Darren Bennett (born 9 January 1965) is a former

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

player and

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

punter in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

. As an Australian rules footballer, he played for

East Fremantle East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

in the

West Australian Football League The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...

(WAFL) between 1982 and 1987 and then in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL) for the

West Coast Eagles The West Coast Eagles are a professional Australian rules football club based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded in 1986 as one of two expansion teams in the Australian Football League (AFL), then known as the Victorian Football L ...

and the

Melbourne Football Club The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. It is based in Melbourne, Victoria, and plays its home g ...

. He was most successful at Melbourne, where he was named as one of the club's 150 Heroes of the last 150 years, kicking 208 goals from just 74 games for the club. As an American football player, following a three-club career in the National Football League he is regarded as one of the greatest players of the 1990s and a member of the

NFL 1990s All-Decade Team The NFL 1990s All-Decade Team was chosen by voters of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The team was composed of outstanding performers in the National Football League in the 1990s. The squad consists of first- and second-team offensive, defensive a ...

.NFL's All-Decade Team of the 1990s – SPECIAL TEAMS/COACHES
/ref> This combination made him notable as arguably the most successful of the Australian sportsmen linked to professional American Football in history.

Australian rules football career

Born in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountains ...

, Bennett grew up in Perth, Western Australia where he began playing Australian rules football, first playing senior football with

in the

. His career with the Sharks was severely affected by injuries to his knee, which kept him out for over a season during

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

and 1986 – in the interim denying him a WAFL premiership. However, training with former star Harry Neesham allowed Bennett to be fit for the 1986 finals, and in the second semi he became the first player ever to score ten goals in a WA(N)FL final. As a consequence of his devastating late-1986 form, which included eleven goals in the last round against Claremont as well as his second semi effort, Bennett was recruited to be a member of the

' inaugural squad in 1987. A serious knee

injury An injury is any physiological damage to living tissue caused by immediate physical stress. An injury can occur intentionally or unintentionally and may be caused by blunt trauma, penetrating trauma, burning, toxic exposure, asphyxiation, or o ...

curtailed his career with the Eagles after four games. Released by the Eagles, at the end of the 1988 season, he was drafted by the Melbourne Demons with the 13th selection in the

1988 VFL Draft The 1988 VFL draft, held on the 9th of November 1988, was the third annual national draft held by the Victorian Football League (now known as the Australian Football League). It consisted of a pre-season draft and a national draft. In 1988 there ...

. In both 1989 (34 goals) and 1990 (87 goals) Bennett led the Demons' goal kicking. Bennett was known for

kick A kick is a physical strike using the leg, in unison usually with an area of the knee or lower using the foot, heel, tibia (shin), ball of the foot, blade of the foot, toes or knee (the latter is also known as a knee strike). This type of a ...

ing long goals,

torpedo punt A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, su ...

s and taking strong

mark Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Fin ...

s. Bennett was regarded as one of Melbourne's finest players in the early 1990s. But injuries caught up with him, and he played just two games in 1993. After the season, Bennett quietly retired from the Australian Football League, having totaled 78 games and 215 goals. Australian rules players have other jobs besides playing football; Bennett worked as a youth counselor, and until being drafted by Melbourne planned to work on a shrimp boat. He participated in an

exhibition match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, a scrimmage, a demonstration, a preseason game, a warmup match, or a preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the player's or ...

SkyDome Rogers Centre (originally SkyDome) is a multi-purpose retractable roof stadium in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated at the base of the CN Tower near the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Opened in 1989 on the former Railway Lands, i ...

in Toronto in 1989; it is believed that Bennett was first exposed to American football during that trip.

Statistics

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1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...

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1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicentenn ...

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1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 19 , , 13 , , 34 , , 30 , , 90 , , 27 , , 117 , , 69 , , 6 , , 2.6 , , 2.3 , , 6.9 , , 2.1 , , 9.0 , , 5.3 , , 0.5 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 19 , , 23 , , 87 , , 54 , , 201 , , 31 , , 232 , , 135 , , 8 , , 3.8 , , 2.3 , , 8.7 , , 1.3 , , 10.1 , , 5.9 , , 0.3 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Ph ...

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1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 19 , , 14 , , 28 , , 23 , , 76 , , 13 , , 89 , , 54 , , 7 , , 2.0 , , 1.6 , , 5.4 , , 0.9 , , 6.4 , , 3.9 , , 0.5 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 19 , , 2 , , 4 , , 3 , , 12 , , 2 , , 14 , , 8 , , 0 , , 2.0 , , 1.5 , , 6.0 , , 1.0 , , 7.0 , , 4.0 , , 0.0 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 78 ! 215 ! 152 ! 580 ! 119 ! 699 ! 415 ! 24 ! 2.8 ! 1.9 ! 7.4 ! 1.5 ! 9.0 ! 5.3 ! 0.3

NFL career

Bennett married in 1993. Having won airplane tickets to the US he and his wife went on their honeymoon to California in November 1993, where Bennett contacted the coaching staff of the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

and asked for a tryout. While the coaches laughed at Bennett when the first snap hit him in the face, they liked his kicks and invited him to the 1994

minicamp A mini-camp, also spelled minicamp, is a short camp held by National Football League (NFL) and Canadian Football League (CFL) teams usually in spring of each year. The camp usually only lasts 3 days, but the length varies by a day or two depending ...

