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Chinese trio immersed in NFL to tap fertile market

NFL hopefuls Shen Yalei, Gao Wei and Ding Long, from left, sit down for a meal in Eugene, Oregon, on Feb. 16. PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE

Chinese athletes Gao Wei (高偉), Ding Long (丁龍) and Shen Yalei (申亞磊) are being Americanized. For the past five weeks they have lived in western Oregon. They have combed the malls, learned to love diner food, studied English and adopted the Westernized names William, Rambo and Sean -- all in an effort to become the first Chinese to play in the US' most popular sports league, the NFL.

The plan was devised by the NFL to penetrate China, that fertile untapped market, by giving Chinese sports fans someone in a helmet and shoulder pads they can readily connect with. Gao, Ding and Shen knew next to nothing about football when they were selected by the NFL at a tryout last summer in China. Now they are immersed in the experiment, a crash course on the craft of kicking footballs that may culminate in August with one or two them taking the field in the NFL's first exhibition game in China.

Gao, 21, was a soccer goalie at the Shanghai Institute of Physical Education; Ding, 19, played rugby for the Qing Daw Ming Sha club; and Shen, 22, was a soccer player with Beijing Sports University. They are kicking and training at the University of Oregon's indoor practice facility, under the tutelage of Nicholas Setta, a 25-year-old kicker in the Canadian Football League, who played at Notre Dame.

On March 5, they will participate in a tryout camp for NFL Europe in Tampa, Florida, after which two of them will be assigned to teams for the 10-week European season as final preparation for a shot at suiting up for the NFL exhibition game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots in the 66,000-seat the Workers Stadium in Beijing on Aug. 9.

"It's amazing," Gao said through an interpreter. "At the beginning, it was hard to believe. But we're just starting to get used to it."

The NFL is hoping Gao, Ding or Shen can provide the kind of international appeal that the NBA and Major League Baseball have achieved with players like the Houston Rockets' Yao Ming (姚明) of China and the Yankees' Hideki Matsui from Japan.

"I think it will take another generation for football to find someone like that in China," Ding said, referring to Yao, the Rockets' Chinese All-Star center.

"We have the potential to do it, even though we're just beginning to train," Shen said.

NFL officials have insisted that using a Chinese kicker in the exhibition game in Beijing would not be a stunt, but rather a football decision made by coaches of the Patriots and the Seahawks, who have each agreed to suit up one player -- not necessarily to use him. Last week, Mark Waller, senior vice president of NFL International, wanted to know one thing from a visitor to the kickers in Oregon: "Can they kick?"

Yes, they can. But their range is inconsistent. Setta said that on a good day, each could hit from 47 or 48 yards out.

"They've made tremendous improvements," Setta said. "But dealing with the pressure that comes with this job isn't easy to teach. Nobody really understands it until you're in it and it's happening."

The US Basketball Academy, a Eugene-based consultant to the Chinese sports ministry, is host to Gao, Ding and Shen.

Early one morning last week, Setta put them through a typical kicking evaluation, charting makes and misses as they moved from the point-after mark out to the 35-yard line (a 45-yard field goal). Gao and Dong missed sparingly as they moved back and forth across the field from hash mark to hash mark. Shen, who said he had had a sleepless night, sprayed balls all around the uprights.

Gao was the most consistent, with a smooth setup and good loft. He had learned to take a deep breath and let his hands swing loose before approaching the ball. From 40 yards, his kick barely made it over the crossbar. The others' kicks fell short. Five yards farther back, all three of them pulled the ball to the left.

The first time these kickers watched an NFL game in its entirety was the Super Bowl last month. They saw the rare miss from the Indianapolis Colts veteran kicker Adam Vinatieri on a chip shot from 36 yards just before halftime. They noted the extenuating circumstances -- the pouring rain and bad ball position on the hold. And they watched how Vinatieri shook it off and followed with two successful field goals in the second half.

"It shows he's got the ability to handle the pressure," Gao said.

Spoken like a true student of the position.
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