On a cloudy, gusty morning last month, three dozen students, teachers, construction workers, electricians and bartenders wore helmets and shoulder pads and boomed torpedoes, banana kicks and drop punts.
Down the hill from a strip mall outside Melbourne, on a borrowed soccer field, they trained to become the next generation of Australian punters who greatly influence special teams play at the highest levels of American college football and, to a lesser extent, the N.F.L.
This season, 61 of the 133 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the top tier of N.C.A.A.
football, have Aussie punters on their rosters, according to Prokick Australia, a Melbourne-based academy that converts Australian rules football players and some rugby players into punters (and a smaller number of kickers) for the American game.
Organizations:
Football
Locations:
Melbourne, N.C.A.A, Australia