Darcy Vescio (born 3 August 1993) is an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

er playing for the

Carlton Football Club The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club based at Princes Park (stadium), Princes Park in Carlton North, Victoria, Carlton North, an inner suburb of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. The c ...

in the

AFL Women's AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules football competition for women's Australian rules football, female players. The 2017 AFL Women's season, first season of the l ...

competition. As a heavily marketed marquee player, Vescio has been referred to as a "household name" in Australia by ESPN.

Junior and state league football

Vescio began playing football with their brother at the age of five. Vescio was a participant in the

Auskick Auskick is a program designed to teach the basic skills of Australian football to children aged between 5 and 12. Auskick is a non-contact variant of the sport. It began in Australia and is now a nationwide non-selective program. It has incre ...

program. They stopped playing competitive football at the age of fourteen, when they were no longer allowed to play with the youth boys team. Vescio started playing again at the age of eighteen, when they moved to Melbourne from their home town of

Wangaratta Wangaratta ( ) is a city in the northeast of Victoria, Australia, from Melbourne along the Hume Highway. The city had a population of 29,808 per the 2021 Australian Census. The city is located at the confluence, junction of the Ovens River, ...

and joined the

Darebin Falcons The Darebin Women's Sports Club, nicknamed the Falcons, is a sports club based in the northern suburbs of Melbourne that is primarily notable for its women's Australian rules football, Australian rules football team which competes in the highest- ...

in the

Victorian Women's Football League The Victorian Women's Football League (VWFL) was the oldest and largest Australian rules football league for women in the world, consisting of 47 clubs from Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia across seven divisions with a total of over ...

(VWFL). They won four premierships with the club in consecutive seasons from 2013 to 2016, and won the Lisa Hardeman Medal for

best on ground Best or The Best may refer to: People * Best (surname), people with the surname Best * Best (footballer, born 1968), retired Portuguese footballer Companies and organizations * Best & Co., an 1879–1971 clothing chain * Best Lock Corporatio ...

performances in two of these matches in 2015 and 2016. Vescio has represented Victoria at the

AFL Women's National Championship The AFL Women's National Championship was the premier national and international competition in Women's Australian rules football. The championship was held every year between 1992 and 2015. The tournament was organised by the sport's governin ...

in 2013 and 2015. They were drafted by the in 2014, and played for the club in exhibition series matches between 2014 and 2016. In 2018, Vescio played VFLW with the Carlton Football Club and won the club's best and fairest. In the final round of the season, Vescio kicked 9 goals to claim the league's leading goal kicking award.

AFL Women's career

Vescio was signed as a marquee player by in July 2016, ahead of the league's inaugural 2017 season. They made their debut in round 1,

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

, in the club and the league's inaugural match at

IKON Park Princes Park (also known as Ikon Park under naming rights) is an Australian rules football ground located inside the Princes Park precinct in the inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton North. Officially the Carlton Recreation Ground, it is a hi ...

against . They kicked a game-high four goals in the match, which was more than Collingwood's overall team score. This was acknowledged by the

AFL Players Association The AFL Players Association (AFLPA, also simply known as AFL Players) is the representative body for all current and past professional Australian Football League (AFL) and AFL Women's (AFLW) players. The AFLPA promotes and protects its member ...

, highlighting Vescio as Player of the Week. At the conclusion of the 2017 season, Vescio was the AFLW leading goalkicker, was nominated by their teammates for the AFLW Players’ Most Valuable Player Award, and was listed in the 2017 All-Australian team. Their mark in front of goal in round five against was voted by fans as Mark of the Year. Carlton signed Vescio for the 2018 season during the trade period in May 2017. They played in all seven of Carlton's matches that season and kicked five goals, tying

Tayla Harris Tayla Harris (born 16 April 1997) is a professional Australian sportsperson best known for her careers in Australian rules football with the Melbourne Football Club in the AFL Women's (AFLW) and in professional boxing. She is a highly successfu ...

and sharing the club's leading goalkicker award with her. For the 2019 season, Vescio was elevated to the leadership group alongside

Shae Audley Shae Audley (born 13 June 1988) is a former Australian rules footballer who played 16 matches over three seasons with the Carlton Football Club in the AFL Women's competition (AFLW). She was drafted by Carlton with the club's sixth selection an ...

