Kicker Medlock named to Blue Bombers Hall of Fame

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This article was published 27/06/2023 (827 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

JUSTIN Medlock needed only four seasons to establish himself as one of the finest kickers in the long history of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

His tenure in Winnipeg, which ended with a Grey Cup championship in 2019, will be certified gold later this year when the CFL club makes him the lone member of its 2023 Hall of Fame Class.

“It’s great,” said Medlock, via telephone from his home in the Bay Area. “I was about five minutes from going on a big prospecting sales call when I got a call from the team and they told me I got inducted. So, that gave me a jump for the day. It was not something I planned for when I started playing football, but it was something that once you get later on in your career, you would love something like that. I’m glad that it happened and I’m very thankful.”

The 39-year-old product of Fremont, Calif., will be honoured at the Blue Bombers Gala on Oct. 18 at the RBC Convention Centre and at the final home game of the 2023 season on Oct. 21 when the Edmonton Elks pay a visit.

In addition to stints with six NFL teams, Medlock played nine seasons in the CFL with earlier stops in Toronto, Edmonton and Hamilton.

His 1,535 career points are good for 15th in league history and his 802 points as a Blue Bomber place him fourth all time behind Troy Westwood (2,748), Trevor Kennerd (1,840) and Milt Stegall (890). Medlock was good on an astonishing 195 of 228 field goal attempts as a Blue Bomber; his 85.5 percentage is the highest in Winnipeg franchise history.

The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the 2020 CFL season and effectively ended Medlock’s football career. Later that year, he moved with his wife, Hannah, and their two young children from Jupiter, Fla., to California where he embarked on a career as a commercial insurance broker in Silicon Valley.

“There was a little bittersweet ending there but at the same time, it was for the better,” said Medlock.“I was probably gonna play out the two-year contract (in 2020) and then retire but you never know. I remember sitting down after the 2019 season — we had won the Grey Cup — and thinking to myself, ‘There’s really (nothing more) to accomplish in my football career,’ because I wasn’t gonna go back to the NFL… except maybe to win multiple Grey Cups.”

Medlock’s reputation for meticulous preparation and deadly accuracy prompted the Blue Bombers to make several unsuccessful attempts to lure him out of retirement over the last two seasons.

“To come back for half a season or just a couple of games was not really appealing. I had set up in a new job and I knew I was going to be moving back to California,” he said.

When he signed as a free agent in 2016, Medlock joined a core group that ignited an on-field renaissance for the club. He credited his teammate, long-snapper Chad Rempel, among others for a much of his success.

“(Rempel) was a big, big part of getting me to Winnipeg and he was a big part of my success and he was somebody that I’m very thankful for,” said Medlock. “And starting out with (holder) Weston Dressler, one of my favourite teammates, and Matt Nichols, who had to step up and be my holder when he didn’t want to and I didn’t really want him to. It was a weird relationship at first, but we’re still best friends to this day.”

Medlock was named the CFL’s Most Outstanding Special Teams Player in 2016 after setting a league record with 60 field goals on 68 attempts (88.2 percent). He followed that up with 56 field goals in 2017, tied for the fourth-most in CFL history. He was the club’s Most Outstanding Special Teams player in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

An underappreciated punter, Medlock also earned a spot in the franchise’s top 10 with an average of 43.8 yards.

“Coming into Winnipeg I wasn’t really a great punter and then I got to a point where I was a very effective difference-maker from a playmaker standpoint of trying to make sure that we were putting our team into the right spots and changing the way that I used to kind of manoeuvre the ball,” said Medlock. “Now, you see (those tactics) all over the CFL.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14