Dwayne Armstrong (born March 18, 1971) is an American former sportsman who played American football and

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 oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

College football career

Armstrong played college football for

Iowa State Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

in 1991 and 1992, lettering in both years. He was a member of the Los Angeles Raiders practice squad, but did not get activated to the main squad.

Australian rules football

The African-American athlete is best known for converting to

. Armstrong met Melanie Oakley, the daughter of Ross Oakley, the chief executive officer of the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL). He convinced

Essendon Football Club The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers, is a professional Australian rules football club. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the game's premier competition. The club was formed by the McCracken family in their A ...

coach Kevin Sheedy to recruit Armstrong, the first American raised athlete to switch to professional Australian rules football. He showed some promise and was put on Essendon's supplementary list. Although he did not debut at senior AFL level, he played several reserve grade and pre-season games. He also spent a season developing his skills with

Russell Jeffrey Russell Jeffrey (born 6 February 1966) is a former Australian rules footballer who played with St Kilda and the Brisbane Bears in the Victorian/Australian Football League (VFL/AFL). Jeffrey, a former St Mary's junior, started his VFL caree ...

at the

Wanderers Football Club The Wanderers Football Club, nicknamed, Eagles, is an Australian rules football club, currently playing in the Northern Territory Football League (NTFL). The club was formed in 1916 as a founding member of the NTFL. It has produced Australi ...

Darwin, Northern Territory Darwin ( ; Larrakia: ) is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. With an estimated population of 147,255 as of 2019, the city contains the majority of the residents of the sparsely populated Northern Territory. It is the smalle ...

. Following his AFL attempt, Armstrong took a job with Ross Oakley's company that had acquired the license to sell NFL products in Australia. He became the NFL development manager for Australasia and was involved in arranging the NFL to be televised in Australia, the 1999 American Bowl game between the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

and the Denver Broncos in Sydney and the ''Superpunt'' punting talent search that led to Mat McBriar winning a scholarship to the University of Hawaii.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, Dwayne Living people American expatriate sportspeople in Australia Iowa State Cyclones football players American players of Australian rules football VFL/AFL players born outside Australia Wanderers Football Club players 1971 births