Tackles and textbooks: inside the UK’s NFL dream factory

Posted by Admin October 13, 2024 Football

We know what’s coming, we’ve seen it before. Every October since 2007, bar a Covid hiatus, the London sporting scene gets infiltrated by an invasion from across the pond. The sporting superpower that is the National Football League comes to town and thousands of fans in garish, oversized jerseys can be seen wondering the streets. This year is no different: three games spread over three weekends, each one, whether it’s at Wembley or Tottenham, packed to the rafters.

But there is now another NFL London game, a fourth one, a match attended by maybe 2,000 people, but one that is a vital for the future global growth of American football. In fact you could argue it is far more important to the NFL than how many times Aaron Rodgers gets sacked by the Minnesota defence. But this is a game played by a bunch of teenagers. On Tuesday night, just two days after the Jets and Vikings battled it out there, the Spurs Stadium saw the NFL Academy host one of the top American high schools, one rich in history and pedigree, the De La Salle Spartans.

The first NFL Academy began life five years ago in the more humble surroundings of Barnet and Southgate College in north London. Set up as a major global initiative by the NFL, it aimed to provide full-time high-school education for 16- to 19-year-olds alongside intensive training in American football under the guidance of a world class coaching staff. At the same time as helping to develop the sport worldwide it was also designed to create a pathway for young international talent

Not helped by the pandemic, the academy had a stuttering start and didn’t have its first match until spring 2022, a game against Düsseldorf Panther in Germany. They were victorious then and have been unbeaten since against European teams, often winning by huge margins. But in summer 2022 the academy took a major step forward and decided to change locations, moving to the East Midlands and the elite athletic performance centre at Loughborough University. The academic side was taken on by Loughborough College just over the road.

Michael Szabo, the starting quarter-back from Austria, runs with the ball during a training session at Loughborough University.

Edgar Wallen, a running back from Sweden, carries the ball in a drill (above), two offensive linemen go up against each other wearing padding on top of their helmets, and knee braces, for safety.

The students, including offensive lineman from Düsseldorf Niko Kampas (above left), attend a seminar on finance in the lecture theatre at Loughborough College. Another seminar for the students, this time over at the University, where defensive coordinator Daniel Docal goes through a film showing the attacking formations of their upcoming opponents, De la Salle Spartans.

Then in the spring of 2023 the NFL decided a change of leadership was necessary and brought in two men with huge experience and abundant knowledge of what it takes to succeed at all levels of the sport in America, two men who are now taking the academy on to a different level – Lamonte Winston (below right) from California was appointed head of the academy and Steve Hagen (below left) from Tennessee head coach. They are like two very different surrogate fathers to their boys, Winston the quiet, smooth-talker, more interested in the pastoral care and the education side while Hagen is the straight talker, who oversees all the playing side. Between them they get the balance just right.

Success for the academy is measured in how many alumni make it on to scholarships at US colleges – currently there are 19 at the top Division 1 level of colleges. NFL teams still choose almost their entire rosters from the US college system. Occasionally, and they are extremely rare, someone bucks that trend.

But, as rugby union stars Christian Wade and Louis Rees-Zammit have shown, you may have all the raw talent but if you don’t have the knowledge of American football, it’s very hard to learn it and transition successfully from another sport. It’s tough for them to compete with athletes who have been playing the game since the age of eight. That’s why the academy like to get them earlier. “We’re playing catch up. Oh, absolutely. I joke that our coaching staff, we’re like the best short order cooks in the world,” Winston says.

Hagen continues: “This is a longer runway for them. It’s a longer path for them to catch up, because they start at an earlier age. If I had Louis at 16, as opposed to 23, I mean, that’s seven years of catch up. That’s not catching up, that’s living it, and he just didn’t have an opportunity to live it. So when we get them at a younger age now, they’re embedded, immersed, and they live this, and it becomes who they are. They become a football player, as opposed to a rugby player who’s trying to catch up. And unfortunately for them it wasn’t around. But fortunately for others that have an interest or would like to take that path, it is around.”

Until recently, 19-year-old Rafael Varona-Blakstad from Willesden in north-west London was an England academy rugby player with Saracens, a very promising career was all mapped out in front of him. That all changed last year on the day he visited Loughborough University, checking it as a possible place of further education. It was there when he bumped into Lamonte Winston and the wily recruiter asked if he had ever tried out American Football. Next thing he knew had been invited to see the first NFL Academy match at the Spurs Stadium last October. Even though he was blown away by it, there was a nagging doubt, unsure about leaving a sport he had put so much work into.

“I was kind of thinking about switching to a completely new sport where nothing is guaranteed – that’s why I was kind of on the fence.” Then he got a call out of the blue.

