How WSU punter Nick Haberer found his way from Australia to Pullman

PULLMAN – Nick Haberer was sure his mom Raelene had misspoken.

“You want me to learn how to gamble?” Haberer asked.

Turns out, Haberer was the one who misunderstood. In his younger days growing up in Australia, years before he became Washington State’s staple at punter, Haberer was about to sign with a team in the Victorian Football League (similar to the minor leagues in MLB) when his mom suggested he get involved with Prokick Australia, which had shown interest .

Raelene explained that at Prokick Australia, an institution geared toward preparing Australian athletes to play collegiately and professionally in America, coaches teach players how to punt – in Australian slang, another word for gamble.

“They kick footballs,” Raelene said, “like how you kick in AFL (Australian Football League), but you don’t get hit.”

Once Haberer got over his initial confusion, he thought about it and decided to give it a shot. The next morning, he went to a practice and delivered several punts for coaches, who raised their eyebrows. You have some real potential to become a Power Five punter, they said, reminding Haberer he could get an education at the same time.

“And I never thought about getting an education before coming out of high school,” Haberer said after Tuesday’s WSU practice. “It was all AFL for me. I wanted to make it to the AFL,

“I took a step back and thought about, an education would probably be good, and this opportunity is unlike no other. So yeah, took a risk, and six months later, got offered.”

Haberer landed in Pullman because the coaching staff that offered him, led by former coach Nick Rolovich, was at Hawaii at the time. When Rolovich got the job at WSU, he took Haberer and his commitment with him. At WSU, Rolovich may be a thing of the past, but Haberer is showing no signs of becoming the same.

Headed into his fourth season as the Cougars’ starting punter, Haberer has remained the main man at the spot by continuously developing, by adding pieces to his game that he didn’t always have. This offseason, he said, he worked with WSU’s strength staff on getting his hips through the ball to generate more power on his punts, and it turns out the technique for that isn’t unlike a hang clean.

Haberer said he feels stronger, which is also why he feels more confident this season. Throughout this year’s fall camp, which came to an end with Saturday’s second scrimmage, he’s worked on different variations of punts.

“That’s what keeps us elusive and keeps teams guessing,” said Haberer, an All-Pac-12 honorable mention selection in 2022. “That’s what makes when we do fakes so exciting, because teams don’t know if we’re going left, we’re going right or we’re going down the middle.”

Haberer has also kept himself versatile, mainly by adding holding place-kicks to his arsenal during his first season in 2021.

He hardly knew much about the practice before moving stateside. When he got onto campus, though, former WSU special teams coordinator Kyle Krantz saw some potential in him.

Krantz put Haberer through tons of drills. In some, Krantz would set up 12 footballs next to him and rapid fire them toward Haberer, forcing him to catch it, put it down and spin the laces outward – all before the next ball came rocketing his way. Krantz made sure all the snaps were different, some off to the side and some high, to simulate a potential errant snap in a game scenario.

When the middle of the week rolled around, Haberer knew what time it was: Wet Ball Wednesday. Krantz and coaches would drench footballs in water and zip them toward Haberer, who would have to repeat the process – catch, get it down, spin the laces out, this time with a sopping wet ball.

“I got drilled through pretty hard on these holding things, because they wanted me to be the holder,” Haberer said. “Come to game day, I was prepared for all situations, because, yes, it does rain here, and so you gotta be ready for that.”

As his days at WSU near their end, though, Haberer is finding himself spending a bit more time reflecting on the journey that led him here. He never wanted to leave Australia, not when he was young, because he wanted to become a professional athlete and play in the AFL, Australia’s version of the NFL.

To understand why that meant so much to Haberer, you have to understand Australia’s culture around sports. In America, you might go to the local park and see a dad and son playing catch with a football.

“You go to any park in Australia you see the son and dad kicking a football around,” Haberer said. “They’re not throwing it, they’re kicking the ball. So we grow up kicking a football.”

Promising as Haberer’s AFL dream once was, he suffered a string of injuries that derailed those plans. He began to look elsewhere.

He was deciding on which VFL team to sign with, the Casey Demons or the Sandringham Dragons, when Raelene’s friend told her about Haberer’s potential with Prokick Australia.

Turns out, the opportunity was a bit of a gamble. Just not in the way he expected at first.

“The rest,” Haberer said, “is history.”