USC Gets Leg Up With Stonehouse : College football: Punter has thrived, especially in the crunch, since a crucial 67-yard punt in ’93 against Washington.

It remains the play that defines him, that moment in his athletic life when he stepped into his future.

Date: Nov. 13, 1993.

Site: Husky Stadium, Seattle.

Game: USC-Washington.

Situation: USC is leading, 22-17, but is backed up on its 20-yard line, fourth and four, with 1:10 to play.

The crowd, 72,202 strong, is howling. The Trojan punter stands at his five-yard line, hearing it all and feeling the cold breeze blowing into his face off Lake Washington.

If ever a USC football team needed a great punt, this was that down and John Daniel Stonehouse was the punter.

“At the time, I knew I was known as a guy with a good leg but also as an inconsistent punter,” he said. “I knew that it was the perfect situation for me to show that I could perform at my best when it counted the most.

“I remember getting a perfect snap from Brad Banta and the instant I kicked it, I knew it was gone. It was like hitting a baseball perfectly--you just knew.”

Gone, as in 67 yards.

In an instant, Husky Stadium became as quiet as an empty church. Starting at its 24, Washington reached its 40 in two plays, then Trojan linebacker Joe Barry--now on the USC coaching staff--ended it with a midfield interception.

Stonehouse and his teammates return to Husky Stadium on Saturday for another game with Rose Bowl implications, and Stonehouse, now a senior, eagerly hopes for another big-play opportunity.

Coach John Robinson couldn’t stop talking about Stonehouse’s punt later that afternoon.

“That was a big-time play by a big-time player,” he said.

Two years later, Robinson still considers Stonehouse a big-timer.

“Stonehouse simply is one of the best punters in America,” he says. “He’s got a great leg, and his best punts come in the clutch. He’s phenomenal in those situations.”

Stonehouse looks more like a linebacker than a punter. He’s 5 feet 11 and 230 pounds, has 19-inch biceps and can bench-press 400 pounds. After a session in the weight room, he cools down with 500 sit-ups.

He is the Pacific 10’s No. 2 punter with a 42.1-yard average, trailing only Washington State’s George Martin, at 44.1.

His goal is to become USC’s first All-American punter. The USC media guide lists 110 Trojans since 1925 who have made first-team All-American teams, but not a single punter.

A couple of games like the one he had at Washington State last season would probably get him there. In a 23-10 victory, he averaged 48.3 yards on eight punts, including a 76-yarder--the longest USC punt in 38 years.

For his career, not counting this season, 45 of his 213 punts had pinned opponents inside their 20-yard line, and only 103 of his punts were returned. Twenty-seven traveled more than 50 yards.

He credits strength coach James Strom, who came to USC with Robinson in 1993, for turning around his numbers. There’s a reason, he says, why his average rose from 38 yards to 44 between 1993 and last season.

“Until Strom came in, I’d never done much with weights,” he said.

“Weight training here wasn’t very enjoyable until he came. There were a lot of rules, things you couldn’t do. He made it fun. So I started doing some serious lifting, and when I noticed my punts were going a little higher and farther, I kept at it.

“I’m much stronger and a much better punter. I’m faster and I can even jump higher [in case of a bad snap].”

In an era when high school and college punters and kickers attend summer camps, punting is a family matter for the Stonehouses. Older brother Paul was a four-year punter at Stanford and now coaches his brother in the summer.

“John’s leg strength is just amazing,” said Paul Stonehouse, who averaged 42 yards a punt his senior season.

“He can get off one that goes end-over-end and still get it out there 40 yards.”

He is also coached by Dick Stonehouse, the brothers’ father, who studies prominent NFL and college kickers. And there’s also David Robinson, the coach’s son, who coaches Trojan kickers and tight ends.

At Washington on Saturday, touch will be the key, he said.

“On that [artificial] turf, I want a spiral on the ball that comes down with the rear tip landing first--to get that great bounce,” he said.

If he gets much more bounce than he did on the ’93 punt Husky faithful would like to forget about, he might bounce one into Lake Washington.