By Scott Cruickshank
Calgary Herald

He’s not looking over his shoulder. No need to.

While McMahon Stadium is the setting daily for dozens of positional scraps and countless mind games, Rene Paredes’s life is free of showdowns.

No challengers. No walk-ons. No upstarts. No one.

Paredes is the lone kicker on the Calgary Stampeders’ depth chart.

“It is a confidence(-booster),” he says. “They trust you. They want you to be the guy. They don’t want to bring anybody in to confuse you or anything like that. But at the same time? You’ve got to work. You don’t do your job, you miss your field goals in training camp, they’ll bring somebody in the next week.

“I’m kicking by myself, but I’m treating it like somebody’s taking the second reps and trying to take my job.”

So, you see, Paredes is actually being pushed by the Canadian Football League’s finest kicker — himself.

After a phenomenal year, he has created his own benchmark.

“I try to force myself to compete against myself, right?” Paredes says. “You don’t want to have a bad camp, even if you’re (already) the guy. You want to make sure you have a good camp going into the pre-season, hit a couple of good field goals, so you’re ready for the season.”

The 28-year-old is not particularly eager to delve into 2012’s high points — although he can recount, in detail, all (three) of his misses — but he will acknowledge that his campaign had been terrific. How could he not?

The 93-per cent success rate for field goals is the second best in CFL history. (Only Paul McCallum, 94.3 per cent in 2011, had been deadlier.) Not surprisingly, Paredes picked up league all-star honours.

“After the season ended, I looked at my stats — I was proud,” says No. 30. “Reaching the Grey Cup was a good success. But it’s another season, so you’ve got to put that in the past. Every year can’t be the same. You hope it would be, but you have to go day by day.

“This year I’m not going to think about last year. All I’m going to do is have the same routine … work hard and everything will take care of itself. I’m just here to score field goals and help the team win.”

Prodded, Paredes is asked if he can duplicate those numbers.

“It could be re-do-able,” he says. “But sometimes you’re put in different situations, different conditions. Many things could happen. Listen, I have many goals, right? But my main goal is to make as many field goals as I can to help the team win.

“If I do that, all the rest of my goals will take care of themselves by the end of the year.

“That was my approach last year. Why would I change it?”

Good point. And, predictably, Paredes didn’t dare to alter his winter program. Spent time in Montreal. Began booting balls in March. Worked out under the watchful eye of tutor Don Sweet. Now he’s back in Calgary for his second Stamps camp.

(Paredes checked in at 195 pounds and, as usual, anticipates finishing the season at 205.)

In the days leading up to the June 28 season-opener, the five-foot-11 veteran is focusing on his stroke.

“Just trying to find our rhythm, with the holders, with the team,” Paredes says. “We play it by ear. For field goals, I probably take six to 10 kicks with the team. Usually in the morning, in pre-practice, we have 10 to 15 kicks. (Special teams co-ordinator Mark Kilam) is doing a good job of not (over-)using our legs.”

Especially when there are only two bootsmiths on the premises — Paredes and punter Rob Maver (who, like his fellow all-star, is facing no challengers this camp).

“When there’s just the two of us, you don’t want to tweak anything in your legs,” Paredes says. “It’s obvious it’s only me and Maver here. There’s no competition between us. There’s not any other guys pushing us. It’s only us. It’s our group from last year … and we just want to keep going from what we did last year.

“We finished strong at the end of the year and we want to continue, starting in Game 1, for the whole season.”