What game makes a whole country cheer, clap, and sometimes even burst into song? 🏉 Join Sergio and Mimsy as they unlock the sounds, stories, and celebrations of Australian Rules Football with special guest Jason Bennett. You’ll meet new friends, hear about the Grand Final, and find out why sports can tell us so much about a culture.
What game makes a whole country cheer, clap, and sometimes even burst into song? 🏉 Join Sergio and Mimsy as they unlock the sounds, stories, and celebrations of Australian Rules Football with special guest Jason Bennett. You’ll meet new friends, hear about the Grand Final, and find out why sports can tell us so much about a culture.
SERGIO: Hi There. I’m Sergio, the Accent Explorer, traveling the world one word, one sound at a time. And this chirpy little chatterbox on my shoulder is my pal, Mimsy the mockingbird. Let’s show everyone how we say hello, Mimsy… Ndewo, G’day, hip hip hooray!
MIMSY: Ndewo, G’day and hip hip hooray!
SERGIO: Haha. Nailed it! You know, Mimsy, it’s less than two months until my trip to Australia and I’ve still got so much to learn and prepare for. But guess what, today is the perfect chance to unlock one of the loudest, most exciting traditions in Aussie life. Do you know what it is, my feathery friend?
MIMSY: Crocodiles?
SERGIO: [Chuckling] Not quite. Today, we’re talking about a game played on a huge oval field, with four goal posts on each side that stretch into the sky. It’s called Australian Rules Football, also known as Aussie Rules or just simply FOOTY! And learning about this wild, wonderful game is like taking a sneak peek into what makes Australia’s heart race.
And Explorer, this weekend is the biggest, loudest, shout-til-your-voice-squeeks game of their whole year... the Grand Final.
I first learned about Aussie Rules a few years back from my good friend Jack, who lives right here in Green Ridge. You’ll get to meet him in just a bit.
Jack is an Australian who loves every kind of sport. In fact, he’s a former athlete himself. He used to be a cyclist, which means he could race bikes really, really fast, not just here in America, but all over the world: France, Switzerland, Germany, Abu Dhabi, you name it! Jack has zooomed through them all!. And because he’s competed all over the world, he’s picked up amazing stories about each country's favorite sport. That’s why, whenever I want to know how a game connects to a culture, Jack’s the person I ask!
And today he is introducing us to one of the biggest voices in Aussie Rules; his friend Jason Bennett. Jason used to host his own show on ESPN—that’s the giant sports channel your grown-ups might watch—where he covered Australian athletes competing all around the world, just like Jack. Now he’s a commentator on Australian TV, which means he's the storyteller of the matches. Pretty cool huh!
MIMSY: Super cool!
SERGIO: Now, because morning here is night time in Australia, and Jason has a very busy week with all those fun Grand Final activities, Jack said we need to call him super soon. So we’re waiting for Jack to arrive, and then we’ll call Jason and ask him all about Aussie Rules!
[KNOCK KNOCK]
MIMSY: There he is. Come in Jack!
[DOOR CREAKS OPEN]
JACK: G’day Sergio. G’day Mimsy!
SERGIO: G’day Jack. Thanks for setting up our chat with Jason Bennett today. I’m excited to learn what the Aussie Rules Grand Final is all about. Before we call Jason, can you tell us about the two teams that are playing in the Grand Final this week?
JACK: The two teams are the Brisbane Lions and the Geelong Cats.
MIMSY: The Cats? Hope they don’t chase me! (giggles)
JACK: [Laughs] Don’t worry, Mimsy. They only chase the ball. Now, you might have heard of Brisbane before. It’s the biggest city in the Australian state of Queensland. It’s got a Koala Sanctuary…
MIMSY: Kooaaalaaa!
JACK: And Brisbane also has a great sports stadium called “The Gabba” which is short of “Woolloongabba”; a suburb of Brisbane. Plus, it’s only about a four hour drive from the Great Barrier Reef … the biggest coral reef on Earth, bursting with fish and colors like an underwater rainbow!
SERGIO: What about Geelong? What can you tell us about that place?
JACK: Well, unlike Brisbane, Geelong is a place that you probably haven’t heard of, if you live outside of Australia. It’s a city about an hour outside of Melbourne in the very South of Australia. They really love their footy down there!
[ALARM SOUND]
JACK: There’s my alarm. Time to call Jason! Do you have all of your questions ready, Sergio?
SERGIO: You bet I do! Are you ready Mimsy?
MIMSY: Ready!
[MUSIC STING]
SERGIO: Jason, thank you so much for agreeing to teach us all about Aussie Rules. The first thing I'd love to know is, what makes the game so special to you?
JASON: It's such a special game, and it's so family oriented, It's part of the Australian culture. So many of us grow up being born into our football team, right, which is exactly the same as what happens in the US and over in Europe. For me, it was a family thing early on in life, where I would go to the games with my family and that's kind of stuck with me forever.
SERGIO: That’s awesome! How do you explain the game of footy to someone who has never seen it before?
JASON: So when I lived in America, people used to say to me, Hey, Australian football, what's that all about? What's that like? Is that rugby? I'd say, no, no, it's not rugby, very different to rugby. Oh, is it soccer? No, it's not soccer, very different to soccer. So what's it like? And I'd be like, well, it's not really like anything. You run around all over this massive field. There's no places you can't go. You can run everywhere at any time. There's no time out, there's no pads, there's no helmets. So what's it like? And I said, well, you've gotta run a long way for a start, you've gotta run fast and you've gotta run a long way, you gotta run like 10 miles to play this game. So it's kind of like running a half marathon, and after every 2nd or 3rd tree, some big guy jumps out from behind the tree and tackles you and throws you on the ground. Then you've got to get up and keep running the marathon. And another 2 or 3 trees, someone else jumps out, tackles you and throws you on the ground, and you just got to keep getting up and going and going and going. So that's what Australian football's like. It's like running a half marathon, but getting tackled along the way.
