Want to play footy?
If that sounds like an offer to do naughty things under a table with one’s toes, get your mind out of the gutter and your foot back in your shoe. Footy, or Australian rules football, is a sport.
Like footsie, it can be aggressive. And while you might not see it happening, it’s definitely played in D.C. In fact, the Baltimore Washington Eagles Australian Football club was once the second-best team in the country.
Founded in 1998, the club is part of the United States Australian Football League (USAFL), the non-profit amateur sports organization that serves the footy community in the United States.
After recent wins against the Philadelphia Hawks and North Carolina Tigers, the Eagles head to Sarasota next weekend for the 2016 USAFL National Championships, the annual tournament that gathers footy clubs from across the country together for a weekend of competition and shared love of a sport that most Yanks have never heard of.
A contact sport, footy is often compared to rugby. But Tracy Williams, who played rugby in college and for years after, says they’re not at all alike. He says the way the sport is played makes it more like ultimate Frisbee.
Halfback Brian Salant says footy is not nearly as rough as rugby or American football, though injuries still happen. “The goal is just to make you drop the ball,” he says. “Really all you’re trying to do when you tackle someone is grab their arms and kind of just pull them to the ground.”
“I like the measured physicality of it too,” Williams adds. “It’s not just like go blast everyone and knock them over. There’s more finesse.”
There’s also more space. The Eagles play on a massive patch of earth at West Potomac Park. According to the USAFL website, the oval-shaped footy field should be between 135 and 185 meters long and 110 to 155 meters wide. By comparison, a standard American football field is 120 by 53.3 yards—or a little shy of 110 by 49 meters.
All that space results in a lot of running, which is why the Eagles start training in January for a season that doesn’t begin until May.
“You run for a full two hours, and the fittest teams usually win,” forward pocket Antoun Issa says. “It’s not like rugby or NFL, or even soccer, where it’s more slow-paced. In this game you’re constantly running, you’re constantly on the move. So it requires a lot of petrol in the tank, so to speak.”
Although the players are all in excellent shape, their bodies look very different. Issa is one of the shorter men on the team. He says more petite guys play “sneaky roles,” snapping surprise goals seemingly out of nowhere.
“One of the good things about this game is that there’s a position for every size,” he says. “If you’re skinny and lean and agile and quick, there’s somewhere [on the ground for you]. If you’re slow and stocky, there’s also a position for you because this sport requires physicality. It also requires running. It also requires being able to maneuver and weave. It requires being able to catch balls in the air, so there is something for everyone.”
On the Eagles, a handful of massive men with thick thighs and broad, muscled shoulders play alongside lanky long-distance runners. At 6’4” and 268 lbs, Williams fits into the former category. He’s a “ruckman,” a position similar to the “center” in basketball. These players use their height during a “ball-up” to smack the ball into the possession of their teammates.
Trim and tall at 5’10” and 165 lbs, Captain Jay Levesque plays “on ball,” which he says is similar to being a center midfielder in soccer. The longest-standing member of the Eagles, Levesque learned to play in 2002 while visiting his brother in Sweden. A former college soccer player, he quickly took to footy and sought out a local league when he came back stateside.
One of the best American footy players in the country, Levesque plays on USA Revolution, or “Revo,” the men’s All-Star Australian Football team.
“It’s probably the highlight of my life, to be honest,” he says. “Being able to represent your country overseas, play against different countries, China, South Africa, Japan, Great Britain, Ireland, Denmark, it’s awesome. It’s a dream.”
He says too often, college athletes graduate and find themselves playing in leagues that put the “social” in social sports. For those who are more interested in working up a sweat than working on their flip cup skills, footy is a great option. Not only is it competitive, but there’s also a sense of comradery that Levesque says he didn’t experience while playing soccer or basketball.
That may be because footy is such a niche sport, certainly here in the U.S. During a September match against the North Carolina Tigers Levesque says he knows many of the opposing players, some of whom he invited to crash on his couch.
“It’s like a big family,” he says, recalling a cross-country road trip he took last summer. “I had people fighting over like, ‘Come to Minnesota.’ ‘No! Come to Kansas City.’ ‘Take the southern route.’ ‘Take the northern route.’ ‘We want to host you.’”
Williams says the social aspect is a huge benefit to playing footy. “It makes it so much more fun when you have a lot of really, really good interesting guys from all over the world, who you just learn a whole bunch of different things [from].”
Levesque has been around long enough to see his team rise to success and slip back in the rankings when members moved on from the city. There’s a blessing and a curse trying to keep this sport active in Washington.
Salant says the Eagles are always trying to recruit more players. “Every two or three years almost we need to remake the team,” he says. “In 2007, they won division two and in 2008 they were runner up in division one, which means they had a lot of very, very good players.” Eight years later, he says, only one or two of those players are still on the team.
That’s because people in D.C. come and go faster than a certain Irish pub in Adams Morgan changes its name.
Of course, it’s easy to imagine why a foreign sport might gain popularity in our nation’s capital. Washington is a hotspot for immigration. When people move here from other countries, they bring aspects of their culture with them, including the sports they love and grew up playing. Montgomery County, for example, saw a spike in the popularity of cricket due to the area’s sizeable Indian population.
But while the Australian Embassy and local nonprofits provide a fresh crop of Aussies every few seasons, recruitment is always a consideration for the Eagles. And footy isn’t even universally popular in Australia, so expats might not necessarily seek out a club.
If you check out an Eagles game, you’ll hear plenty of North American accents mixed in with the Aussie twang. That’s because this league requires at least half of the players to be American or Canadian nationals.
“The idea is to encourage more Americans to get involved, as opposed to bringing in a team of Australians,” USAFL media manager Brian Barrish says. “That’s not going to help anybody and it’s certainly not going to help the game grow here in the U.S.”
When it comes to getting more Americans interested in a foreign sport, being in a large, transient city like Washington has its benefits. People arrive seeking community and social activities. “You have a lot of Americans who come from different parts of the country and are willing to try new things, and they’re open to different kinds of activities and sports,” Issa says.
If you’re interested in a fun, fast, and high scoring sport—or just getting into ridiculous shape by spring—check out the Eagles’ website or Facebook page.
