America reacts to fairytale AFL debut for Collingwood’s Mason Cox

COLLINGWOOD sensation Mason Cox’s dream debut wasn’t lost on those back in his American homeland.

A star is born.

COLLINGWOOD sensation Mason Cox has made headlines in the United States after a fairytale beginning to his AFL career on ANZAC Day.

The 25-year-old Magpies tall was mobbed by teammates at the MCG after booting a goal with his first kick in the AFL as the Pies beat Essendon by 69 points.

He had never seen or heard of the sport of Australian rules football before being invited to an AFL draft scouting combine in Los Angeles in 2013.

On Monday in Melbourne he became a star in Australia and his incredible story made news back home.

His transformation from high school soccer goalkeeper to college basketball centre to AFL key forward wasn’t lost in his home state of Texas where he attended high school in Flower Mound on the outskirts of Dallas.

The Oklahoma State basketball product even made the homepage of ESPN.com in the United States.

A video of the 2.11m giant’s dream debut was one of the top ranked stories on the sports section of reddit.com.

Naturally, most American commentators had no idea if Cox was dominating a strange sport or trapped in some sort of post-apocalyptic Mad Max sequel.

“It’s like watching eight sports at once,” reddit.com user PangurtheWhite commented.

The Cox family.

While nobody seemed to know exactly what was going on, most of Cox’s new fans gathered from the applause and celebrations from his teammates that good things were happening for the Texan.

Username I_sell_WyFy wrote: “Still gotta imagine from his perspective it’s pretty boss to score your first goal professionally in front of that many people.”

Unfortunately for Cox, most of the comments from American readers were simply trying to understand why this maniacal sport was popping up on their screen.

“This sport looks like they just took a whole bunch of sports and combined them,” username GuyMansworth posted.

Username AgonistGym wrote: “This is like football for clumsy people. God damn I would be great at this.”

Username brajohns: “What in the world is even happening?”

Goal.

Another user wrote: “Rugby has the hottest guys, this is my new favourite sport.”

The Tulsa World also featured Cox with sports reporter Kelly Hines writing “Cox became the first born-and-raised American to score a goal in an AFL game”.

“Cox was mobbed by his Magpie teammates after connecting from 27 yards out, set up by his impressive catch that helped generate early momentum in the Magpies’ 69-point blowout win that was televised live overnight in the US,” she wrote.

The Dallas News’ Tommy Magelssen wrote Cox’s journey with the Magpies was the equivalent of scoring a spot on the roster of the Dallas Cowboys — America’s team.

“The Collingwood Magpies are the most popular team in Australia — akin to our own Dallas Cowboys — with 16 top-flight championships, dating back to 1896 (though the ‘Pies have won just two titles in the past 25 years),” he wrote.

Sports site SB Nation also highlighted Cox’s big moment in front of 85,082 fans.

“The 25-year-old used his 6-foot-11 frame to pull down a mark then kicked in the score from 27 yards out. It was the first score en route to the Magpies’ 69-point win,” writer Brandon M. Cain wrote.

Back in Australia, Cox’s reception was a little more sobering this morning.

Melbourne great David Schwarz told SEN Radio Cox is never going to become a superstar of the game and said he has obvious similarities with former Swans ruckman and Canadian recruit Mike Pyke.

“He wasn’t in their best but what he did was he did his role. He’s a Mike Pyke,” Schwarz said.

“He’s not the answer to centre half forward or full forward for Collingwood. He’ll be a part-role player and they’ll have to develop players around him. Is he going to be a Peter McKenna? Or is he going to be a Peter Moore or any of those? No. He’ll be a good toiler.”

Collingwood president Eddie McGuire added on SEN: “Let’s be honest, he wasn’t best on ground by a long way but he took a giant step forward in his career and he gave us something to shout about that’s for sure.

“Like everybody our eyes dropped to see where it was going and out came big Mason hands out and he got it.

“It was one of the great highlights that I’ve been involved with at the Pies, I just loved it when he nailed that kick. I jumped up like we won the flag I must admit.”

— with AAP

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Originally published as America reacts to fairytale AFL debut for Collingwood’s Mason Cox