MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – It started as a dream, Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata is saying to a group of 120 wide-eyed kids who took part in an NFL Flag Football event in Sydney, Australia on Sunday. “Follow your dreams,” Mailata said. “Do something you love and give it everything you have.”

Mailata has done that, of course, and as he enters his seventh season with the Eagles, well established as one of the very best left tackles in the world, he is giving back. He is in Australia for two weeks as part of an NFL- and Eagles-promoted grassroots program to promote the National Football League and the Eagles, who have league marketing rights in Australia, New Zealand, and Ghana.

The idea is to increase awareness and passion of the American game in the land Down Under, something that is growing by leaps and bounds according to NFL metrics, which measured a growth of nearly a million fans in the past 12 months alone.

And it’s only going to get bigger and better and more engrained in the culture, with native son Mailata – a national hero who left Australia at the age of 20 to pursue his vision – leading the way.

“Of course I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to me when I left, but it was something I felt inside of me. I wanted something bigger and better and the path from Australia to the NFL was already established,” said Mailata, a seventh-round selection by the Eagles in the 2018 NFL Draft. “I literally left here with nothing but the promise to myself that I would work hard and do everything I could to reach my goals, and with the help of a lot of people, that’s what I did.

“My goals are still out there. I want to be the very best. I want to win championships for my home now, which is Philadelphia and for all of the amazing fans there. To come back here and spread that message to kids and to the people of Australia, it’s very special to me.”