then in Perth.
“I get a lot of questions from people who think Australia is red dirt, dust, kangaroos and snakes,” he said. “I think they’ve seen too many Steve Irwin documentaries.”
Don’t forget Vegemite sandwiches.
“I haven’t met anyone who enjoyed the taste of them,” he said.
The other common line of conversation: At his size, he should be a linebacker.
“I wouldn’t last a day at linebacker,” he said.
He’s a punter who hopes to remain one. His 18-month-old son lives in Philadelphia with his mother, and Hedley hopes to punt well enough to make the NFL.
“It’s something I want to try,” he said.
Meanwhile, he’s learning not just about punting but the nuances of the Hurricanes. He heard Miami and Florida State was a big rivalry before arriving. Now knows the opening opponent, Florida, also is a rival.
“My first game is a big one,” he said.
For the past several months, Hedley has been an intriguing story. “The most intimidating punter you’ve ever seen,” the New York Post wrote. ESPN put up a photo and announcer Scott Van Pelt said, “Swag on a billion.” A Perth newspaper headline read , “The U.S. is frothing” over Hedley.
All a little much for a punter, he knows.
“And I haven’t even punted yet,” he says, adding with a chuckle. “Now I’ve got work to do.” Miami safety Bubba Bolden speaks to members of the media Tuesday during the team’s Media Day.
“The way we work is extraordinary,” said Smith. “A lot of people want to come to Miami, but you’ve got to be ready to put in the work coming in. That’s the standard here. Every day, we come out, we give it our all. I feel like that’s the tradition.”
Bolden has been impressed with what he’s seen working with and watching the safeties.
“[These are] top safeties right here, I feel like, in the country,” he said. “They have perfect tackling technique. They have perfect skills. [Safeties coach Ephraim] Banda is a really good coach. He teaches us very well to basically come out and be like Jaquan Johnson and Sheldrick Redwine.”
Bolden also attributes a great deal of why he landed in Coral Gables to Banda and the prospect of playing for him in coach Manny Diaz’s and coordinator Blake Baker’s scheme.
“He’s a smart coach,” Bolden said of Banda. “You see what he’s done. You see what he’s put in the league, and those are top guys that you want to look up to and you want to try to play like. Doing that, going in the film [room] every day and listening to him, I feel like you should go far.”
When Baker named the freshmen most likely to be in the twodeep rotation on defense against Florida on Aug. 24, he said cornerback Te’Cory Couch and linebacker Sam Brooks, but that was before Smith left the program late Tuesday night.
Smith called the older safeties on the roster “big brothers” in helping bring him along, but also said going through the incoming freshman process with fellow Chaminade Lions in Couch and defensive end Cameron Williams has helped.
“That’s probably one of the best parts about it,” Smith said. “Coming here with them, it was like the ultimate plan. We’re here now. It’s just, we got that grind in our body. We’re just here to work.”