Graham Gano will treat American football’s Super Bowl 50 in San Francisco on Sunday like any other game but the stakes could not be higher.
The Arbroath-born kicker aims to boot Carolina Panthers to their first title when they face Denver Broncos.
Carolina’s only other Super Bowl appearance was 12 years ago when Adam Vinatieri kicked a field goal with four seconds left to give New England Patriots a 32-29 win in Houston.
Gano, 28, is taking all the madness of Super Bowl week in his stride as he plots the Broncos’ downfall.
“I have been approaching it the same this week as every other week. The stakes might be a little higher, but in all reality it’s just another football game,” he said.
“When I go to the stadium, I always put my wife and kids’ initials on my knuckles and just get ready and dressed.
“Then I just go out and warm up, check out the field, come in and be with the team and then be ready for the game.”
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Gano is in line to be the second Scot to win a Super Bowl ring after Greenock-born Lawrence Tynes won two with New York Giants.
Gano’s career has mirrored that of Tynes both born in Scotland, taking up American football at high school in Florida and both wear the No 9 shirt.
The Panthers’ kicker admits that Tynes has been an inspiration for him. Gano said: “I think I started following him probably my third or fourth year in high school.
“We have a really similar background, growing up in the same area and both our dads were in the military, and both our mums are Scottish.
“It’s just funny how it happened, we share the same agent too. He definitely was an inspiration for me just seeing a guy from Scotland have so much success.”
Tynes is the only man in NFL history to kick overtime field goals to send his team to Super Bowls, famously at a frozen Lambeau Field against Green Bay Packers in 2008 and then at San Francisco 49ers four years later.
But Gano is well aware that a kicker’s career can turn on one kick.
While Tynes’ famous kick earned him a multi-million-dollar contract, Minnesota Vikings’ kicker Blair Walsh suffered the other side when he missed a short kick at the end of a play-off game last month which gave Seattle victory.
“You never wish anything bad on kickers, you want to see them do well. There is kind of a kicker fraternity,” Gano said.