Monbulk, Victoria | 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 specialist kickers, known as punters, who greatly influence how teams kick in the highest levels of American college football and, to a lesser extent, the NFL.