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PITTSBURGH -- Six months after kicking an American football for the first time, Mark Jackson tugged on a yellow Pittsburgh Steelers practice jersey Friday morning and began warming up on a turf field more than 3,400 miles from his home pitch.
A Gaelic footballer for Wicklow, the 25-year-old Irishman earned a tryout invitation at the Steelers' rookie minicamp after winning the organization's inaugural American Football Kicking Clinic in Dublin last month.
"When you're a kid growing up in Ireland, the NFL is the furthest thing from your dreams," said Jackson, one of four Irishmen who are part of the NFL's International Pathways Program this year. "You could say it's a dream, but you don't even dream that big, really. So no, it wasn't something that was in my head, but just glad to be here and grateful for the opportunity."
The idea of becoming an NFL place-kicker first landed on Jackson's radar last year when Tadhg Leader of Leader's Kicking asked if he was interested in an opportunity to be involved with the NFL International Pathways Program. From there, Jackson embarked on a crash course in American football, taking a leave from his club, Baltinglass, to train for eight weeks at Florida's IMG Academy.
He then worked out for teams at the NFL combine in Indianapolis and participated in an international players pro day at the University of South Florida a couple of weeks later. After that, Jackson went back to Ireland to wait for a call to bring him back across the pond. It came after he put on a show at the Steelers' kicking clinic.
"It was tough to step away from the sport I've grown up playing and kind of done for my whole life," Jackson said. "But this is too big an opportunity to not go for it and not give everything to it."
Although an NFL football is shaped differently from the ball used in Gaelic football, Jackson said the skills he uses as a goalkeeper in the sport are transferable to the American sport.
"You're working with a snapper and a holder, working on that kind of operation, that's probably the thing you have to get the most [used] to, but actual contact and striking the ball is quite similar," Jackson said. "The [Gaelic] ball is round, so that's obviously a big difference. The sweet spot on an American football is smaller, because it's a smaller ball and it's a different shape, but the actual contact points and your foot position on the ball is quite similar."
Jackson did not kick for Steelers coach Mike Tomlin and special teams coordinator Danny Smith in the morning practice session, but he said he hit a 70-yard field goal in training at IMG Academy. That range isn't the only thing that could make Jackson an attractive addition to NFL teams. With the changes to kickoff rules set to improve safety and increase the number of returns, there's a premium on precision kickers -- and ones who aren't afraid to get physical.
"The main thing of Gaelic football with goalkeepers these days is kickouts," Jackson said. "So a kickout is basically, it's like being the quarterback in American football, so you're trying to pick out guys in pockets of space and running onto the ball.
"Especially with this new kickoff rule, I think it suits us Irish guys; we're not small guys either, we're big and strong, so we can make tackles. We've taken hits in different sports. With the new kickoff rule, having to place the ball in certain areas of the field, that's what we've grown up doing, that's our bread and butter, really."
Jackson hopes to follow in the steps of Irishmen such as Green Bay Packers punter Daniel Whelan, who's from the same county in Ireland as Jackson, and New Orleans Saints kicker Charlie Smyth. The Steelers, though, already have an entrenched kicker in Chris Boswell. But because the team also typically brings at least one additional kicker to training camp, Jackson has a shot to stick around in Pittsburgh a little bit longer.
"I want to be living proof that a guy from Ireland can come across to America and make it in the NFL," Jackson said. "That's why I'm here. I'm here for no other reason. You can see the last couple of months the growth -- it's guys from our heritage sport of Gaelic football coming across here -- that you can transfer across and, yeah, you can see how much the NFL is growing in Ireland, and I want to be part of that."
