University of Hawaii punter Gaudion recalls being a scrub with UW kicker

On Saturday, Hawaii’s Stan “Stagwa” Gaudion and Washington’s Joel “Joalie” Whitford will be the opposing punters in the football game at Husky Stadium.

But in January 2016, the two Australians shared a unique cell plan.

At the time, Gaudion was training at Prokick Australia, a program that develops punters and kickers.

“I was unemployed,” Gaudion recalled, “but one of my mates at Prokick — Joelie — his uncle Andrew Walker had a painting company, and they recently won a contract to take the paint off the wall at the Melbourne (Assessment) Prison. It’s the biggest prison in Melbourne, right in the middle of the city.”

The job entailed scraping off the paint from the walls of the cells.

Each morning, they would arrive at the prison for the start of the eight-hour shift.

“We would meet at the bottom of the remand center, and we’d get body-searched and everything,” Gaudion said. “The prison guards would take us through the center of the courtyard into where we would be working.”

In the vacated cells, the initial plan was to apply only a dissolvent on the walls. “And the paint was just supposed to fall off,” Gaudion said. “It turned out there were eight layers of paint. … We had to scrape it off manually with a razor almost, a big razor blade. We were literally scraping paint off walls.”

Gaudion and Whitford averaged two hours per cell. “We’d just make our way down, one by one,” Gaudion said. “Me and Joelie would work together, sing songs, that type of stuff.”

There was a secured area for work breaks.

“They kind of fenced off this area of the courtyard where we’d sit,” Gaudion said. “The prisoners would sit (across from) there and stare at us, as if they were trying to scare us or something. It definitely worked.”

Gaudion added: “Sometimes they would just yell when we’re walking through the courtyard. Obviously, we had a big barricade. They would just yell and scream. … It was pretty eye-opening. It definitely made me think I do not want to end up there, that I should stay on the straight line.”

One day, a paint-removing liquid splashed on Gaudion and Whitford. The acid ate through Gaudion’s gloves.

“So me and Joel ended up in the prison hospital, and the prison nurse treated us,” Gaudion said. “And Joel looked over to me and said: ‘Stan, (your scar) kind of looks like the Hawaiian islands.’ And this was before anything about Hawaii (making an offer). He said, ‘imagine if you end up in Hawaii.’”

As it turned out, the Gaudion eventually received a scholarship offer the Rainbow Warriors. With UH’s 2016 opener in Australia, Gaudion did not join the Warriors until they arrived in Sydney.

Gaudion said he used $2,000 of his earnings from the prison job to buy Whitford’s 1999 Subaru Forester. “It was a good deal because it was a terrific car for me,” Gaudion said. “It was my first car.”

Gaudion, Whitford and other Prokick alumni remain in contact. “We’ve got a bit of a punter’s union,” Gaudion said.

Whitford played a season at Santa Barbara Community College before transferring to Washington. He has been the starting punter the past three seasons. He is averaging 48.0 yards per punt this year.

Gaudion is UH’s No. 1 punter and holder. “When you put it into perspective, waking up early in Honolulu, Hawaii, to show up and punt footballs with your best friends,” Gaudion said, “is a pretty good gig considering what’s out there. I’m definitely in the luckier group of people around.”