Daytona Beach resident Huw Collins has gotten a crash course in American Lifestyles and Kicking 101.
A professional rugby player in the English Premiership League, Collins has seen his fair share of the United States during his seven months here.
Prattville, Ala., Reno, Dallas and San Diego have all been stops along the way in what Collins hopes is a career in the National Football League.
"Life is all about enjoying yourself and doing stuff you love," Collins said. "It's only been seven months and I've met so many people and so many different characters that I'm sure if I had a bad injury or something I'd certainly be interested in coaching out here or something. There's always stuff you can do. It's a big, bad world out there and there's always an opportunity."
And Collins is hoping to make the most of his.
After a solid six-year professional rugby career, the London native, and his brother Tom, decided to follow the advice of many a friends, and sponsors, and try their luck at becoming professional kickers in the NFL.
They contacted Mike McCabe, founder of One On One Kicking, which has produced 10 collegiate All-Americans, two Ray Guy Award Finalists and a Lou Groza Award recipient.
McCabe put Collins in touch with Dan Lundy, a former kicker at Mainland and the University of Miami, who lives locally and works various kicking camps.
"It's amazing how fast he's come along in six or seven months," said Lundy of Huw Collins. "He trains and reads and that's about it. He does what he's supposed to do and that's why I like him."
Collins said he made about $40,000 per year playing in England's top rugby division for the Saracens and select top players can warrant as much as $200,000 annually, but he liked the challenge American football presented.
Before he arrived here in January, Collins had never kicked an American football, but it didn't take him long to raise some eyebrows.
After settling here, his first stop was with McCabe in Prattville, Ala.
"The people are real friendly and it was easy to settle in there. It's been good to get experiences in places like that. It keeps you on the right track," Collins said. "There was nothing to do there, which is really important because you have to train every day. I don't drink or eat bad stuff and I eat pretty healthy. I'm pretty focused on everything and train most of the day."
He worked with Lundy here as well and in March he went to Dallas for the Louie Aguiar Kicking Pro Combine, which Aquiar and fellow former NFL kicker Michael Husted put on for free agents.
The free-agent combine is four days of working out with the last day representing a pro day where scouts come and watch participants boot eight field goals and four kickoffs.
"The first time I saw him he looked like an athlete. It's different kicking a rugby ball compared to football. Nothing bothers him and he has a very good, quick leg," said Aguiar, a 10-year veteran punter of the NFL. "Huw's done a really nice job of picking up things quickly."
The Pro Day at the camp was rained out, but rescheduled in Reno -- just days after Collins had gone back to London.
He flew back to Nevada, where he converted seven of eight field goals -- his only miss was from 53 yards -- kicked off well and topped former Chicago Bears kicker Paul Edinger for second place.
"There were some good guys there. Paul Edinger was there. He tied me for second and I won it in a kickoff," Collins said. "There were some good legs there."
From there, Collins worked a couple of months in San Diego with Husted and the St. Louis Rams have called and inquired. There have also been some interests from Canadian Football League teams.
Unfortunately, Collins doesn't have any college football experience to fall back on, but he's optimistic about his chances as NFL training camps draw near.
"That's the thing about sport -- you can't get too pepped up about anything and interested and waiting by the phone," Collins said. "You've just got to keep training hard, keep your head down and your chances will come if you work hard enough. I'm just waiting on that now. Anything can happen at any time."
Back in England, Collins played in front of average crowds of 20,000 for rugby matches, but knew he wouldn't be able to make a living at it for much longer.
In the meantime, Collins is enjoying his time here and if things don't work out there's always the next Speed Weeks and Bike Week to look forward to.
"The Daytona 500 was interesting, just with that weekend. I saw some characters come in then. Me and my brother were actually living on Beach Street during Bike Week and at 3 in the morning pretty much every morning, we lived behind Red Tails, and about 20 bikers every morning get on their bikes and rev them as high as they can," Collins said. "It's that time of the night that you consider getting up and shouting at them, but you're so tired that you don't actually want to get up. That was pretty nasty, but for the most part it's been pretty easy."
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