Garo Yepremian

Garabed Sarkis "Garo" Yepremian (born June 2, 1944) is an Armenian-American former football placekicker in the National Football League for the Detroit Lions, Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers during a career that spanned from 1966 to 1981.

Career
Yepremian was born in Larnaca, Cyprus to Armenian parents. On the island of Cyprus, his family did not have indoor plumbing and kept warm in winter by burning olive pits.

Yepremian and his brother Krikor emigrated to the U.S. to set a foundation for their parents' arrival. At a loss for a viable life plan, Yepremian happened to watch a few minutes of a football game on television. Yepremian told Krikor he knew the key to success in America: He believed he could kick field goals for a living.

NFL
After much practice in which Yepremian finally proved that he, indeed, might have the ability to kick, the brothers set off on a mission to convince NFL teams that Yepremian could be an American football star. The NFL didn't know what to make of the brothers and they were denied access to many practice facilities. Krikor acted as Yepremian's agent and finally managed to convince the Detroit Lions to give the small Yepremian (5'7", 160 pounds) a tryout. Yepremian's surprising talent earned him a contract. In his rookie year, he broke a record by kicking six field goals in a single game against the Minnesota Vikings. (That record was broken the next season when the St. Louis Cardinals' Jim Bakken kicked seven field goals in a game.) His talent aside, Yepremian was, nonetheless, at a loss regarding football vernacular and custom. In his first game his coach told him that their team had lost the coin toss, at which point Yepremian ran to midfield and dropped to his knees looking for the coin.

Yepremian was an immediate target to NFL players who considered American football the exclusive realm of Americans. Players were looking to take Yepremian's head off, and before his first kickoff his coach told him to run to the bench as soon as he kicked before his opponents could lay into him. Yepremian kicked off, then in a harried state ran to the wrong bench, finding himself sitting with the opposing team. Yepremian had never worn a helmet and at first decided not to use one with a face mask, but that changed during Week 4 of the 1966 season, when he was knocked to the ground and badly injured by Green Bay Packers linebacker Ray Nitschke. Afterwards, he started using a single-bar mask.

During one of his early games with the Lions, they were losing but scored a touchdown in the last 10 seconds of the game. Yepremian was sent in to kick the extra point, and he was so excited after converting the point that he went running off the field with his arms raised in celebration. Teammate Alex Karras asked Yepremian, "What the hell are you celebrating?" Yepremian replied with a phrase made famous on the Johnny Carson show: "I keek a touchdown".

In 1968, Yepremian left football to enlist in the U.S. Army. The Lions chose not to re-sign him when he returned the following year, and he sat out the 1969 season. In 1970, Yepremian earned a spot on the Dolphins roster. He led the league in points with 117 in 1971. Yepremian was a key member of the 1972 Miami Dolphins "Perfect Season" team- he was the leading scorer and converted on many clutch field goals to help the Dolphins stay unbeaten. Yepremian appeared in three Super Bowls (VI, VII and VIII).

Over his career, Yepremian was successful on 210 of 313 field goals and 444 of 464 extra points for a total of 1,074 points. He led the league in field-goal accuracy three times.

Highlights: Super Bowl VII
Yepremian is best known for two feats — one famous, one infamous. In a divisional playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Christmas 1971, he kicked a 37-yard field goal 7 minutes and 40 seconds into double overtime, ending the longest game in NFL history and sending the Dolphins to the AFC Championship game against the Baltimore Colts (which the Dolphins won to go on to Super Bowl VI).

Despite all of Yepremian's success, many people remember him for an incident in Super Bowl VII. With his team leading the Washington Redskins 14-0, Yepremian was sent on to the field to kick a field goal with slightly more than two minutes left, which would have put the game out of reach. The field goal attempt was blocked by Bill Brundige, and Yepremian managed to get to the ball before any other player did. Instead of just falling on the ball to preserve the Dolphins' 14-0 lead, he picked it up and frantically attempted to throw a pass. The ball slipped from his hands and went straight up in the air. Yepremian then batted it back up in the air, and it went right into the arms of his former Lions teammate, Redskins cornerback Mike Bass, who returned it for a touchdown. The Dolphins managed to hold on to win, 14-7. Yepremian later joked to reporters after the game, "This is the first time the goat of the game is in the winner's locker room."

In the 1974 Pro Bowl Yepremian kicked five field goals to lead the AFC to a win, and was voted Most Valuable Player in that game. He was elected to another Pro Bowl after he kicked twenty consecutive field goals without a miss in 1979.

Accolades

 * Two Pro Bowl appearances
 * Named to Sports Illustrated's “Dr. Z's All Decade 1970s Team"
 * Elected to the Florida Sports Hall of Fame in 1981
 * Voted "Kicker of the Decade" (1970s) by the Pro Football Hall of Fame Committee
 * Nominated for the Pro Football Hall of Fame
 * Named one of the Miami Dolphins all-time greatest players as part of the Dolphins' 40th Anniversary
 * Inducted into the American Football Association's Semi Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988

Post-athletic career
Yepremian is a motivational speaker and is the Founder/CEO of the Garo Yepremian Foundation for Brain Tumor Research.

Reebok featured Yepremian and his teammates from the 1972 Dolphins team in a commercial which aired during Super Bowl XLII.

Other sources

 * Carroll, Bob, et al. (1999). Total Football II. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-270174-6