Chasing The Dream: Meet Cooper Duff-Tytler – the star junior basketballer who was almost a Bomber
Cooper Duff-Tytler surprised those close to him by giving up basketball to pursue his AFL dream – one that could soon begin in Perth. But things could’ve been a whole lot different.
Had timelines been a little different, Cooper Duff-Tytler could have been a Bomber.
It would take something monumental for Essendon to secure him in this year’s AFL draft, but the club has only narrowly missed out on having priority access to the exciting tall through its Next Generation Academy.
Two of Cooper’s good mates – Adam Sweid and Hussien El Achkar – are members of the James Hird Academy, given their fathers were both born in Lebanon before later making the move to Australia.
Cooper’s own father, Jason, has Sri Lankan heritage but was born shortly after his parents – Robert and Liz – moved to Melbourne.
“In 1975, I was born here,” Jason told Code Sports’ Chasing the Dream documentary.
“Mum and dad came out, I believe it was late 1973.
“They came out for a better life, I suppose, and it’s definitely been that.”
SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH EPISODE 1 OF CHASING THE DREAM
Rival clubs believe the Bombers are “obsessed” with Cooper as an exciting mobile ruckman-forward likened to Luke Jackson.
He is in Essendon heartland, having grown up in Woodend, played for the Calder Cannons in the Coates Talent League and attended Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School since Year 9.
A dual-sport athlete, Cooper began attracting AFL attention in his teenage years despite focusing most of his efforts on a promising junior basketball career.
“Troy Selwood was the first person that ever rang about Cooper’s footy and that was when he was quite young, still in the midst of basketball,” mother Briony said.
“I couldn’t believe it. He hasn’t even played football hardly. How can he be identified as (a) football(er)?”
After Cooper’s move to Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School, the attention from AFL scouts and talent pathway programs began to ramp up.
“As a year 9 he got picked to play in the senior side, in the First XVIII, and I can remember watching him play that day,” Jason said.
“He played down back, centre-half back, and in that game I just looked and thought, ‘Gosh, you’re like a ready-made player here at year 9’. Then his path with basketball took over a little bit more after that as well. So the school football was really the only games of football he was playing. But I thought that first game he played – and I love my football – it was like, ‘You can have a future in this, I think’.”
Cooper’s basketball took him to Qatar, where represented Australia at the 2023 FIBA under-16s Asian Championships.
He played alongside Dash Daniels in that team, who is now on Melbourne United’s roster in the NBL and is a hot prospect for the 2026 NBA Draft.
“I played a lot of basketball with Dash through country champs versing him,” Cooper said.
“I’m playing for Macedon, he’s playing for Bendigo. Then we also played a lot of Vic Country together as well as playing for Australia together. He’s someone that I’ve built a good relationship with along the way with basketball and I still like to talk to him now. We’ve gone down different paths but we still stay in contact.”
Cooper is favoured to join West Coast as a top-three pick in this year’s draft.
In doing so, he will become the first player drafted from his local club, Woodend-Hesket.
“It would be a cool experience for me if I’m the first person to be drafted from Woodend,” Cooper said.
“I’ll never forget where I came from and the people here that helped me along the way and I still come down here on Saturday’s often and watch my brother play local footy. So I’m sure I’ll still be down here a bit.”
Originally published as Chasing The Dream: Meet Cooper Duff-Tytler – the star junior basketballer who was almost a Bomber
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