Kye Kurkowski had never heard of Australian rules football when he was invited to trial at the US combine in Florida, let alone considered whether he would be any good at it.
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First stop? The internet. "I found a Wikipedia article about the AFL and read up about the ruck position and the sort of athlete that played it," said the 23-year-old from Nebraska.
"It seemed to match up with my body type and athletic ability. I thought it was worth having a go."
Kurkowski is one of four American college graduates in the middle of a three-week trip to Melbourne, having impressed at the combine four months ago.
He, James Johnson and Jalen Carathers have trialled at Essendon, Carlton and Richmond in the past week, and will spend a day at North Melbourne next week.
The trio trained in front of a handful of recruiting managers on Wednesday and will have taken in three or four live AFL games before flying home and waiting for any potential offers.
A fourth player – 206-centimetre Matt Korcheck – has spent all of his time at Carlton and is a strong chance to be signed by the Blues as an international rookie.
Carathers, at 201 centimetres, ran a 2.79 second 20-metre sprint at the combine. The 21-year-old, a basketballer, also excelled in the agility and vertical jump tests.
Both he and Johnson have offers to play professional basketball in Europe, while engineering graduate Kurkowski, 209-centimetres, has an engineering job offer to consider.
Carathers' research led him to read up on Jason Holmes, Mason Cox and Eric Wallace – rookies at St Kilda, Collingwood and North Melbourne – before making the trip to Melbourne.
He feels as though he, Johnson, Kurkowski and Korcheck have made significant improvement even in the past week.
"We have a lot of learning to do but as far as the skills go I think we're doing really well. A lot of people have been commenting on how advanced they think we are," he said.
"It's almost like Eric and the other guys have paved the way. They're the pioneers and we're just trying to see if it can work for us too.
"I think what all of us want is an opportunity to be a professional athlete. That's why we're here, so hopefully we can showcase our skills and have the recruiters think: 'I like this guy'."
