Danielle Marshall (born 15 August 1991) is an American

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 ...

player for the

Essendon Bombers 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 ...

in the

AFL Women's AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football league for female players. The first season of the league in February and March 2017 had eight teams; the league expanded to 10 teams in the 2019 season, 1 ...

(AFLW) League. Marshall is the first American and first

USA Freedom The United States women's Australian Rules football team, also nicknamed USA Freedom represents the United States in the sport of women's Australian rules football. The USA Freedom was founded in 2007 as the USAFL Women's National Team. The te ...

representative to play in the AFLW league, and the first player recruited to play professionally at AFL level from a club outside Australia.Dani Marshall: The First
11 June 2020

Early life

Marshall was born on 15 August 1991 in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and raised in

Colorado Springs, Colorado Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

.Mesa resident becomes 1st American woman to sign pro contract with Australian Football League
from ABC15 Arizona 11 July 2019 She participated in many sports throughout her childhood, including

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

ultimate frisbee Ultimate, originally known as ultimate Frisbee, is a non-contact team sport played with a frisbee flung by hand. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by AJ Gator in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate resembles many traditional sports in its ath ...

and

cross country running Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open coun ...

.Danielle Marshall - The American Dream
by Jayden J Bartlett. 18 March, 2020 She had aspired to play

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

as a

free safety Safety is a position in gridiron football on the defense. The safeties are defensive backs who line up ten to fifteen yards from the line of scrimmage. There are two variations of the position: the free safety and the strong safety. Their dut ...

or punter, however her mother discouraged her from playing a contact sport, so she chose soccer. After a successful club and high school career, Marshall was recruited by the

Colorado School of Mines The Colorado School of Mines, informally called Mines, is a public research university in Golden, Colorado, founded in 1874. The school offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, and mathematics, with a focus on ener ...

on a soccer scholarship. She played

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environmen ...

tournament soccer for three years between 2009 and 2012.Marshall Makes History, Signs with AFLW Bulldogs
by Brian Barrish for USAFL 10 July 2019 Marshall turned down an offer by the Colorado Rapids Women to continue her studies. During college she was an avid watcher of

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 ...

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

, until the channel stopped broadcasting the sport in 2011. In 2015, Marshall moved to

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

with her husband. There she began to focus on ultimate (frisbee) and was voted as her team’s Most Valuable Player in 2017. Marshall attributes her ability in finding space, making leads, and marking to the sport. In 2017, she joined the USAFL club Arizona Hawks along with her husband Ryan after being told about the club by her friend. She missed selection with the USA Freedom for the

2017 Australian Football International Cup The 2017 Australian Football International Cup (also known as the AFL International Cup 2017 or IC07) was the sixth edition of the Australian Football International Cup, a triennial international Australian rules football competition run by the ...

after beginning to play the sport. During the USAFL offseason in May 2018, she played rugby union with the Tempe Ninjas Women's Rugby Club in the

Southern California Rugby Football Union The Southern California Rugby Football Union (SCRFU) is the Geographical Union (GU) governing body within USA Rugby that governs adult rugby union teams in Southern California, the Las Vegas metropolitan area, Arizona, and New Mexico. The SCRFU in ...

on the

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expres ...

where she was named Rookie of the Year. Three weeks later after a match between Denver and Arizona in Los Angeles, one of the Lady Bulldogs playing in a combined team, Sara Edwards Rohner, texted her asking if she wanted to play the game in Australia. American Australian

Denver Bulldogs The Denver Bulldogs are a United States Australian Football League (USAFL) club, based in Denver, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1997, the club is currently composed of a Division 1 men's team, a Division 1 women's team, and a Reserves men' ...

director of coaching James Waddell, and his visiting friend Australian cricket player manager Cam Richardson, who had shown an interest in recruiting the best female players for the Western Bulldog's women's team, offered to host the two in Melbourne for a professional tryout. At the 2018

USAFL National Championships The USAFL National Championships is a tournament for Australian rules football in the United States. Since 1997, the National Championships have been a large event featuring teams from the United States and Canada in four men's divisions and two ...

, Marshall became the first first-year rookie to win the Paul Roos Medal for Best and Fairest in Division 2. She was named in the Freedom's 2020 Australian Football International Cup squad (the tournament was later cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

) and also for the 2021 postponed tournament that was later cancelled. In early May 2018, she arrived in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

to attempt a professional career. She trained with the Western Bulldogs but played suburban football at the

Aberfeldie Football Club Aberfeldie Sports Club is an Australian rules football and cricket club located 9 km north-west of Melbourne in the suburb of Aberfeldie which entered the Essendon District Football League in 1948. History The ASC was formed in 1974 and w ...

in the Essendon District Football League Women's competition. Former AFL player Shaun Smith recommended her to

St Kilda FC The St Kilda Football Club, nicknamed the Saints, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier league. The club's name originates fr ...

and she was invited to the club. Other clubs to express interest included Carlton and Collingwood, however they did not offer her a contract. She did not want to wait for the AFLW Draft to make a commitment to move to Melbourne permanently. The Western Bulldogs offered her a contract and she began playing in the Western Bulldogs VFLW team. Marshall played 10 games for the

Western Bulldogs The Western Bulldogs are a professional Australian rules football team that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Founded in 1877 as the Footscray Football Club, and based in West Footscray in the o ...

VFLW VFL Women's (VFLW) is the major state-level women's Australian rules football league in Victoria. The league initially comprised the six premier division clubs and the top four division 1 clubs from the now-defunct Victorian Women's Football Le ...

team in 2019.

AFLW Career

Marshall was signed as a rookie by the Western Bulldogs in the 2019 AFLW draft at the mature age of 28. She played her first AFLW game on 9 February 2020 in a match against the St Kilda AFLW team. She joined the prestigious club when she scored a goal with her first kick. Marshall was delisted by the Bulldogs on 16 June 2021 after playing just 5 games for the season. She was relisted by AFLW expansion club

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 ...

through the

2022 AFL Women's draft The 2022 AFL Women's draft consists of the various periods when the 18 clubs in the AFL Women's competition can recruit players prior to the competition's seventh season. Expansion club signing period The expansion clubs Essendon, Hawthorn, P ...

. In her first game for her new club in AFLW Season 7, she kicked a long range 45 metre goal and was named among the team's best.Bombers turn it on late to sink Hawks in battle of expansion teams
from AFL Women's. 27 August 2022

Statistics

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References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, Danielle 1991 births Living people Western Bulldogs (AFLW) players American players of Australian rules football Essendon Football Club (AFLW) players Sportspeople from Colorado American expatriate sportspeople in Australia