Kerryn Harrington Kerryn Peterson (née Harrington, born 2 March 1992) is an Australian rules footballer and former basketballer. Peterson currently plays for the Carlton Football Club in the AFL Women's (AFLW), and previously played for the Bendigo Spirit, Aus ...

and Sarah Hosking, with Bri Davey serving as captain and Katie Loynes as vice-captain. They signed a two-year contract with on 10 June 2021, after it was revealed the team had conducted a mass re-signing of 13 players. Vescio was awarded with their second

All-Australian The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-perfo ...

blazer, named on the interchange bench. Vescio achieved selection in Champion Data's 2021 AFLW All-Star stats team, after leading the league for goals in the

2021 AFL Women's season The 2021 AFL Women's season was the fifth season of the AFL Women's (AFLW) competition, the highest-level senior women's Australian rules football competition in Australia. The season featured 14 clubs and ran from 28 January to 17 April, compr ...

, totalling 1.8 a game.

Statistics

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2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

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2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

, , 3 , , 9 , , 5 , , 10 , , 50 , , 31 , , 81 , , 17 , , 13 , , 0.6 , , 1.1 , , 5.6 , , 3.4 , , 9.0 , , 1.9 , , 1.4 , , 0 , - , scope="row" text-align:center ,

2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

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2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

, , 3 , , 9 , , bgcolor=FA8072 , 16^§ , , 4 , , 56 , , 26 , , 82 , , 28 , , 16 , , bgcolor=FA8072 , 1.8^§ , , 0.4 , , 6.2 , , 2.9 , , 9.1 , , 3.1 , , 1.8 , , , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

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2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

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2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

, , 3 , , 9 , , 2 , , 4 , , 42 , , 30 , , 72 , , 13 , , 25 , , 0.2 , , 0.4 , , 4.7 , , 3.3 , , 8.0 , , 1.4 , , 2.8 , , , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 77 ! 64 ! 48 ! 434 ! 212 ! 646 ! 148 ! 184 ! 0.8 ! 0.6 ! 5.6 ! 2.8 ! 8.4 ! 1.9 ! 2.4 !

Personal life

Vescio previously worked part-time at the Carlton Football Club as a graphic designer. They were responsible for designing the club's inaugural women's guernsey and pride guernsey. They were born and raised in the Victorian town of Markwood near Wangaratta and attended school at Wangaratta High School. Vescio is of Italian and Chinese heritage and is an AFL Multicultural Ambassador. In 2018, the Carlton Football Club made a documentary, ''Bloodlines: Darcy Vescio'', which focused on Vescio's dual heritage. On 29 December 2021, Vescio publicly came out as

non-binary Non-binary or genderqueer Gender identity, gender identities are those that are outside the male/female gender binary. Non-binary identities often fall under the transgender umbrella since non-binary people typically identify with a gende ...

and announced the decision to change their gender pronouns to

they/them Singular ''they'', along with its inflected or derivative forms, ''them'', ''their'', ''theirs'', and ''themselves'' (also ''themself'' and ''theirself''), is a gender-neutral third-person pronoun derived from plural they. It typically occu ...

, expressing that " aring this feels a bit daunting but brings me a lot of warmth and happiness".

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vescio, Darcy 1993 births Living people All-Australians (AFL Women's) Australian graphic designers Australian people of Chinese descent Australian people of Italian descent Sportspeople of Italian descent Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state) Carlton Football Club (AFLW) players Darebin Falcons players Australian non-binary sportspeople Sportspeople from Wangaratta Sportswomen from Victoria (state)