. Bennett kicked during the 1994 preseason then spent the season with the Chargers'

practice squad In sports, the practice squad, also called the taxi squad or practice roster, is a group of players signed by a team but not part of their main roster. Frequently used in gridiron football, they serve as extra players during the team's practices, ...

. During the spring of 1995, the Chargers sent him to the

Amsterdam Admirals The Amsterdam Admirals were a professional American football team based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, playing in the NFL Europe. History The Admirals were formed in 1995 as part of the NFL's plan to restart the World League of American Football, t ...

NFL Europe NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally f ...

, where he led the league in net punting average and earned all-league honours. That fall, he became the Chargers' regular punter. In his rookie season, he finished second in the NFL in punting average and made the AFC

Pro Bowl The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players. The format has changed thro ...

team. He went on to establish himself as arguably the best punter in the NFL for the rest of the 1990s. Despite playing in the league for only half of that decade, he was named as the punter on the NFL's All-Decade Team for the 1990s. Bennett's initial 1995 contract with the Chargers was, while the NFL rookie minimum of $119,000 plus a $30,000 Pro Bowl bonus, much more than the salaries of Australian rules players. On 7 August 1999 Bennett returned home with his adoptive sport and took part in Australia's first

American Bowl The American Bowl was a series of National Football League pre-season exhibition games that were held at sites outside the United States between 1986 and 2005. The league started the ''American Bowl'' series in 1986 primarily to promote American ...

in Sydney's brand new

Stadium Australia Stadium Australia, currently known as Accor Stadium for sponsorship purposes, is a multi-purpose stadium located in the Sydney Olympic Park, in Sydney, Australia. The stadium, which in Australia is sometimes referred to as Sydney Olympic Stadi ...

versus the

Denver Broncos The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquart ...

. Bennett was named to another Pro Bowl team in 2000, and continued to be one of the league's leading punters well into the 21st century. Going into the 2004 season, he had averaged 43.8 yards per punt, averaged 27 punts per season inside the 20-yard-line, and had only three blocked punts in his career (one of which happened when the Chargers had only 10 men on the field). As a former Aussie rules player, and considerably larger than most specialist kickers in American football (6'5"/1.96 m, 235 lb/106.5 kg), he did not shy away from physical contact on

special teams In American football, the specific role that a player takes on the field is referred to as their "position". Under the modern rules of American football, both teams are allowed 11 players on the field at one time and have "unlimited free substitu ...

. This willingness to hit, rare among kickers, was never more evident than when he knocked an opposing punt returner out cold in his rookie season. In 2004, after 144 games for the Chargers, he signed as a

free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is ...

with the Minnesota Vikings, where he spent one season until being injured in pre-season and then cut in September 2005. However, he was recalled by the team in December 2005, after starting punter Chris Kluwe (who had replaced him on the Vikings squad) was injured; Bennett was signed to a temporary contrac

He played one game before being released by the Vikings, having made what was likely his final NFL appearance after 15 Vikings games and a total of 159 NFL games. Bennett is also credited for the introduction into the NFL of the "Aussie Rules kick" or "

Drop punt The punt kick is a common style of kicking in Australian rules football. It is a kick where the ball is dropped from the players' hands and kicked slightly off the longer center line of the ball before it hits the ground. It is the primary mea ...

" as it is known in Australia. The technique was instrumental in the advancement of Australians into the NFL, and currently half of the punters in the NFL make use of the Aussie Rules punt in pooch-punt situations. Bennett was named to the San Diego Chargers 50th Anniversary Team in 2009. He was inducted into the Chargers Hall of Fame in 2012, the first time the Chargers allowed fans to decide the newest member.

Personal

Bennett and his wife Rosemary reside in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

and became US citizens in 2010. They have two sons, one of whom suffers from

Duchenne muscular dystrophy Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a severe type of muscular dystrophy that primarily affects boys. Muscle weakness usually begins around the age of four, and worsens quickly. Muscle loss typically occurs first in the thighs and pelvis follow ...

; Bennett is deeply involved with charities associated with that disease. Bennett coaches high school kickers and punters in San Diego and mentors High School, NCAA and NFL players.

References

External links

*
Official Minnesota Vikings profileDarren Bennett's personal websiteDemonWiki profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bennett, Darren 1965 births Living people Australian expatriate sportspeople in the United States Australian rules footballers from Western Australia People from Fremantle American football punters Melbourne Football Club players West Coast Eagles players Amsterdam Admirals players San Diego Chargers players East Fremantle Football Club players Minnesota Vikings players American Conference Pro Bowl players Australian players of American football People educated at Applecross Senior High School Footballers who switched code Sportsmen from New South Wales Sportspeople from Sydney Australian rules football players that played in the NFL Australian rules footballers from Sydney