Auskick
 |
|
| Presence | |
|---|---|
| Country or region | Australia |
| Olympic | No |
| Paralympic | No |
The program was devised in 1988 and began in the state of Victoria—the traditional home of the sport—under the name Vickick. It was supported by the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's preeminent professional competition, which rolled it out nationally in the 1990s.
Under current corporate sponsorship rights (as of 2005) the program is officially named NAB AFL Auskick and is sponsored by the National Australia Bank (NAB), while previous sponsors include Simpson, a whitegoods company and, even earlier, fast food giant McDonald's.
Auskick is a national football coaching network, with clinics held weekly (usually on Saturday mornings) run by volunteers. The program attracts over 100,000 primary school aged participants annually and, as such, is the largest grassroots sporting association of its kind in Australia.
Each Auskick session consists of a training session and a game, with the emphasis on developing skills rather than the game result. Some of the major rule differences from Australian rules football are a ban on tackling and the restriction of players to their zone of the field, similar to netball.
The AFL is a major supporter of Auskick and star players occasionally assist in training events. The AFL also invites various branches of the Auskick network to play short games during the half-time breaks of premiership season games at all grounds, with numerous matches played on modified fields simultaneously.
In 2007 the program's slogan was "Where Champions Begin", with Jo Silvagni (wife of former AFL player Stephen Silvagni) and Robert DiPierdomenico, the 1986 co-Brownlow Medallist as the main ambassadors. They also used the kick-to-kick tradition as part of their promotional television campaign, which shows kids from around the country kicking the football to each other to the tune of Gimme Dat Ding.
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