Kicking Around at Fresno State : Freedom Bowl: Mahoney finds new home and a winning football program.

FRESNO —  Derek Mahoney was a Fresno State Bulldog for all of two days when he made his first homesick call from a pay phone outside Coach Jim Sweeney’s office.

“I don’t know two people in Fresno,” he told his girlfriend.

“There’s nothing to do here. It’s 115 degrees.”

“Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I should have gone to UC Irvine to play soccer.”

He hung up wondering whether things could possibly get worse. At that moment, Sweeney wandered past and answered Mahoney’s question.

“Well, let’s go see if you’re worth coaching,” Sweeney growled at his new field goal kicker.

That was three years ago, and Mahoney can laugh about it now. All the insecurity and uncertainty he felt as a freshman in 1989 have faded into mere memory. What stands out is a consistent, winning college career.

Fresno feels like home for Mahoney, a former All-Southern Section kicker from Fountain Valley High.

“I’ve been here for four seasons and we’ve won three conference championships,” said Mahoney, a junior who redshirted his first season at Fresno State. “You have backing of the community here. You are the pro team. You are the stars here.”

Fresno State plays the biggest game in school history when it meets USC in the Freedom Bowl Tuesday night at Anaheim Stadium. Win or lose, the Bulldogs have captured the imagination of the San Joaquin Valley as never before. To help capture the moment, a local television station gave Mahoney a video camera and free reign to shoot what he sees.

“Mahoney is an excellent kicker,” said Sweeney, a doubter no longer. “He’s done a great job for us. He’s a pleasure to be around. He’s such a great competitor.”

This season, Mahoney was the Western Athletic Conference’s most accurate kicker, making 10 of 11 field goals. The only one he missed was blocked.

He extended his streak of extra points without a miss to a school-record 89 before missing. He moved into second place on Fresno State’s career scoring list with 261 points. And since taking over the punting duties Oct. 3, he’s averaged 41 yards a boot.

Now, Mahoney wonders how it can get any better than this.

The last time Mahoney kicked a ball in Anaheim Stadium, he was helping Fountain Valley defeat La Puente Bishop Amat, 31-24, for the Division I championship in 1988. Back then, he had no reason to believe he would return. He wondered whether he’d ever play football again, though he wanted to.

“I think all the football coaches thought I was going to play soccer,” said Mahoney, who played on a club soccer team in Huntington Beach that included future UCLA standouts Joe-Max Moore and Mike Lapper. “And all the soccer coaches thought I was going to play football.”

As it turned out, the soccer coaches had it right. Mahoney decided he’d rather kick a football than a soccer ball.

He sent highlight films and resumes to college coaches across the country, but the response was hardly overwhelming. New Mexico was kind enough to bring him to Albuquerque for a recruiting trip. Oregon State was interested, too. But both schools had upperclassmen firmly entrenched, and Mahoney couldn’t be guaranteed a chance to kick right away.

Fresno State came calling, and the situation seemed ideal.

And then he went to Fresno.

He missed his girlfriend. He missed the beach. He missed the mild temperatures.

What he got was a lonely dorm room, a land-locked city of 350,000 in the agricultural heartland of California, and 100-degree summer days and 30-degree winter nights.

Even the radio was bad. Mahoney spun the dial back and forth and all he got was Country and Western stations.

“It was tough to adjust my first year,” Mahoney said. “I was homesick. I thought a lot about going to a school in Southern California. I missed being by the beach.”

He was willing to give the city and the school a chance, though, and staying put turned out to be his best move.

A redshirt season in 1989 helped ease the transition. He learned by watching Steve Loop, a senior All-Big West Conference kicker.

He won the job the next season and converted 10 of 18 field goals and 44 consecutive extra points and was an all-conference selection. Last season, he was Fresno State’s leading scorer with 99 points. He made 11 of 15 field goals and set a school record by making 66 of 67 extra points. Once again, he was selected to the all-conference team.

His confidence seemed to swell with each conversion.

Then Fresno State moved from the Big West to the Western Athletic Conference, and suddenly each kick could decide a game. In the Big West, Fresno State routed most opponents, and the chances were remote that a shanked kick could cost the Bulldogs a victory. But in the WAC, Mahoney knew games would be closer and could hinge on an extra point.

“When I was a freshman, I was intimidated because I was new to the situation,” he said. “Now I have no worries. The line always blocks well. Brian Rowe (a backup quarterback) is a great holder.”

He wore a pair of black socks because he was riding a hot streak earlier this season, but chucked them when he decided that fashion was more important than superstition.

“They looked bad,” said Mahoney, who has no established routine when he kicks. “Each kick is different. You have to prove yourself one more time with each kick.”

It boils down to this:

“Think too much and you’re dead.”

Simple but effective, and that’s the bottom line for Mahoney.

“It seems like everything is falling into place,” he said.

He’s even grown to like Garth Brooks’ country music, a sure sign he’s become comfortable in Fresno.

Now, if there was just a beach nearby . . .