University of Wisconsin/Madison business and sports management student Jacqueline Theiler has become the first US student to join the West Australian Football Commission on an internship.

Jacqueline, who has moved to Perth (WA) as part of an international student abroad program at Murdoch University, will work with the West Australian Country Football League in the areas of sponsorship delivery, marketing, event management and general administration duties.

Last Sunday a women’s football carnival was held in Goomalling, with 3 women’s football teams competing. One of the teams was the “Yankeroos,” made up of 24 international students from the USA, studying at Notre Dame University in Fremantle.

The first time the Yankeroos girls saw Australian football was in August when they arrived in Australia to begin their 6 month study abroad program.

by Jason Burton, South Fremantle Football Club
originally published in the Fremantle Gazette

Women's football is certainly getting more and more popular, and not just with Aussie girls that have grown up watching it. The “Yankeroos” are a group of students from the USA studying at Notre Dame University that have also taken a keen interest in Australia’s national game.

There are 6,602,224,175 people worldwide who speak an estimated 6,500 different languages. The number of existing cultures remains incomprehensible. And since you began reading this, approximately 25 more people call Earth home. Within this continually changing world, few truly universal commonalities exist. What are these rare world unifiers? Sports.

Women from St Benedicts College in St Cloud, Minnesota and the University of Portland in Oregon have started a 3 month 'boot camp' footy program. The program is hosted and coordinated by South Fremantle Football Club (including a coach).

by Stephanie McKitrick

Having gone to Australia to visit friends of mine, and never having heard of Aussie Rules before, I was a little hesitant in joining a women's team. Now after having trained and played for the past 7 months I am very glad that my friend Lisa had talked me into joining with her.

When Jesse Hrudka Wartman decided to study for a semester in Melbourne, she never imagined that she'd fall in love with a new sport. However, the Melbourne University MUGARS got their claws into her and recruited her for the women's footy team.  Jesse will be keeping us posted on her experiences playing footy before she returns home at the end of June.  She's already looking forward to  practicing with the Minnesota Morrigans before school starts in the fall.

Ryan Bartz, an exchange student from New York, was selected in the Green & Gold Australian Women's football team at the Australian University Games late last month. Although selection is honorary as there is no international competition to play in, it is a major achievement for Bartz who had only played two games of Australian Rules football prior to the Australian University Games.

Bartz, a theatre student, arrived in Melbourne in July to complete a semester on exchange at the University of Melbourne. A college ice hockey player in New York and in her home state of California, Bartz thought to try her hand at the Australian game to complete her Aussie experience. She called the Melbourne University Women's Football Club, who was nearing the end of the home and away season. With only 2 regular games left in the season, Bartz took hold of the opportunity to have a kick and took to the field in the famous black and blue colours of Melbourne University. She immediately made an impact on debut for the Melbourne University Girls' Aussie Rules Squad (MUGARS) Division 3 side, leaving Coach, Deb 'Henry' Lawson, pleading with her to stay on permanently.