Rider training camp: Bailey Flint can punt, play the ukulele and he's quite the actor

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Saskatchewan Roughriders punter Bailey Flint plays the ukulele just for kicks.

He has studied theatre and acting.

He’s married to a professional women’s soccer player.

And, unlike his Australian predecessors who have joined the Canadian Football League or National Football League, Flint does NOT come from much of an Aussie rules football background.

Yes, Bailey Flint is different.

And he’s happy to get a second chance in the CFL after signing with the Roughriders this spring.

“100 per cent,” says Flint.

Certainly, he wasn’t banking on it at age 28.

“It’s actually kind of funny,” he explains. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to get another chance. I called up RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) and closed my bank account up here. And, sure enough, I got a call (to join the Riders). My gosh.”

The Riders are looking for a new punter following the retirement of Adam Korsak, another Australian.

Korsak, a West Division all-star in 2023, spent two seasons with the Riders after being selected in the 2023 Global Draft. Korsak punted 235 times while averaging 47.6 yards, with a 90-yard boot his longest.

Flint’s door opened even further when the Riders released fellow Aussie punter Joe Couch early during training camp at Griffiths Stadium in Saskatoon.

“It’s one of those things — in pro football, anything can happen on any day, if you don’t perform,” offers Flint. “I reckon if I have a bad day tomorrow, I could be on a plane, too.”

Flint appeared in eight games with the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2023, punting 52 times for an average of 45.1 yards per boot, the longest 78. Before joining the Ti-Cats as the second overall selection in the 2022 CFL Global Draft, the 6-foot-4, 210-pound punter attended rookie mini-camp with the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers.

Flint attended the University of Toledo, suiting up for 49 games over five seasons from 2017-2021. He averaged 40.3 yards per punt at Toledo, with 33 of his 209 punts travelling 50-plus yards (including a 72-yarder). He also buried 82 punts inside the 20-yard line. He was twice nominated for the Ray Guy Award, given annually to the NCAA’s best punter.

BACKGROUND IN THEATRE, MUSIC

But football wasn’t his only love.

“I got my undergrad in theatre and then my master’s in liberal studies with a focus on theatre and film,” he points out. “It’s just something I really enjoy. I got to go around the world with it all. I got to go to theatre school in Moscow, Russia, in 2019. That was awesome. I’ve got a bit of a passion for that. It’s just a fun hobby, you know?

“Acting-wise was more of my focus on what I wanted to pursue in the times after football. It’s one of those things in acting where you can play Romeo in your 20s and you can play King Lear in your 60s. It doesn’t really stop, whereas football has a time clock.”

Turning 29 later this year, his football clock is ticking but he appreciates the opportunity, what could be his last as a football player.

“I’ve enjoyed my time up here,” he says of training camp in Saskatoon. “Good facilities and a lot of great guys and I like the energy.

“So far, so good. I’m enjoying it. It wasn’t too far of a trip for me because I’m based in Louisville at the moment, so it wasn’t too bad. I didn’t have to come all the way from Australia, fortunately.”

Flint is married to Taylor Flint (nee Kornieck), an American professional soccer player who is a midfielder for Racing Louisville FC in the National Women’s Soccer League. They’ve been married for nearly two years.

“It’s kind of funny — we’re a couple who kick balls for a living,” he says with a chuckle.

HUSBAND-WIFE KICKING DUO

If Flint wasn’t kicking footballs, he’d be working full-time on his consulting business which he started in Australia and carried over to the United States.

“Because I’m based in America and married to an American lady,” he explains, “I work in sports as well, doing consulting stuff.”

The rest of his family is still over in Australia, where he grew up in Hoppers Crossing, located in the western suburbs of the greater Melbourne area.

“I love it out there,” he says. “We go back every couple of years.”

Flint was the first person from his family to graduate from high school.

“It’s a big deal for me,” he points out. “It was a very different path that I followed, compared to most people my age where you go to 10th grade and get an apprenticeship or something and go that route.

“I was on that path. I wanted to be, like, an electrician. That was where I thought I was going to go, and I ended up staying in school, kind of roughing it out.”

Flint has an older brother, two younger sisters and mom, who he credits for helping him get to where he is today.

“She’s been absolutely a cornerstone in every aspect of our lives,” he says. “Super, super supportive. That’s a huge part. She let me leave home when I was 17, to go the outside of the world, when I went to boarding school in Utah and played football there.

“It was really, really fun, but I was academically ineligible (for NCAA football) because, in ninth grade, I took wood-work and that was a non-academic class. So I had to go to JUCO (junior college), went to do that and realized I didn’t have enough money to qualify in JUCO.

“I went back to Australia and I joined Prokick Australia … and they train up all the guys. Pretty much all the Australian punters in the CFL are from Prokick.”

From Prokick, he moved on to punt footballs at Toledo.

Flint says he personally doesn’t have much of an Aussie rules background other than some “youth stuff.”

“Honestly, in high school, I’d just be playing computer games and riding skate-boards,” he admits. “That was all me.”

Music is also all him. Flint has recorded more than 40 songs.

He may be the only CFL player who plays the ukulele.

“I reckon — (but) you know what? Tyler Ternowski can tear it up in Hamilton. He’s good on the guitar. Bailey Feltmate, too. Those guys got it.

“(Ukulele) is easier (than guitar).”

Maybe.

But we reckon that Flint — punter, musician, actor, entrepreneur — is a hard act to follow.

dzary@postmedia.com

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