Lauré Kwoka plays a sport many Americans haven't heard of -- and it's not for the timid - ESPN
Sebastien Di Maulo
Lauré Kwoka (right) wears this protective headgear after a severe concussion last year -- but says it was due to an illegal tackle and the game is generally safe.
Australian rules football isn't for the meek. Lauré Kwoka acknowledges it's a wide-open, full-speed contact sport with a host of long runs, flying bodies and tackling.
So, injuries happen. But she doesn't worry about it and counts herself lucky after five years in the game.
"I've only broken two fingers and last year I got a very severe concussion, but that was it," she says, laughing.
Now Kwoka wears padded headgear -- she calls it a scrum cap -- just in case. She suffered the concussion because of an illegal tackle, and says the game isn't that dangerous if played the right way. She's learned how to tackle and be tackled to minimize the impact on her body. At 5-foot-5 and 135 pounds, she's not out to overpower anyone -- she relies on her speed to stay out of traffic. The headgear is a nod to safety and her mom and dad.
"I told my parents I would stop playing if I get another [concussion]," says Kwoka, 27. "So I better not get another one."
Kwoka, who lives in Sacramento, California, plays for the Suns, a club in the United States Australian Football League that has both men's and women's teams. She graduated in 2013 from Sacramento State with a degree in anthropology and an emphasis in archaeology, and hopes to someday get her master's and forge a career in that field. But for the past two years, Kwoka has been the office manager of an auto body repair shop, a job she enjoys that also gives her nights and weekends off to train, practice and play "footy" for both the Suns and the U.S. national program.
Amy Bishop
Laure Kwoka was named Best on Ground (essentially the MVP) during this match against Fiji while playing for the U.S. national team.
"It's pretty much my life -- I love it so much," she says of the sport. Most of her friends are teammates, and football has taken her overseas and across the U.S. Even her boss plays for the club.
"[The game] helps me travel and takes me places I probably wouldn't have gone to without it," she says. "I now know people all over the world, so if I want to travel to France, I know people on the French team. And I have friends all over the U.S. It taught me and opened up so many doors I never thought would be opened."
Kwoka played soccer as a girl, but her main athletic pursuit was ballet, which she studied until she was 19. In college, she dropped out of dance because of the cost and took up rugby for a year, because she'd watched games with her father and brother and was interested in the sport. She enjoyed it, too, but wasn't committed to it.
Then one night she was at a bar wearing a rugby shirt when one of the guys from the Sacramento Suns approached her about trying Aussie rules football. She'd lived in Australia one summer during high school, so she knew of it. When she tried it, she was enthralled.
"I'd never been truly passionate about something until I met this sport," she says.
She liked its more free-flowing personality.
"I played slot half in rugby, which is like the quarterback, so I was always calling plays," she says. "One thing I loved about this, in an instant, things could switch over, the other team could get [the ball], and so you'd have to just quickly, on your feet, make decisions.
"Everyone's making decisions on their own instead of one person calling the play. ... You need to know and trust each other to keep the ball, keep possession and work together to get that goal."
She calls footy a blend of soccer and rugby with a bit of basketball. Teams of 18 play with a large, oval ball on a large oval field between 147 and 202 yards long and 120 to 169 yards wide. Goalposts are set at each end (two short ones on the outside and two taller inside) and points are scored by kicking the ball through the tall uprights (six points) or between the tall and short posts (one point).
Players can advance the ball by kicking it, running while bouncing the ball or touching it to the ground every 15 meters, or handballing it (sort of a volleyball punch) to a teammate. Players with the ball can be tackled. If a player catches a kicked ball on the fly, a free kick is awarded at that spot. Players are allowed to climb on others to go up to catch the ball.
"I just love the freedom of the sport," she says. "There's no offsides and you can just run around. A lot of people get confused because it looks like there's no structure to it, but there's a lot to it, and knowing how to play the game."
She plays mostly in the midfield, where she can constantly be in on the action, following the ball and controlling the game. "In midfield you just run and run and run and run," she says.
The sport has its own language, too. A specky is a spectacular play. A long, straight spiraling kick is a torpedo. A curving kick through the uprights is a banana. "Australians love nicknames," says Kwoka, who's visited Down Under several times. Even the game itself is "footy" to most, rather than Australian football or the big pro league, the Australian Football League.
The Suns women's team has grown and improved since Kwoka first joined. At first, scrimmages sometimes featured just five women a side, with some of the club's male players added. Now, the field can be filled with women, thanks to recruiting, especially of area college athletes from other sports.
"We were always known as the easy team to beat at nationals," she says. "Everyone just assumed they would beat us. Now this past year, we won a game at nationals. A lot of people were like, 'Congrats, you finally won a game,' but for us, it's like, 'We finally won a game! Yay!' " Plus, more players with potential continue to come on board, and several -- such as Kwoka -- now play for the national teams.
"That's helping our whole team because when we go and play for the U.S. we bring back what we've learned and incorporate that in our home club," she says.
This year, Kwoka has been named a vice captain for the national B side, USA Liberty, the team she's been a part of for three years. She also played one year for the A side, USA Freedom. This August, she and the Liberty will tour Australia for a series of games. Back in 2014, she experienced her biggest thrill in the sport by playing in the Women's International Cup for the U.S. in Australia and being selected Best on Ground (equivalent of MVP) for a match against Fiji.
"I kept taking the ball and the Fijian girls were playing so dirty and it was making me angry," she recalls. "Which was good, I guess. It made me play harder."
Her commitment to the game is full. During the season the team practices on Tuesday nights, then gets together Thursday nights for a more social "tag league." Games are on Saturdays. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights she lifts weights and runs. In the offseason she works out and runs five nights a week and gets together with teammates for informal practices on the weekend.
One of the best parts of the sport for her is the camaraderie. In late January the club got together at a bar to celebrate Australia Day, an Australian holiday. "We watched some footy together and were trying to recruit new people as well, because people were like, 'Wait, what's this sport you're watching? I don't know what's going on.' "So we're telling them about it. And local Aussies heard about it, so they came out, and were like, 'Oh my God, I didn't even know we had a footy team here, so we said, 'You should come out and play.'"
In 2014, Kwoka acquired a working holiday visa and stayed and played in Australia for six months. She even thought about trying to stay, but it didn't work out. "I love the sport so much," she says, laughing. "It's everything to me."
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