Joe Eichner never planned on being a part of rugby history.

Baseball was the Geneva native’s sport of choice. He cheered for the New York Yankees, idolized Derek Jeter and manned third base and right field for the Oviedo High Lions.

But a new athletic fire burned during his time at the University of North Florida. Rugby became a passion, then a profession, taking Eichner, who now lives in West Palm Beach, around the country and, soon, carrying him across the ocean as part of the Toronto Wolfpack, North America’s first professional trans-Atlantic sports team.

Eichner’s rugby story ostensibly started on the UNF campus. As a freshman in 2010, he walked past a group playing catch, struck up a conversation and received an invitation to their practice. Three weeks later, he was on the pitch, spelling an injured teammate only five minutes into the proceedings.

Eichner took man of the match honors that night.

That he proved such a quick study shows his rugby roots were planted long before. His uncle played it in college, so the familiarity was there. And he found that a childhood spent as a wrestling sparring partner for his two older, bigger brothers made rugby’s physicality second nature.

"The aggression that I used toward my brothers," Eichner said, "it was the same thing on the field."

Before leaving UNF with a bachelor’s degree in building science, Eichner ascended from rugby novice to club captain. After graduating in 2015, he suited up for both the semiprofessional Jacksonville Axemen and the USA Hawks—America’s rugby league national team—all while spending normal business hours as a project engineer for a general contractor.

During his time with the Hawks, he caught the eyes of Wolfpack executives, who encouraged him to attend one of five open tryouts across North America.

Eichner auditioned in Tampa, the same weekend he played there in the USA Rugby League all-star game. He soon received word he was one of 18 players selected for a final 12-day tryout in Brighouse, England. The entire audition process was filmed for a docuseries called Last Tackle, which is in the editing stage.

"It was a little strange to have a camera in your face and [be told], ‘Hey, don’t look at the camera,’" Eichner said. "Of course the first thing you do is look at the camera. But probably by the third or fourth day, you really didn’t even notice them."

Eichner’s comfort extended to the playing field, where he surprised himself with how quickly he picked up instructions. He impressed the organization, too, which rewarded Eichner, Jamaica’s Nathan Campbell and Canada’s Quinn Ngawati with contracts.

The Wolfpack will be first-year members of England’s League 1 when the season begins in March. The Wolfpack, whose roster is made up primarily of players from England, will cover travel expenses of visiting teams. For the English league, having a team located in North America provides a chance to grow the sport. For the Toronto squad, it’s a chance to compete in a country with passionate fans and, hopefully advance to high divisions.

The Wolfpack’s schedule includes a lengthy road trip and homestand to minimize trans-Atlantic travel to compete in the 16-team league, which boasts teams such as the Barrow Raiders, Coventry Bears, London Skolars, Newcastle Thunder and South Wales Ironmen. But there are times the Wolfpack will cross the ocean twice in the same week.

The travel could exhaust some, but it excites Eichner.

"It’s a chance to travel the world, essentially, and play a sport that I love," the 25-year-old said. "Not many people can say they’ve gotten the chance to do that."

To the rest of the sports world, this is a test run of their own ambitions.

The NFL has flirted with the idea of trans-continental expansion before, but they’ve been beaten to the punch by an upstart outfit from British rugby’s third tier. Toronto is, like Eichner, an unlikely pioneer in global expansion for professional sports.

"I think other leagues are going to watch us and see how we’re going to do it," Eichner said. "I think we’re going to build a foundation for other sports to do the same."