Ed Tait
Winnipeg Free Press

WINNIPEG -- If there are any lingering scars, mental or physical, Alexis Serna hides them perfectly behind a 1,000-watt smile that could blind a room.

It's a good 30 minutes after practice on Wednesday and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers locker-room is clearing out for the day. And there is the club's diminutive kicker hunkered down in his corner locker, still in his jersey and cleats, chatting freely about his season while kibbitzing with some of the still lingering offensive linemen.

The scene is compelling, frankly, given where Serna was at this time last season. Struggling through a horrendous rookie campaign in which he connected on a league-low 66.7 per cent of his field-goal attempts, the 24-year-old Californian was the picture of a beaten man. He was at the wrong end of some nasty sideline abuse from then-head coach Doug Berry after some critical misses and had most folks in Bomberland volunteering to drive him to the bus depot AND pay for his ticket out of town.

But here we are less than a year later and Serna has been reborn on the football field and, if you want to get all melodramatic, in life. He says he's rediscovered his faith and, just as important, he's rediscovered his faith in himself.

The results on the football field have been astonishing: He is 24 of 28 (85. 7 per cent) this season and sports the longest average field-goal length (36.9) while kicking in the most difficult stadium in the CFL. Dating back to the end of 2008, has hit on 34 of his last 39.

"After the playoff game last year, the day after, I was sitting in the locker-room and it was kind of a sense of relief just for getting through the season," Serna admitted. "In the end, it was a situation where I felt like I knew I was still a good kicker. I just had to learn to find myself and trust myself."

To get from that low to this high so quickly says a whole bunch about his own resiliency. Indeed, if the CFL dished out a comeback-player-of-the-year award, the engravers would already be scratching Serna's name on the trophy.

"This is the way it's supposed to be," said Serna, smiling.

Courtesy: www.winnipegfreepress.com