GET GEARED UP FOR STAMPS VS. ALS
PAREDES CLOSES IN ON PAUL MCCALLUM’S FIELD GOAL STREAK
In a ritual held dear by soccer moms around the world, Roxana Paredes muttered a quiet prayer every time her eight-year-old son begrudgingly played goal under the orders of his coach.
In a ritual held dear by soccer moms around the world, Roxana Paredes reminded herself to breathe whenever the ball bounced into the same area code as the net.
Fast forward two decades. All grown up, Rene is the kicker for the Calgary Stampeders — and he’s a Canadian Football League all-star riding an incredible streak.
In fact, he needs make just six more field goals to set a CFL record for the most consecutive field goals (31) without a miss.
Regardless, whenever her boy walks onto the field with tee in hand, Roxana still puts in her quiet request for guidance from above. Once a mom, always a mom And, rarely does the Man upstairs disappoint.
“I always get nervous and I am praying,” she says with a giggle. “All the games, I watch them on TV. For sure. I am watching him. I always get so nervous.
“But I’m so happy to see him go far in his profession.”
Going far is one way to describe the fairy-tale rise of Paredes from jack-of-all-trades in a Montreal print shop to elite CFL kicker in a matter of three years.
There’s simply nothing ordinary about Paredes and his journey from the scorching soccer pitches of Venezuela to McMahon Stadium.
As a boy, Paredes dreamed of becoming the next Messi, not the next Lui Passaglia or Dave Ridgway. He cheered for Barcelona, not the Saskatchewan Roughriders or Toronto Argonauts.
“It’s hard to switch,” Paredes says of the move to football. “It’s a different sport, right? But I was still kicking. It wasn’t a complete transformation.
“But I always had a strong leg. And every time I was kicking a soccer ball, it went far for some reason.”
Whatever the reason, that strong leg helped Paredes succeed in soccer in his home in Venezuela (his family roots are actually in Peru). At age 8, he moved with his family to American football-crazed Miami, Fla.
Still, Paredes stuck with soccer — he preferred to play mid-field over goal — until he turned 15.
The football coach at Felix Varela high school approached the soccer coach with a request for the kid with the biggest leg.
Paredes was hands down the guy. A new career path was born.
With the family on the move again, Paredes headed north to Montreal after highschool graduation—spurning partial scholarship offers from several NCAA universities in the process — and enrolled in junior college.
Two years later, he took cleats over to Concordia University and learned under head coach Gerry McGrath, a CFL kicker with Mon- treal and Concordia in the 1980s.
“Rene has had a fantastic career with us,” McGrath said back in 2011. “He can easily compete with any CIS kicker and most CFL kickers. He is technically strong, extremely consistent and has a great mental ability to focus and block out any distractions.”
That summer, Paredes received a training camp from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He was cut.
So Paredes flew back home Montreal with every intention of working full-time in the John Abbott College print shop for the summer while he mulled over his future.
“The print shop — that was my job during my college career,” Paredes says. “We printed anything for the school — booklets or anything the teachers needed. I was an assistant to the press man. I would clean the presses. I basically would do everything.
“My boss, I still talk with him. I still go visit him.”
A week after his release from Winnipeg, Paredes paid his own way from Montreal to Calgary for a tryout with the Stampeders to re- place the injured Rob Maver at kicker.
“The funny story is that my first field goal, I missed it,” Paredes says. “And after that, I was like, ‘I’m not going to make the team, guaranteed.’
“I just got back into my rhythm, and stayed calm like I always do. I did good in the end.”
So good, the Stampeders offered him a contract. He accepted.
Two weeks later, the raw rookie missed two of three attempts in a 24-19 loss to the Edmonton Eskimos. Sensing a little shakiness, Stampeders head coach John Hufnagel suggested the newcomer consult via telephone with sports psychologist Frank Lodato.
In the next game, Paredes made four of five field goals in the wind tunnel known as Mosaic Stadium. The job was his. “I also still talk to Dr. Frank before every game, no matter how well I’m doing,” Paredes says. “I like to give him a call. We talk for two to three minutes after my warm-up. “It’s my routine.” “Dr. Frank” is the 87-year-old sports psychology guru who has worked with a star-studded list of clients from Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Harry Carson to New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur to the Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins.
“We talk about the same thing every week,” Paredes says. “Keep doing your job, stay focused — all the same stuff he’s been telling me for the last three years now.
“He’s a great guy. Hopefully one day, I get to meet him.”
With the fuss growing over “the streak” by the day, Paredes is determined to stay grounded.
He’ll talk to Lodato after warm-up Saturday afternoon before kickoff between the Stampeders and the Montreal Alouettes at McMahon Stadium.
“You can’t take anything for granted,” Paredes says. “The CFL is a hard place to stay. Very hard. It’s a small league. During the year, you see guys come in and come out. There aren’t many jobs out there.
“I guess if you’re doing good as a kicker, it’s a little easier. But you still have to compete.”
Back home in Montreal, Rene Paredes Sr. and Roxana simply marvel over the rise of their son from one of the estimated 265 million people playing soccer on this planet to one of eight professional kickers in the CFL.
“You know something? He broke my heart any time he beat the goalie when he was in soccer,” Rene Sr. says. “Now he breaks my heart too in football.”
By breaking his heart, Rene Sr. means breaking in two with happiness when the ball splits the uprights — a sensation Roxana totally understands.
“My whole family, when Rene was 2, they would say, ‘He’s going to be a good soccer player,’ ” Roxana says. “He had such a strong leg.
“And now he’s kicking professionally.”