BALLARAT athlete Jamie Keehn has earned a scholarship as a punter at one of the premier football colleges in the USA.
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Keehn has signed on with American football powerhouse Louisiana State University, traditionally one of the strongest college football teams in the country.
The former Lake Wendouree and Learmonth footballer signed the deal yesterday while on a three-day whirlwind tour of the college.
The 193-centimetre punter was returning home yesterday, before he heads back to the USA in June to train.
His signing was the culmination of 12 months of training with Prokick Australia.
Keehn’s coach Nathan Chapman said it was a monumental signing, easily the biggest Prokick had produced.
“The majority of people in Australia really won’t understand how big this is,” he said.
“This is bigger than getting drafted by Collingwood. Every game you play for this college is like playing in an AFL grand final.”
Keehn, who was also an Australian junior javelin champion and competitive rower, joins fellow Australian Brad Wing on the LSU roster.
LSU was ranked as the number one college team in America before going down in the NCAA Division 1 final in January.
Chapman said the 22-year-old Keehn had the makings of a star athlete.
“He’s physically imposing, he’s in great shape and he can kick a ball an absolute mile,” he said.
“Jamie came to us about 12 months ago and we saw he had huge potential. We just had to make him more consistent and sharpen him up and he has really come a long way.”
Chapman said it was difficult to tell if Keehn would get much game time, given the strength of the LSU line-up.
“We don’t get players signings just so they can sit on the sidelines,” he said.
“We will have to wait and see at the moment.”
The NCAA season starts in August.
