By Kevin Kelly
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Back at the Shelor Motor Mile and Used Car Superstore, that 56-acre automotive mecca in Christiansburg, Va., the red-headed kicker from the next county over still has a following.

"He's kicking for the Bengals now, right?" said Larry Shelor, president of the automotive group. "He's a good kid. We've got a number of ex-football players that have come through here."

Few boast success stories soaked in perseverance and self-faith like Shayne Graham, the placekicker the NFL initially ignored.

"Not once," Graham said, "did I ever doubt myself."

Acquired by the Bengals on Sept. 1, the 25-year-old Graham has been near perfect through five games.

His lone miss is a 54-yard field goal attempt Sunday in Buffalo, a kick that had the distance but was wide left.

"He's just come in and done his part," Bengals strong safety Marquand Manuel said. "He didn't try to expand it. He's just played his role."

The challenges of replacing Neil Rackers, a well-liked person in the Bengals locker room until his unexpected release Sept. 1, pale when tracing the hairpin turns of Graham's road to the NFL.

Unwanted by any NFL team upon leaving Virginia Tech as that school's all-time scoring leader following the 1999 season - a lack of kickoff experience reportedly turned teams off - Graham's desire to kick in the NFL never wavered.

Odd jobs paid the bills as Graham kicked and worked out to stay in shape.

Substitute teacher. Personal trainer at a Gold's Gym. Instructor for high school kickers.

Part-time employee at the used car lot and in the car-detailing bay at the Shelor Motor Mile.

"That really helped me out, because now I can keep my car looking clean and new," Graham said, joking. "I know how to do it."

But the view from the outside is rarely pleasant.

"Those things, I think, made me better along the way," he said. "Maybe I wasn't ready when I first came out of college. Everybody wants to be great now, not later. Having those hard times, I think, really strengthened me."

The Saints and Seahawks signed and waived him before the 2000 and 2001 seasons. The Bills picked him up in November 2001, and Graham kicked in six games.

With Carolina last season, when he worked alongside current Bengals special teams coach Darrin Simmons, Graham led the Panthers in scoring.

Carolina then waived him this preseason, allowing the Bengals to pick him up.

"I think the team and the organization has done a lot to make it very comfortable," Graham said.

Replacing Rackers, who kicked in every Bengals game from 2000-2002, was a more difficult adjustment for others than for Graham.

"The business part of it is kind of the ugly part of what we do," Bengals long snapper Brad St. Louis said. "You have to learn how to handle it properly."

But it was Rackers who told St. Louis to take care of his replacement.

"Shayne's a class act," St. Louis said. "He's made the transition easy."

St. Louis is but one of many who have made Graham comfortable.

The entire offense - linemen, running backs, receivers and kickers - dined out together before Cincinnati's game against the Browns on Sept. 28.

"They made sure to let me know, 'Hey Shayne, you score points for us. You're part of our offense. Make sure you come out tonight,' " Graham said.

Nothing, however, makes friends faster than reliability.

Graham is 8-for-8 on extra-point tries and 7-for-8 on field goal attempts this season.

"When we come out and make field goals or we kick good punts or whatever, the other guys see it and feed from that," he said. "That helps let them know that, 'OK, we need to score. But if we don't score, we've got a good chance to put some more points on the board.'

"Everybody just feeds off that positive energy."

If you can kick, teams will come

Shayne Graham's career statistics

Year	Team	Games	XP	XPA	FG	FGA
2001	Buffalo	6	7	7	6	8
2002	Carolina	11	21	21	13	18
2003	Cincinnati	5	8	8	7	8

Graham in 2003

Category	Stat	AFC rank
Kickoffs	20	11
Kickoff avg.	63.2 yds.	9th
Touchbacks	1	T-11th
Scoring	29 pts.	12th
FG made	7	8th
FG attempts	8	T-9th
FG pct.	87.5	9
Long FG	44	T-14th

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E-mail kkelly@enquirer.com

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