Cardinals' 35th season in Arizona: Former punter Rich Camarillo looks back on Mexico game
Rich Camarillo was a baseball fan and player growing up southeast of Los Angeles in the 1960s and '70s, not too far from Dodger Stadium. When the sports seasons changed, the sports he and his brothers and neighbors would play outside their homes would change with them.
That's where Camarillo would kick a football, and he remembers being pretty good at it when he was a kid. But baseball was his game, until one rainy fall day in high school when there was no practice and he and his teammates were playing football on a field for fun.
Camarillo was kicking the ball so well that a football coach happened to notice and called the teenager over for a chat.
His older brother was the varsity punter, and Camarillo initially didn't want to play because of the school's tradition of shaving players' heads. But with only a few days left in the season, Camarillo was allowed to punt for junior varsity and not cut his hair.
The following football season, the haircut rule was not enforced, Camarillo became the varsity punter and a career was born. He went on to play in the Pac-10 at Washington. He went undrafted but got an opportunity with the New England Patriots.
Camarillo turned that into 16 NFL seasons with five teams, including five seasons with the Phoenix Cardinals from 1989 to 1993 preceded by punting for the Patriots in Super Bowl XX in 1986. Camarillo made the Pro Bowl in four of those five Arizona seasons, and the city became home. He is now a grandfather and looks forward to watching his grandchildren take part in youth sports.
This NFL season, which ends with Super Bowl 57 in Glendale, The Republic visits with some of the names and faces from the Cardinals' 35 seasons in Arizona. Camarillo, a member of the Patriots' 50th anniversary all-time team who was that close to working construction with his father in California instead of becoming one of the best NFL punters of all time, is featured this week.
Previous stories in our series: Leonard Davis | Chris Johnson | Bertrand Berry | Eric Hill | Neil Rackers | Mike Iupati | Karlos Dansby | Carson Palmer | Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie | Michael Pittman
Q: Where you grew up and in those days, there was really no one to look up to as far as pro football and the future was real world work. Could you have imagined the career you had?
A: "No, not at all. I grew up, you know, collecting baseball cards and football cards and all that. So to me, when I did make the pros, and I remember seeing my first football card, it was me. And I couldn't believe it. Like, how did I get here? You know, from Pico Rivera (Calif.) just like everyone else in those kinds of towns. You know, nobody really does anything and you're like 'that would be cool' but it doesn't really happen."
Q: The Cardinals head to Mexico this week. Is that something you would have enjoyed in your career and how rooted do you feel with your Latino heritage?
A: I actually got a chance to go there when I had gone to the Oilers after Buddy Ryan got in here (in Arizona) and I was shipped out. So I went to the Oilers. And I think it was my second game there. We got to play the Cowboys (a preseason game), I think we were the first team to go there (to Mexico City). I'm not sure about that. But anyway, we went and we played there. So that was a big deal. But for me, I'm not fluent in Spanish, so I was kind of like 'don't be nervous when they want to interview you.' There was a lot of people that want to talk to you. So I kind of wish I knew Spanish. That's kind of a regret I had. But it was still a great experience. The crowd was unbelievable. It was so big. It was like, I think we had 116,000 people in that soccer stadium."
Q: Are you still connected to the Patriots and Cardinals?
A: "I'm still connected to them (the Patriots) too, not just the Cardinals, but I like both teams. I really enjoyed my time with both teams. The other teams I played for, the Rams, it was cool, because it was my home team. And I got to play for my childhood team, which was really cool. But it was just like a cup of coffee there. And then same thing with the Raiders and the Oilers a little longer."
Q: What was your Super Bowl experience like?
A: "We could do no right that day. But I think it was just the opponent. We're playing the Chicago Bears. I look back on it now, I realized that I was lucky to play in the Super Bowl. But I just think like, 'Man, why couldn't we have played a team that we had a chance to beat?' It would have been cool to be a world champion. ... It's like a fairy tale that happened, but it's all in the past. Like it didn't happen, but I know it did."
Get in touch with Jose Romero at Jose.Romero@gannett.com. Find him on Twitter at @RomeroJoseM.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Cardinals' 35th season in Arizona: Former punter recalls career