SERGIO: Wowee. I don’t know if I could do that! But I’d sure love to watch it. Now, tell me Jason… just how HUGE is the Grand Final in Australia?
JASON: So the AFL Grand Final is our version of the Super Bowl. The two best teams of the year will play off for the championship trophy. There'll be over 100,000 fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground at the MCG to cheer them on. And, you know, obviously it changes people's lives. Fans wait their whole lives to see their team make a grand final and hopefully win one. For people that, managed to go along and see their team win a grand final, you know, for them, it's almost the greatest day of their life, and you see lots of people crying with happiness because their team lifts up the Championship Cup. We call it the Premiership trophy.
SERGIO: Next question for you, Jason. What do you think Aussie Rules can teach us about Australian culture?
JASON: I once heard a very wise man here in Australia say that the sporting codes reflect the culture of their society. And I look at American football, the NFL. It's quite militarized. Everything's done with, like, army precision, right? It's like soldiers on a field and you get directed in this position, you get directed in that position, and then you stop and you set it up and you start and you run it again, right? Australian football, as a culture we’re kind of a little bit more laid back and easygoing. So our game, they literally throw the ball up in the middle of the ground, we've got goalposts at each end, and away you go. You just run around, it's crazy. So it's sort of, it represents the sort of freedom of expression that we have in Australia,
SERGIO: That makes total sense. And since you’re the “storyteller” of the games, Jason, what do you love most about calling the action on TV?
JASON: Calling football for me is the closest thing I'll ever get to being out there on the field. I was never good enough to be a player, so how else could I be involved? And I used to love watching it on TV. I'd watch every second of every game I could possibly watch. So I decided when I was like 4 or 5 years old, I wanted to be a football commentator, and that was always gonna be my dream. And so I went and chased it. And It's so exciting. As a fan, you sit there and you get wrapped up in the game and you feel all the emotions, the excitement and the ups and the downs and the tension, and it's so enjoyable. You then amplify that, grow that even more. When you're a caller and you're commentating on the game, you're part of the action. You can help other people enjoy the game more. Like, it's the closest thing you'll ever get to actually being a player or a coach, is to be a commentator.
SERGIO: That’s a great point! I never thought of it that way before! Ok, fun one! What household objects would you use as a football growing up?
JASON: So where I started calling football was actually in my lounge room at home, right? My front room at home, my TV room. And I would just imagine that there were goals at each end, and there was a doorway at one end, that was a goal. And then there was a window at the other end with the frame, and if you got it through the middle frame, that was a goal. and what I would do is I'd take the game day program from a game, and I would lay it on the, on the couch, just across the sort of arm of the couch. And, I would pretend to play a game in my lounge room, and I'd spin my head around and I'd look at the program and whatever the first name was. that I saw on the program, that would be the next player to get the ball. And so I would use a balloon or a nerf ball, you know, the soft, sort of squishy nerf balls, because obviously, you can't kick a real football around the house because you'd break everything, right? My mom would have killed me. I'd be breaking windows and I'd be knocking things off the mantelpiece, and I'd be destroying all sorts of things. So, we used to either have a balloon or a nerf ball, and I would kick this thing around for hours. In the lounge room, and I would play a game, and I would commentate as I went, right? And that's where I started commentating football.
SERGIO: Haha love it! Okay, last question Jason. Tell me about one Australian athlete who really shows what Australia is all about.
JASON: I think an Australian athlete that you could learn about and learn a lot from is a guy named Patty Mills, who's a basketballer, spent a lot of time in the NBA. He's an indigenous Australian. He was quite small, and he was sort of undersized. Missed out on the NBA initially, had to go the long way, had to fight, had to be really resilient and really strong and tough, and just hang in there and just keep trying and trying and trying. And eventually, he made it. He gave everything he had every single time he runs out on the court. And when he was off the court, you'd watch him, he'd be sitting on the bench, and he'd be down the end of the bench and he'd have his towel. And every time one of his teammates did anything great, he would be jumping up and he'd be so energetic, he'd be waving the towel, he was so happy for his teammates. He was the ultimate team man. And, for Australians, that's how we get brought up. The most important thing we learn in any sport, whether it be Australian football or anything else, is it's always team first. It's not about you, it's about your team. What can you do to help your team win? What can you do to help your teammates become better players? And Patty Mills, just sums that up perfectly.
SERGIO: Patty Mills!? I should go visit Ms McLaughlin at the library and read up on him. He sounds incredible. Jason, thank you so much for sharing all of this wonderful information with us. I feel like I have learned so much about Australia today.
[MUSIC STING]
SERGIO: Oh boy, what a great chat that was. Your pal Jason really loves his footy, Jack.
JACK: Of course he does. He’s Australian!
SERGIO: Explorer, do you see? Sports aren’t just games. They’re stories about what people love most. And in Australia, that story is told through Aussie Rules!
Now it’s your turn, Explorer. Ask your grown ups if there’s a game or sport that’s special in your household. Maybe someone in your family once cheered for Jackie Robinson when he broke barriers in baseball, or maybe your great-Aunt kept her community smiling by teaching kids to jump rope in the neighborhood. Whatever the answer, it has a hand in your story, your culture. Have a wonderful week, and remember…
MIMSY: Keep exploring!