He saw a better future in his degree than in his basketball, which had seen him compete in a modest total of 24 games in three years, with an average of just 2.4 minutes per game. Cox was preparing to enter the same field in which his parents had made their careers. After graduating, he had planned a European backpacking holiday and then would return to Texas to take up a well-paying job in Houston.

Shortly after the basketball season, though, Cox got an email from Jonathan Givony, inviting him to attend the AFL's US Combine. The New York-based headhunter for the Draft Express college basketball website had seen Cox play on TV. Givony also learnt that Cox had formerly played soccer, too.

"Hey, dude," Cox said to Connor Schuman, his close friend and college roommate of three years. "You will not believe this." "What the hell?" Schuman said, looking over his mate's shoulder to read the email.

"What do they want?" Cox and Schuman took some time to fully digest the message.

"Should I do it?" Cox asked.

"Hell, yeah," Schuman told him. "Why not?"

The next thing Cox knew, he was in Los Angeles with other American potentials, getting used to the feel of the unfamiliar leather oval ball. When he put on his standard-issue black compression top, he was pleased to see he'd been given No.17, the same number he wore on his Edward S Marcus High School jumper when he was a defender on its state champion soccer team.

After Cox killed it at the combine, the AFL flew him to Melbourne ... This was for follow-up ball skills tests and a timed two-kilometre run in front of scouts from a handful of AFL clubs. Midfielders usually run that distance in six minutes; Cox finished in six minutes and 50 seconds. Considering Cox's size [211 centimetres], his time was staggering.

The scouts also marvelled his vertical leap and his appetite for work. They even loved his manners. "We look for little clues," says Collingwood recruiting manager Derek Hine. "We were out having a coffee with him, getting our first impression. We noticed he held the door open for a couple of women. He's very humble and very polite."

Cox was equally taken with Collingwood and Hine. "Derek was on top of everything," he recalls. "He came to the airport to meet me, called me every day and was with me every step of the way. I saw it all in college, players getting wined and dined, but I felt like if Collingwood was gonna take care of me like that, they'd do it if I sign with them. It's a successful club culture. You can see it upfront. It makes you want to be successful."

One day during his visit, Hine took the potential recruit for a wander. They walked together the short distance from the club's state-of-the-art headquarters to the MCG, and continued out onto the field. From the centre circle, Hine showed Cox what he envisioned as his destiny.

"This is our home," he told Cox. "And this," he continued, spreading out his arms to highlight the ground's expanse, "could be your workplace."

Hine is known in the game as being devoted to the wellbeing of the club's young players. Marty Clarke, the Irish recruit Hine signed from professional Gaelic football in 2006, became part of Hine's family after the recruiter invited him to live at his own home. Clarke had six successful years at Collingwood, over two separate, three-year stints, playing 73 matches.

The Magpies made Cox an attractive offer. But there was another tempting contract dangling before him. It wasn't from one of the three other AFL clubs that had scouted him but from an American corporate behemoth. ExxonMobil, whose recruiters Cox had met at a job fair before he was invited to the US combine, had offered him a position in the company's project management exploration department, at its Houston headquarters.

Cox knew he had a daunting choice: move across the world from his suburban Dallas home and try a new sport he'd known about only for a few months, or take a plum corporate job for which most new college graduates would give their eye teeth.

Schuman, who has accompanied Cox on camping trips to Arkansas' Ozark Mountains and on biking and kayaking excursions in Texas, knew which path his friend would choose. "He was never the type of person to sit behind a desk," he says. "He'd be miserable sitting there and putting on a suit every day. He sees life as one big string of experiences, and he wants to experience everything. He'd have a lot more fun and be a lot more fulfilled if he tried Australian football."

Ultimately Cox told the ExxonMobil recruiter what was in his heart. "I have this amazing opportunity," he said, "and I can't turn it down."

So instead of cramming himself into an office cubicle, Cox has spent the last two years fitting in with his new teammates, in a new city, country and sporting culture.

"I didn't want to be behind a desk 30 years from now, thinking about what I could've done," Cox says. "This is the time of my life to take risks. I could've been making money for a big company, or making it for myself. I could've taken the easy way and gone the corporate route."

Collingwood's original plan was for Cox to work-out with development coaches for a month, beginning in September 2014, and then to head home to Texas and return in time for pre-season training in November. Cox, however, insisted on staying until Christmas. He got plenty of weightlifting in, adding bulk to his lanky frame, and the coaches gave him an insane amount of endurance conditioning to do.

Even during 2014 grand final week, with his dream workplace, the majestic MCG, visible in the distance, Cox would often be out on the park for individual sprinting drills and kicking practice. And more kicking practice. And even more kicking practice, as late morning would become afternoon, then afternoon would morph into evening.

Cox, who speaks with more Texas droll then drawl, quickly got plenty of public attention in Melbourne. "Coxy!" a punter once yelled to him, "you signed with the wrong club, mate!" But if you mention his name to anyone at Collingwood, the response never changes: a sly smile, as if they're all in on a secret plan, a new weapon they can't wait to unleash on their opponents.

**JUMPING AT THE CHANCE, by Gil Griffin.

Available at all good bookshops. RRP $29.99