“Coach Hagen made it happen. He got Louis Rees-Zammit in contact with me, and he basically Facetimed one evening. I was thinking, oh my goodness this is crazy. Louis was saying to me, if the academy had been around when he was coming up through rugby, and even if he knew he’d make it in rugby as a pro player, he would jump at this opportunity instead – even if that meant he didn’t achieve all things he did. So for me, when my idol says that, there’s no way you can turn it down. If you make it, then, you know, your life’s changed for ever.”

Rafael Varona-Blakstad, a wide receiver from west London, writes into the notebook he uses to memorise certain plays in his Academy accommodation.

Varona-Blakstad is now beginning to see the difference in scale of rugby to the NFL. “It’s not only the wages players are paid, they also have infinitely bigger stages. They regularly pack out 100,000-seater stadiums for not only professional games, but also college games. It’s absolutely incredible. And kind of, if you succeed in this, if you can get to the top of it, that would almost be like the pinnacle of sport.

“This academy is like a factory, a machine to make players and essentially get them to the States where they can play and compete at the highest level. You very quickly realise how big and serious this is. This isn’t for fun.”

Sitting in the vast Powerhouse gym of Loughborough University, 18-year-old Irishman Liam Dineen shakes his head in disbelief. “It’s crazy. Like, seven, eight months ago, this was not remotely possible, I hadn’t even thought of it.”

Coming from the remote tiny village of Innishannon in Cork, Gaelic football was his sport. “That’s where I got my kind of kicking talent from, from kicking a football since I was knee high.” It was late last year that he started to have a few session at a Leader Kicking clinic in Ireland run by the former rugby player Tadhg Leader. This is a programme designed to transform talented players from both rugby and Gaelic football into American football kickers. Then this May, Dineen (below) got on attended a trial in Dublin for the NFL Academy – to his amazement he got an offer.

“It’s all happened so quick. But the opportunity is huge, all the facilities here, the culture, I’m learning very quickly.”

Like his colleague Varona-Blakstad, Dineen acknowledges the education in the sport they need. “We’ve a lot of catch up to do, because these kids been playing in America since they’re four or five years old.” But they are also both examples of the pulling power that American Football has now over here, where two talented young athletes are ditching the traditional sports they have grown up with and been so successful at in order to chase the dream of playing in the NFL.

The website for the Academy proudly boasts the “life-changing opportunities” it provides. For Benson Jerry from Nigeria, that couldn’t be more true.

“The hood I grew up in, it’s nothing to write home about. It’s like proper trenches, like, no water, nothing, nothing.” Benson was brought up in Nyanya, a very poor suburb of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. Ten years ago the Boko Haram terrorist group bombed the bus station there killing 88 people. He had to beg money off friends in order to go to work out a gym. “It’s a different hunger for me. Because where I came out from, it’s an unruly area, and you have to work hard to make it, it’s a grind.”

Benson Jerry, a defensive lineman from Nigeria, lifts weights and a medicine ball in the gym, alongside Liam Dineen (above left) and Rafael Varona-Blakstad (above right) and warms up ahead of the game against De La Salle Spartans.

He was first spotted at a NFL trial in Nigeria and then invited to another NFL trial in Kenya. That was Benson’s first time on a plane. He impressed so much that an offer from the academy came straight away.

Looking out over the plush campus of Loughborough University he says he has to keep pinching himself that this is true. “Two years ago, if you said I’ll be sitting here, I’d say you’re lying. It’s a dream, I’m telling you, it’s a big dream for me. My entire life has changed ever since I came to the UK.” Instead of now worrying about where the next meal is coming from, Benson’s attention is fixed on learning the academy playbook, getting himself noticed in the matches and obtaining the offer from a college in the States.

At the academy there are currently 69 players between the ages of 16 to 19, from 19 different countries; 27 hail from the UK and Ireland. “These international players, wherever they’re from, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, all over Europe. We’ve got 19 different countries represented on this team, to give them an opportunity to go to America and play football. I mean, who wouldn’t want to do that? Soccer’s done the best over here, American football’s done the best over in America,” coach Hagen says. “And so this academy is designed just as if you were in school in America. You go to school and you practice, you lift weights, you go to school and you practice, and you study football.” “And who will we play? We’ll play American teams, which was a high priority for me, because the way our boys are student athletes get recruited to even have a chance in America is to compete against American football teams. Otherwise the comparison isn’t even close. And now you see us this year, we’re just playing American football teams and that’s just going to continue to grow the academy.”

A major part of the recruitment process for the Academy is their ability to play a match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium when it’s in full NFL mode. When they are competing with other sports to attract the most talented athletes, it certainly is a major draw for kids across the world to know they have a chance to play on a stage like that. Even though both coaches and players repeat the mantra that every game is big (which is true given that they play such few games, just the four this season), they know the highest profile match is the one at Spurs. The whole match is livestreamed on the NFL YouTube channel, filmed by the same cameras used in the pro games there, beamed back to the watching college recruiters in America.

