Abishua Johnson, a Fulbright graduate student from Jamaica, arrived at the Rice University International Graduate Student Football Clinic with a straightforward assessment of his experience with American football.
“I know nothing, zero,” Johnson said. “I’m coming from square zero, so I’m really excited to play this game and maybe have a great story to tell back home.”
By the end of the Aug. 22 clinic, Johnson was throwing passes, making catches and learning how to celebrate a touchdown alongside other international graduate students.
Rice Football welcomed the students into the Brian Patterson Sports Performance Center for a behind-the-scenes tour and a hands-on introduction to one of the country’s most recognizable sporting traditions. The event was organized in partnership with Rice’s Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
Dunlevie Family Head Football Coach Scott Abell began the morning in the same meeting room the team uses for prepractice instruction. He explained that much of a player’s preparation happens away from the field, comparing the hours spent studying plays and strategy to the academic preparation required of graduate students.
Abell also emphasized the role college football can play in connecting a campus community.
“What makes college football different than any sport is that it truly brings people together,” Abell said. “You’ve come from all across the globe to be here. That’s awesome.”
Before taking the field, students received a crash course in football fundamentals. Eli Turner Jr., a graduate assistant coach and master’s student in global affairs, asked participants to rate their familiarity with the sport, from never having watched a complete game to understanding its basic rules.
Turner then explained the roles of the offense and defense and offered a simple description of the game’s objective: Move the football into the opposing team’s end zone.
Students also toured the football training and weight rooms before moving into skill stations. Rice coaches taught participants how to pass, catch, kick a field goal and tackle. The final station focused on another important element of the game: the touchdown celebration.
Nischala Pendyala, an applied physics graduate student from India, had watched football before but said she had never understood the game.
“I was not expecting a hands-on workshop,” Pendyala said. “I thought they were just going to show us a video, but this is really fun.”
For Rodrigo Sanchez, a Fulbright graduate student from Uruguay, the clinic provided context that had been missing when he attended a Rice football game during his first year.
“I didn’t know what was happening, and I couldn’t enjoy the game,” Sanchez said. “Now that I know the rules, I know the passion behind the game. I understand why they live the game the same way we live soccer.”
After completing the drills and demonstrating his touchdown celebration, Sanchez compared the experience to “living the American culture live.”
The clinic was designed not only to explain the sport but also to help international students feel more comfortable participating in an American campus tradition, said Seiichi Matsuda, dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies.
“Football is such a deep part of American culture,” Matsuda said. “If you have at least a basic understanding of how the game works, you’ll feel more comfortable and you’ll join into the community more easily.”
The experience also reflected a broader part of graduate education at Rice, Matsuda said.
“Education is an adventure, and graduate education is a bigger adventure, especially if you’re coming to a place like Houston that has so much going on,” he said. “It’s really important that our students keep their eyes open, look for things outside of the classroom, outside of the library, outside of the lab, and pursue things that are interesting and fun, build community and find friends.”
Pendyala said opportunities like the clinic can help graduate students develop a healthier balance between their academic responsibilities and personal lives.
“I love that Rice has so many fun things to do here,” she said. “There are a lot of opportunities to have a good balance between work and fun stuff.”
Brendan Cohen, a Fulbright graduate student from Australia, came to the clinic with experience watching Australian football. He said learning alongside students with different levels of familiarity made the event especially enjoyable.
“We’re figuring out how to catch, how to throw and how to tackle,” Cohen said. “I think it’ll give us a bit more context when we go to those games.”
For Cohen, the individual instruction and welcome from the Rice coaches also demonstrated the strength of the university’s graduate community.
“There’s more to it than just the academics,” Cohen said. “There’s the community. There’s the experience of living in the U.S. and all the opportunities here at Rice.”