World Team players traveled 472,000 combined miles to hit the football field.

Football is in America's back yard.

Quite literally, it is. If a high-school aged football fan wishes to pick up the pigskin and toss it around on an area of grass, there is always the figurative back yard available and most likely an abundance of friends on hand to join in.

Not so in most of the rest of the world.

The players who make up the IFAF World Team and the IFAF Development Team at the 2012 International Bowl have traveled a staggering combined 472,408 miles to step onto the football field in Austin, Texas to take on the U.S. under-19 national Team.

That is the equivalent of circling the earth 19 times.

Football is played with a passion, just as it is in the United States, from Sydney to Stockholm and from Paris to Pago Pago. But the young international athletes, who take up what they call American football, have to muster an extra level of dedication to be able to play ball. Rarely are there school teams whose practices are a part of the daily curriculum and rarely is there that willing group of friends who want to pass and catch a football when other sports are indelibly ingrained in their culture.

So an international American football devotee is someone who has sought out a club team, committed to evening practices when there are an array of alternative activities and distractions, and an individual who is willing to travel.

Travel. An accepted element of the game in Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and all their nations that make up the 62 member federations of IFAF. A suitable club team might be not be located close to home, but in the next town, or the equivalent of the next county or state, or still further away. A ‘home' game might not feel that way.

If you want to play, you will travel.

And so the IFAF World Team and Development Team players and coaches whose identities span 14 different languages, put extreme travel on their agenda, packed their backs and began the long journey to Austin, Texas.

None further than defensive line coach John Leijten, who undertook a mammoth hike from Melbourne, Australia to Texas of 8,873 miles. Following him across the Pacific was offensive line coach Paul Manera, whose journey from Sydney was a mere 8,469 miles. Lets not even get into time zones, the international date line and the fact that Manera and Leijten landed in the United States before they took off Down Under, or that they will lose an entire day on the journey home!

Special Teams Coordinator Shinzo Yamada, quarterbacks coach Masato Itai and running back Shingo Maeda each trekked more than 6,500 miles from Japan, while the American Samoan contingent from Pago Pago collected 5,738 air miles.

So when you watch the live webcast or live telecast of the February 1 International Bowl, remember the long journey they have taken simply to play on a strip of turf in America's back yard.