Society Spotlight: UC Stars Gridiron Club
By Ruby Thomas
The University of Canberra is a great place to study for people who love sport. There’s a big variety to choose from, with Gridiron, or ‘American Football’ being one of them.
The club has been working hard to recover after Covid-19, and they now have active men’s and women’s teams.
I recently spoke to two players from the men’s team, Anton and Darcy.
Both players say Gridiron is not only a physical sport, but it’s also a strategic game.
Darcy describes the game as having “the physicality of rugby, but the mentality of chess.”
He says Gridiron is all about using each player’s role to the greatest advantage.
“You’ve got different players with different skillsets, kind of like chess pieces in that way, where you’ve got different people who fit into different roles, and it’s about using those people in the best combinations possible in the best positioning possible to out-strategy the other team,” he said.
Anton says the strategic nature of Gridiron starts from the beginning of the game.
“Based on how you line up as an offense as a defender you sort of have an idea on ‘oh, they might be potentially running the ball’ because they’ve got some more large-sized players on the field to try and get out and block you,” he said.
Gridiron requires players to be constantly alert, so picking up the game is a learning curve even for those who have played contact sports.
“Personally, playing wide receiver position where you have to learn some skills that are completely sort of unique to the sport, like the right way to sort of run a route, when to turn your head to the quarterback to catch the ball, just these little nuances with technique in that regard, like there is a learning curve to that,” Anton said.
But despite the sport’s challenges, most of the players in the men’s team were new to Gridiron this year.
Anton estimates about 95 per cent of the team are new to the sport, despite their coach recruiting some more experienced players.
Nonetheless, it’s still been a successful year for UC Stars Gridiron.
“The year has been extraordinarily fun…Now we’re all at the point where [we have a] full season under our belt, we’ve all got a pretty deep understanding of what we’ve got to do and we’re sort of starting to see improvements in each other which is really unreal,” Darcy said.
Anton says the start of the year was tough as the team went through a few coaches and lost new players as they discovered the sport wasn’t suited to them, but as the year went on, the team have developed into a more cohesive unit for 2025.
“Once we sort of hit that mid-season point where we thought that alright, these are our core hub of players, we’ve got our coach for the future, we really sort of galvanised as a unit and we’ve gotten really close and we’ve got a great sense of community now and I see really good potential for like, what this team can be, not just in the competition, but just like as a community for people who love the sport to get together and be around,” he said.
The Gridiron season runs from September to December, but the team train all year.
“So we have a pretty heavy pre-season routine where we’re training two to three times a week, just to sort of learn all the rules, strategy and what not behind the game, ‘cause we’re largely rookies and then going into the season and right now, we’re training two times a week, Monday and Wednesday nights and then we have our game days on Saturday,” Anton said.
Unfortunately, Gridiron players are prone to injury, as are players of other contact sports.
“We do see injuries pretty regularly, which, it sucks, but it’s part of the game. It’s a very physical sport. We don’t see too many serious, serious injuries…it’s more I think, you know, maybe like a rolled ankle or jarred or sprained something just because, you sort of get a lot of contact from unexpected angles and directions, it’s just hard to sort of brace or anticipate the right way to roll to protect yourself,” Anton said.
Although injury in the sport might be somewhat inevitable, the team has a positive culture of support for each other.
Team members socialise together, and help out with other games when they’re off the field, but members are also invested in the future of the club by fundraising.
UC Stars Gridiron has a Bunnings BBQ scheduled for New Year’s Eve and there’s talk of a future trivia night.
Team members can hire the necessary equipment such as shoulder pads and helmets through the ACT Gridiron Association, but with enough fundraising, UC’s Gridiron club are hoping to have their own.
Looking toward 2025, the team is hoping to attract at least 10-15 more players as UC Stars Gridiron don’t have enough players for anyone to rest or ‘sub out’ during the games.
It’s undeniable the club is welcoming of new people, as Darcy says about a third of the team is from interstate.
For anyone still feeling hesitant to join in, Anton says the team is “constantly trying to recruit. We want to get more people involved in this team, we want to try and build that community and the team.”
The best way to express interest in joining the team is to message @UC Stars Gridiron on Facebook, but students are also welcome to try the club out by coming to a training session. Join the team on Monday and Wednesday evenings from 6:30pm on UC field 6.