PUNTER FROM ... DOWN UNDER

The big man on campus is on the football team, but he’s not the quarterback, not a running back. He isn’t much of a blocker and he’s a worse tackler.

But David Lonie, California’s “punter from Down Under,” has other endearing qualities. He’s Australian, tall, good looking, smooth talking and with one of those personalities that everyone seems to take to.

“What is it we like about him? He’s ... a chick magnet,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers says. “He’s one of the favorites to go out with at night because with that accent, him being 6 foot 6 and with blond hair and blue eyes ... he has to fight them off.”

That Coach Jeff Tedford flew to Australia just to meet Lonie’s parents shows how strongly he feels about the punter, a former soccer player in this his first season of major college football.

Special teams coach Pete Alamar says, “He’s a gregarious young man who brings out good things in everybody. He’s obviously someone you want around the team, because chemistry is so important.”

There’s a good deal more to Lonie than that. He says he often used a spear to catch dinner, and a rod and reel to engage in marathon battles with giant marlin. He liked to water ski as fast as possible, on only his bare feet. And he once met up with a giant tiger shark while surfing near his home on the Gold Coast.

He has traveled extensively, with long stays in England, Spain and Canada, and now has found his way to Berkeley, by way of Wisconsin and Iowa. At 25, he dreams of a career in the NFL. It’s no pipe dream, either, because he can kick like a mule.

One recent day in practice, he punted from the back of the end zone to the far 24-yard line -- 86 yards in the air.

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Players are arriving at the stadium for team photos. Lonie starts down to join them but is stopped by a reporter and it’s not long before he’s mentally back home, where school and work were mere interruptions between morning and evening surf sessions.

“Surfing was my release,” Lonie says, adding that even the shark that surfaced next to him one afternoon didn’t keep him out for long.

His other hobbies, besides spear fishing and big-game angling, were careening down rockslides deep in the rain forest, and racing dirt bikes. His favorite sports were soccer and track and field, and he excelled at both.

But he yearned to travel, and on his first real trip, to the American Midwest, he was introduced to a sport about which he knew nothing: football.

A cousin had invited him to Wisconsin to spend the summer as a water-ski instructor, lifeguard and part-time soccer coach.

“It was more of a vacation than anything else,” Lonie says. “I was skiing every day.... It wasn’t surfing, but I was still getting a rush.”

Football was being taught nearby. Lonie watched the punting instructor curiously and asked if he could kick one.

“I happened to get ahold of one,” he recalls, modestly. “I think it went over 60 yards and everyone’s like, ‘Wow, you should start playing.’ ”

He left for Europe instead, working odd jobs to pay his way. But he returned the following summer, got a little more involved with the camp, left again for Canada to take up snowboarding, then returned a final time.

It was during his third trip, in 2001, that Lonie was put in touch with Doug Pelfrey, formerly a kicker with the Cincinnati Bengals. Pelfrey not only encouraged Lonie, but helped him produce a performance video. It was sent to 10 Division I schools, and all 10 offered scholarships. Lonie committed to Ohio State, but that fell through when the NCAA wouldn’t accept his high school transcript.

Rather than give up, he accepted the lone scholarship offered by a junior college, Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls, Iowa. “I turned up there and it was like being in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but corn fields around me,” he recalls with a laugh. He excelled in two years at the school, finishing with a 3.6 grade-point average and with admirable statistics on the field as both the kicker and the punter.

Last season, he averaged 41.8 yards as a punter. He made only 11 of 19 field-goal attempts, but three of the misses were from 54 yards or more and the others, he says, were at least partially the result of poor snaps or holds.

Major college coaches saw in Lonie an intense competitor with limitless potential. The recruiting process started anew and this time he chose Cal.

“I liked the thought of coming out this way,” he says. “It’s warmer and more suitable to my lifestyle.” Tedford earned Lonie’s respect by promising he’d visit his parents, then following through.

“It was no big deal,” Tedford says. “Other than you fly for 17 hours, meet with them for 50 minutes, then you fly for 17 more.”

Through three games for Cal, Lonie has punted 10 times for a 43.6-yard average. Four of his punts have been inside the 20. His long was 56 yards. There have been only three returns, for a total of 20 yards. He’ll also be used as a kicker, but only on field-goal attempts of 50 yards or more.

“He has a huge leg and as he grows with the game, we expect him to make great strides,” Alamar says. “He gives the defense a long field to defend ... and that’s a huge upside.”

The downside: Rodgers and other Bears have become so intrigued by Lonie’s tales of Australia that they want to go there, and Lonie has promised to take them. What if they don’t want to come back?

Alamar ponders this for only a moment, then says, “If I was them, I would love to take the same opportunity, to go over there and spend a few weeks and just enjoy it.”

Translation: No worries.