BOSTON—When the National Pro Grid League (NPGL) launches this week, Northeastern University will be well represented. Four former Huskies are part of the Boston Iron organization, one of eight teams competing in the league's inaugural season.
Jennyfer Roberts, DMSB'11, a former diver at Northeastern, was drafted by the Iron this summer, while football alumnus Josh Plosker, CAM'02, is the team's owner and general manager. Plosker is joined in the font office by chief marketing officer Mike Hans, DMSB'13, who played club rugby at NU, and excitement driver Andrew Hickson, E'13, who participated in club ice hockey and rugby at the university.
According to the league, Grid combines weightlifting, gymnastics, body-weight movements, and pure athleticism into a fast paced, co-ed team sport. Teams consist of five men and five women who compete head-to-head against each other. Two athletes from each team—one male, one female—must be over 40 years old.
Unlike many professional sports, most Grid athletes still work full-time jobs, as is the case with Roberts, who is a bank examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
"Every student-athlete has this issue; you graduate and there's a huge athletic void left," said Roberts, who advanced to the NCAA Zone Championships in her final season on Huntington Avenue. To fill that void, Roberts started Crossfit in 2013 and was participating in competitions just two months later. She first heard about NPGL on Facebook and decided to attend a combine held in Boston. "I thought it would be awesome to make it to Sunday [through the first round of cuts], and I did." She then advanced to the next combine, in Las Vegas, where she impressed team owners.
"I wasn't really prepared, at that point, to move out of town and pursue the sport in another city, like New York or Philadelphia," Roberts recalls. "As soon as the Boston Iron team was officially announced, I knew I had to be on that team. When the draft rolled around, I was lucky enough to get picked by the Iron."
Both Roberts and Plosker, the team's owner and general manager, attribute much of their success to their time at Northeastern.
"It all started at NU," recalls Plosker, who lettered at linebacker for the Huskies from 1998 to 2001. "I got to be an athlete at Northeastern. Playing football there was my first real time learning about strength and conditioning, and the experience was tremendous. I've been in Boston for a long time. I have a lot of ties. My brothers have gone to NU. My experiences there as a student and athlete prepared me to enter the world of strength and conditioning. I now own two Crossfit gyms here in town and am the owner of the professional sports team, the Boston Iron."
Roberts, who now must juggle the responsibilities of a full-time job with the demands of professional athletics, sees similarities with her time on campus. "Even before I started diving I was a gymnast," Roberts said. "I actually never dove in my life before my sophomore year, when I walked onto the Northeastern team. With the NU co-op program, I was able to be a student-athlete as well as a working athlete, which I am now. Through this I learned ridiculous time management skills."
The Iron will open the season on Sunday, Aug. 24, at 2 p.m., at the Tsongas Center in Lowell against the Miami Surge. The day will start with a fan fest at noon. The team is offering a special discount to fans who want to watch Jennyfer and her teammates in action for the first time. Receive a 20 percent discount by using the discount code "20Roberts" when purchasing online at
http://tickets.thebostoniron.com.
The abbreviated, inaugural 2014 NPGL season includes three regular season matches for each team, all of which will be streamed live at www.npgl.com. The season culminates with a single-elimination playoff tournament ending at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. NBC Sports Network will live telecast the playoffs and the championship will re-air on NBC on Sunday, Oct. 5.
For more information about the NPGL, visit
www.npgl.com. To learn more about the Iron, Boston's hometown team, visit
www.npgl.com/teams/boston-iron.
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