KICKING FOR A CHINA BOWL DREAM.

Byline: Chris Hansen The Register-Guard

It was only 7 o'clock on a dreary Monday morning and Shen Yalei had already spent an hour kicking footballs into a net at the west end of the Moshofsky Center, the University of Oregon's indoor practice facility.

Lined up for a 40-yard field goal, Shen approached his target, and with the smooth swing of a soccer player, pushed his right foot through the ball and sent it sailing, end over end, splitting a pair of black, vertical lines taped to the netting to resemble goal posts.

He looked back at Nick Setta, his coach of five weeks, who clapped quietly then offered some nonverbal instruction by pantomiming a correction in Shen's hip movement.

Shen nodded, and then along with Gao Wei and Ding Long, continued kicking from various distances and opposite hash marks for another 45 minutes before Setta led them on a series of 100-yard sprints and stretching exercises.

For more than a month, these three finalists in the NFL's China Bowl Kicker Program have participated in the thrice-weekly workouts with Setta, designed to turn them from unknowns into prospective professional kickers by the end of next summer.

The carrot, being dangled by the NFL, is the chance to be on the sidelines in uniform for the China Bowl, a 2007 preseason game between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks scheduled for Aug. 8 in Beijing. It will serve as a one-year countdown to the 2008 Summer Olympics.

One kicker will be assigned to each team for the NFL's first game in China, but whether they will have a chance to become a national hero in front of their countrymen by actually getting on the field will be up to the respective head coaches of Seattle and New England.

"That is my dream," said Shen, a 22-year-old from Beijing, who, like the others, answered questions through a translator.

"It's a great moment for China," Ding said. "It's a new sport and it's a big thing for the Chinese people."

All three essentially won their way this far, beating out a field of 30 kickers in an audition conducted by the NFL last summer.

Shen and Gao, a 21-year-old from Shanghai, are both high-level soccer players who were encouraged by their respective coaches to try out. Ding, 19, from Tsingtao, has a rugby background.

None had ever kicked a football until his first tryout, and none had more than a passing interest in the NFL.

"It's truly amazing what these guys have done, truly amazing," said Setta, 25, a kicker who played collegiately for Notre Dame, spent two seasons playing in NFL Europe and has been signed as a free agent by five NFL teams.

He is currently a member of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League and the owner of Setta Performance Training, which is based in Chicago.

"They're not kickoff guys or punters. They're strictly field-goal guys who right now have the ability to kick from 40 yards in consistently."

The NFL is paying for their training and lodging at the United States Basketball Academy in Blue River, where the Chinese junior national basketball team is also staying.

"The notoriety and media coverage will be unbelievable for these guys," said USBA founder Bruce O'Neil, who has made 60 trips to China in the past 10 years, mostly for basketball-related business.

"They're going to be huge celebrities. But it's all about national pride for these guys. They're creating this buzz about football and (the China Bowl) that it would never have had unless they had these guys involved."

These past five weeks with Setta are considered critical to their growth before they leave for Tampa, Fla., next week for the NFL Europe camp.

They will be joined there by the fourth finalist, whose visa wasn't approved in time to come to Oregon. All four will be with a team in Europe this season for training purposes only. They'll see no game action.

"Right now, all the attention is focused on them," said Kathryn Kelly, manager of international fan development for the NFL, who was in town on Monday to observe the kickers' progress first hand. "When they get to Tampa, they'll be among a sea of players."

They'll certainly head there more prepared than when they arrived in Oregon, Setta said.

"It's pretty amazing to see the difference," said Setta, who will join them in Tampa. "We've done tons of things for them. They have more control of their leg, more control of their swing. When they first started the drive wasn't there, the height wasn't there. Now they're putting the ball where they want to."

But it hasn't come easily.

Setta has put them through a rigorous training and exercise regimen designed to turn them into top-notch athletes and NFL-caliber kickers.

Besides kicking, the three spend their days running, stretching, weight training and even doing intense water workouts in a natural hot springs pool.

"It's a lot of fun," Gao said. "I'm getting more confident through the whole process."

Setta complimented the three on their work ethic and rapid improvement despite a difficult language barrier and their inexperience.

"They don't whine or complain or anything," Setta said. "It's been pretty easy working with them. There are so many things that have to go right when you kick a football, and they're working really to make that happen.

"This is their chance. I tell them all the time that they are the only three individuals who get to do this. It's an honor for them and they understand that."