Elmhurst College In Athens Ahead of Roma Bowl

Elmhurst College is the latest football team to travel to Europe with Global Football, taking in the sights and sounds of Greece and Italy before facing Legio Roma XIII in an exhibition game on Sunday, June 9.

The Bluejays are currently enjoying the spectacular historical sights of the Greek capital of Athens, which provides the traveling squad the opportunity to have an extremely valuable cultural experience.

“We have been working with Global Football to make sure our players can fully enjoy this,” explained Elmhurst head coach Joe Adam.  “With educational and sightseeing opportunities in Athens, Pompeii, Naples and Rome, our players will have the opportunity to experience other cultures.  We are honored to take our blue collar mentality international.”

Like most every other college football team across the country, the Elmhurst football team recently held spring practices that included skill development, football knowledge, and above all, lots of hard work.  The Bluejays have also amped up the workload to prepare for an opportunity most other football programs do not get to experience – a game on international soil.

The Roma Bowl will feature Elmhurst taking on the Legio XIII Roma all-star football team on June 9 at the Fonte Nuova Municipal Stadium, kickoff 5pm local time (11am EST).

“This will be a great experience for our football program on two fronts,” said coach Adam.  “First and foremost, this will give our student-athletes the opportunity to be great ambassadors for both our college and our country.  Secondly, it gives us a wonderful opportunity to improve as a team through more practices and a competitive game situation.

“Our players have worked extremely hard over the past six weeks with all of our practices being at either 6:30 am or at 9:30 pm, a tribute to their hard working, blue collar mentality.  Now, they get to see all that hard work come together against a quality opponent.”

Not only will the Bluejays have the opportunity to compete against the Legio XIII Roma team, but the squad’s final practice will be a joint practice, giving Elmhurst players an opportunity to practice side by side with their international counterparts. The joint practice also allows for the Elmhurst coaching staff to share their knowledge with the opposing coaches and players.

“The game of football is continuing its trend to becoming more of a global sport,” said Adam. “With larger schools and the NFL playing more games overseas, this will give us the opportunity to do our part and share our understanding and experience with players and coaches that want to do nothing but learn, compete, and improve.”

Global Football has created and produced American football games and events in 20 different nations on 6 continents around the world and 2013 has featured return tours to Finland, Ireland, Italy, France, Greece, Mexico, Sweden and Panama.  For more information regarding Global Football tours and events, contact Patrick Steenberge: Tel: 817-219-7274 / Email: Patrick@GlobalFootball.com

Elmhurst College Bluejays Roster

Coaching Staff: Head Coach Joe Adam, Assistant Coaches: Kyle Derickson, John Gilligan, Ben Gray, Jared Diekmann, Al Garcia, Chris Gould, Martin Kocian, Kurt Nitschke, Glen Brittich, Mike Heffernan