NFL Academy linebacker Terho Vainio from Finland passes through security at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the NFL Academy players gather their thoughts in the home dressing room, that has already been rebranded for the Chicago Bears, ahead of their match against De La Salle Spartans.

Cam Winston, the defensive backs coach for the NFL Academy, gathers all the players together in the showers of the home dressing room for a prayer just before kick off.

The NFL Academy offensive linemen including Max Hoke from Sweden, practice routines (above left) during the warm up, while offensive lineman Terho Vainio from Helsinki, practices his snaps.

NFL Academy players practice sprints (above left), Thayrancel Pinas (left), a wide reciever from Holland, and Enrique Aspinall, a running back from south London, wrestle with each other watched by teammates and coaches (above right), the NFL Academy players line up to shield their warm up from the opposition (below).

Seb Harris, an 18-year-old from Streatham in London, bites his tongue slightly and recalls what it was like to play there “I hate to say it, as an Arsenal fan, it’s one of the best stadiums in England.” He goes on: “Most people never get that chance. Every game we play is an audition for us, a chance to get on film and show people in America what we can actually do here and that we’re not so different from them.” Harris, a tall athletic wide receiver, strongly tipped to go far in the game, is in his final year at the academy. He is still waiting to get an offer from America.

De La Salle Spartans were the opposition for the academy at Spurs this week. Judging by their Instagram feed, they warmed up for the trip over here by sampling British snacks (actually just Twiglets, almost universally hated, described as “eating dirt”). As they claim on their website: “Our football programme is the stuff of legends.” Between 1992 and 2004 they went unbeaten, a remarkable 151-game winning streak that inspired books and movies. This season they are unbeaten, ranked No 20 in the States. It proved a really tough game for the Academy as they went down 31-9.

NFL Academy players Michael Szabo, quarterback from Vienna Austria, Joel Queisser linebacker from Dusseldorf Germany and Moritz Strempel linebacker from Cologne Germany, line up for the US and UK national anthems before their match against De La Salle Spartans.

NFL Academy player Rafael Varona-Blakstad from London chips a kick off (above left), Isaac Fullah from Oxford drops the ball as he gets clattered by Matthew Johnson of De La Salle, NFL Academy player Raul Khalifa from Finland desperately tries to stop Kai Wilson of De La Salle by grabbing his shirt tail (below).

NFL Academy player Thayrancel Pinas from Holland runs with the ball (above), Devon Myrie, a tight end from England, walks off the pitch after the NFL Academy’s defeat.

Luke Francis, a defensive lineman from London (above left) speaks on the phone straight after the match against De La Salle Spartans, while Felician Weissensel, a defensive lineman from Austria (above right) is greeted by his girlfriend, and Max Hoke, an offensive linesman from Sweden (below) poses for a photo with his family and friends.

Watching keenly from the sidelines at Spurs is Osi Umenyiora, the London-born, two-time Super Bowl winner and now very successful British TV pundit. He also happens to be an ambassador for the NFL Academy and was their honorary captain for this match alongside his punditry colleague Jason Bell. Even though he can see the dominance of the De La Salle team, he can see the vast improvement of the academy players. “It really is an impressive thing to see what they’ve built and see where I think we can go in the future.” “Even if they’re not winning, they’re at least competing at a high level against the best schools in America. “When you go to America, you see the level they’re playing at there. That’s what we’re trying to replicate here in some form of fashion.”

Umenyiora is also seen as the face of the NFL’s drive to globally expand. He knows the importance the academy is playing in that crusade and delights in the multinational make up.

“This is about trying to get play players from different countries into the NFL on a pathway where none existed before. It has the title American Football but if you want the game to grow globally, you can’t just have Americans playing the game. You have to have people from everywhere playing the game, right? It belongs to everybody. People from all backgrounds, everywhere in the world, watching, playing, consuming the game.”

So where do we go from here? Just last month another NFL Academy was launched on the Gold Coast in Australia and coach Hagen can see the future mapped out. “We can only take 25 to 30 new players per year here at the Academy. We have close to 3000 applicants right now, but we can’t take that many. So the NFL is looking into that more NFL academies throughout international waters. And I’m sure one day that they’ll play against each other, which would be super fun.” Looking further ahead, the obvious conclusion, if there are these academies in various countries, then that feeds on to proper NFL teams based with them. “We’re growing the sport, but it will grow exponentially faster if there was a division here that competed against the ones in America. You have a lot going on, it’s very dynamic. If I was the NFL commissioner, it would happen quicker, sooner than later.”

But at the moment he just wants to focus on the now. “We just want to continue to grow this and keep playing American teams and keep, have an opportunity to recruit the best America and make this the funnel. Make this the international hub for great players to grow and go to America. That’s our goal.”