As we blast past the eight days of Hanukkah, I was thinking about Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah Song and that we need something similar for footy. There are many people out there that are well known to Americans but Americans don’t know that they used to play footy or are big footy fans. I can’t write music or sing, but here is my attempt to rectify this great wrong.
Ben Simmons is being talked about as the next Kobe Bryant, but before heading to Beverly Hills he laced up his footy boots for the Beverly Hills Junior Football Club in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. He will join other former footy players in the NBA including the Cavs' Delly and Golden State’s Andrew Bogut. The Spurs Patty Mills could have been a star in the AFL, but Collingwood’s Pendlebury gave up his spot at the AIS to Mills and the rest is basketball and footy history. Michelle Timms had a Hall of Fame career with the Phoenix Mercury, but played footy growing up. LA Spark, Erin Phillips, just announced she will play for Port Adelaide, where her dad played his footy.
Consider donating to the Washington Junior Australian Football Club to create more names for future songs. You can donate HERE.
There are the NFL punters of course, the Giants’ Brad Wing was kicking footballs all his life. The back to back NCAA punter of the year, Tom Hackett said he was too fat for footy. The overhyped Jarryd Hayne, did not play AFL, although everyone thinks he did. The Wallabies' Isreal Folau did play footy, although no one thinks he did. I bet you didn’t know that former Fighting Irish Head Coach, Pat O’Dea, played footy for the Melbourne Demons before leading the Wisconsin Badgers with 62-yard drop kicks in the 90s. The 1890s.
The inventor of the Roomba, is a footy fan. Rodney Brooks broke his arm playing footy the day before he left Adelaide to study at Stanford University. The “White Man in That Photo”, Peter Norman, won silver in the 1968 Olympics and is famously standing on the podium while Smith and Carlos raise their gloved fits into the air. After retiring from sprinting, Norman played “ammos” for the West Brunswick Amateur Football Club. Former Australian PM, Tony Abbott. Not a footy fan. But former PM Julia Gillard is a do or die Scragger.
The singer, Vance Joy, had a hit with Riptide, but when he was James Keogh he played for Coburg, winning their rookie of the year. The actor, Guy Pearce, starred as Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and is a die hard Cats fan. Mel Gibson is not a footy fan, but Eric Bana is.
Watch Bana explain footy to Adam Sandler and Seth Rogan, both jewish, here: https://youtu.be/V63k9Pfyn1s. (INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE)
