Mitch Wishnowsky

Mitch Wishnowsky
Utah Utes – No. 33
Position Punter
Class Senior
Major Exercise and sport science
Career history
College
Bowl games
High school Perth (WA) Lumen Christi College
Personal information
Born: (1992-03-02) 2 March 1992
Gosnells, Western Australia
Height 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Weight 220 lb (100 kg)
Career highlights and awards

Mitch Wishnowsky (born 3 March 1992) is an Australian amateur American football punter for the Utah Utes. He won the Ray Guy Award and was a unanimous All-American as a sophomore in 2016.[1][2] He was unanimously named to the College Football All-America Team as a result of his successful sophomore season.

Wishnowsky had grown up playing Australian rules football, but was forced to give up the sport at age 18 due to repeated shoulder injuries. By that time, he had dropped out of secondary school at age 16 to become a glazier. While the work paid well enough for him to purchase a house in his hometown near Perth along with his best friend, he grew to hate the job and sought another career path. Although no longer playing full-contact Australian rules, he continued to play a flag version of the sport alongside several friends, one of whom had a connection to Prokick Australia, a training center in Melbourne that converts Australian rules players into gridiron football punters. He left his job and moved across the country in 2013 to enroll in Prokick, spending a year there. By that time, Utah had brought in earlier Prokick graduate Tom Hackett, and were pleased enough with him that they reached an agreement with Prokick director Nathan Chapman to leave a scholarship open for Wishnowsky once Hackett's Utah career ended after the 2015 season. Since Wishnowsky needed time to secure NCAA eligibility, he enrolled in and punted for Santa Barbara City College in 2014, and redshirted in 2015, remaining in Santa Barbara to complete his associate's degree and conserve NCAA eligibility.[3]

During his Ray Guy Award-winning season in 2016, he was second in Division I FBS in punting average (47.7 yards) and first in punts downed inside the opponent's 10-yard line (17). His 2017 season was only slightly less successful, with a 43.9-yard punting average and 10 punts downed inside the 10.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Goon, Kyle (8 December 2016). "Mitch Wishnowsky wins Utah's third straight Ray Guy Award". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 18 December 2016.
  2. ↑ Goon, Kyle (14 December 2016). "Mitch Wishnowsky earns unanimous consensus All-American status". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 18 December 2016.
  3. 1 2 Niesen, Joan (August 16, 2018). "Mitch Wishnowsky and Utah Are Setting the Pace in a New Phase of the Australian Punter Pipeline". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved August 20, 2018.


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