From Australia, with love
Since returning to the Land Down Under, Kate has continued to live her passion as a physical education teacher.
From gymnastics and badminton to cricket and track-and-field, Kate enjoys sharing her love of athletics with her students.
“I have an all-around approach, and I’ve gotten to teach a lot of things,” she explained. “Often in Australia, physical education teachers native to the country are elite athletes. I worked with a guy who’s on the Commonwealth badminton team, a guy who’s on the Australian lacrosse team and a woman whose sister won the gold medal in water polo.
“But they couldn’t teach all the sports … and I could,” Kate added. “Of course I had to learn how to teach footie, cricket and lacrosse – I played lacrosse to learn it. … Perhaps those are stories for another day.”
“Footy,” as Kate learned early on, is the nickname for Australian Rules Football (AFL).
“I do now have to stay it’s the best football game in the world,” Kate said. “I absolutely love it. Here, they call American football ‘gridiron.’ There is now a whole league here, and I’ve been to a game.”
When Kate first arrived in Australia, she told friends and coworkers about American football and the NFL.
“They used to say, ‘Oh, that game. It’s just so stop-and-start.’ Like footie, if you watch footie, it’s more like keep-away. It’s constant. Kicking, running – everything is constant,” Kate explained. “Whereas [American football], I have to explain there’s this whole tactical thing that goes on.”
Kate has found other NFL fans during her time in Australia, though they’re not necessarily fellow Vikings fans.
“But people who know me and know I’m from Minnesota will comment, ‘The Vikings did this,’ or they’ll share what they heard about the team,” Kate said. “They know I’m from Minnesota, because I always reference things like 3M, or Spam, or tell them it’s where the Mississippi starts.”
Kate always was a fan of Fran Tarkenton when he led the Vikings, and she’s most recently been a supporter of Kirk Cousins and his success with Minnesota.
“I watch the sports here, of course – right now it’s tennis and test cricket – but I always will still follow my Minnesota teams,” Kate said. “Most of the Vikings games are on at, like, 5 o’clock in the morning Mondays.
“I also love listening to the Wild. The ice hockey games are on later. They’re usually on here at 10, 11 or 12…
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