{"id":23581,"date":"2025-07-25T17:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T17:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/23581\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T17:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T17:49:10","slug":"hogan-haggerty-still-kickin-toronto-argonauts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/23581\/","title":{"rendered":"Hogan: Haggerty Still Kickin\u2019 – Toronto Argonauts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Football can be an incredibly emotional game. It\u2019s an extremely physical sport, filled with momentum changes, big plays, and a lengthy schedule that can become a mental and physical grind. It\u2019s easy to become emotionally worn out by the highs and lows of a season.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s John Haggerty.<\/p>\n

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No matter the score, the tedium of practice, or whatever distraction the club faces, the Toronto Argonauts punter brings the same tools to work every day, a strong work ethic and a calm demeanor.<\/p>\n

Oh ya, and skill. Lots and lots of skill.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old Australian is in his fourth season with the Argos and has gotten better and better each year. Last season he set the Argos all-time single season record with an average kick of 50.3 yards, and so far in 2025 he\u2019s averaged 50.6 yards per boot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like on any given day I should be averaging over 50 with the strength of my leg,\u201d Haggerty told Argonauts.ca. \u201cEvery time I connect with the ball, the mishits are going 48, so anything over 50 is a standard for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He doesn\u2019t say that in a boastful or arrogant way, far from it, but that\u2019s where Haggerty\u2019s game is right now. He took another run at an NFL job in the off-season, which actually set him back a bit in terms of the CFL.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I was trying for the NFL I switched over to the old Dukes (the Wilson NFL ball) for a couple months. In switching back I found it was a struggle going back to the CFL balls. Hitting the Duke type of balls is just so different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why is that? Be prepared for some punter minutiae you probably hadn\u2019t thought of before.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur balls in the CFL are usually fatter so they\u2019re harder to hold,\u201d he explained. \u201cNFL balls, the ends are a bit more pointy, like a quarterback ball, so they\u2019re a bit easier to hold, so just catching them and holding them is completely different with each ball. And then the sweet spot is a little bit bigger on the CFL ball, but the mishits aren\u2019t as good as an NFL ball mishit, so it\u2019s just trying to find the fine tuning of the ball again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his success at getting the ball downfield, the Argos overall punting game hasn\u2019t been stellar. The team\u2019s net average is, to be blunt, not good. It\u2019s a league low 34.7 yards, while Haggerty has yet to pin his opponents inside their own 10-yard line, the only punter in the league that hasn\u2019t done that, but something he did eight times a year ago to tie for the league lead.<\/p>\n

Injuries to key special teams players like Jack Cassar and Brian Harelimana have been a contributing factor, but it\u2019s something the Boatmen must clean up.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re a team, right,\u201d said Haggerty. \u201cI\u2019ve got to put us in a better spot to cover, and the coverage has to make the plays when the ball is there. The inside-the-10 part, we\u2019ve only really had two punts that have gone inside the 10 where we\u2019re trying to pin them, everything else has really been open field, so it\u2019s a bit harder to pin them inside the 10 when you\u2019d have to hit it 80 yards to pin it. That\u2019s not so much of a concern, but the net is definitely something we have to better as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is little doubt that Haggerty is the best punter in Argo history, high praise when you consider he was preceded by players like Noel Prefontaine, Hank Ilesic, Dave Mann, Joe Krol, and Bob Isbister.<\/p>\n

He holds the Argos record with a career average of 49.1 yards and the aforementioned single-season mark of 50.3. Last year he broke two other records, averaging 58.9 yards per punt in Calgary, the highest single-game average with a minimum of eight punts, while shattering the CFL Grey Cup record with a 54.8-yard effort against Winnipeg, besting the previous record by a whopping 5.3 yards.<\/p>\n

His 88-yard punt in Calgary last year was the league\u2019s longest, while he has an 83 yarder to his credit this year.<\/p>\n

Aside from the team\u2019s record at this stage, life is going well for the likeable Aussie. His wife and kids live in Toronto during the season, while there\u2019s been a pipeline of family making the long trek to visit, helping keep Qantas Airlines in business.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy wife\u2019s family was here for the first six weeks helping us out,\u201d Haggerty explained. \u201cThen they left, and my sister and her husband have come over, this is their honeymoon, they just got married in the off-season and my sister is pregnant with her third baby, so it\u2019s been nice having them. Then they leave and my other sister comes for two weeks, and then she leaves, and my mom comes for a month, so we\u2019ve got an open door of family flowing in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haggerty is luckier than some of his teammates and coaches. For many, their family remains in their hometown while they live in Toronto for six months. Family visits are huge for those players and coaches mentally, as is the opportunity for Haggerty to be a husband and dad on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d said a smiling Haggerty. \u201cThe first thing, I go home and the kids come running to the door. It\u2019s amazing. You just forget about football; you watch film for a little bit and you\u2019re on dad duty. You take them swimming, you take them to the park, and you just forget about football. It\u2019s awesome, I really enjoy being a dad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Football can be an incredibly emotional game. It\u2019s an extremely physical sport, filled with momentum changes, big plays,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-23581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}