The tricky curves and crafty bounces of their kicks, honed by Australian football and rugby, have changed the way punt returners are coached.
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.