Living The Dream....almost

Growing up in a small country town in Australia had its advantages, but also some inherent challenges…especially for a boy had big hopes and dreams.   I remember from an early age feeling that I was different to my siblings and not in sync with my family, perhaps I was adopted I thought but one look at my dad and there was no mistaking my resemblance to him nor my mothers personality traits which were firmly inherent in me and my siblings.   Even from an early age I found the life I had been born into suffocating.

I knew growing up that I just had to get out, and that my real life was waiting for me.  I guess my formative years were a tad painful, both for my parents and me.  They could sense my restlessness and tried valiantly to ground me with a solid dose of reality but for the most part in vain.  In fact, there were many days when I wanted to just run away and get on with life.

I was painfully shy (okay that part may have changed since :-) which stemmed from a combination of my family environment and my parents views.

TW sporting a rather dashing (not!) moustache back in 1982
OMG....so embarrassing!

Our parents held onto the long and often overused tradition that kids should be “seen but not heard”, yes one of my parent’s favorite mantras growing up.   I suppose who could blame them, as they were also products of the same mantra – its what they knew.  It was Victorian era view where kids really weren’t expected to have a voice or a point of view about anything and were expected to do as they were told and be silent.

This had a devastating effect on my confidence.   Anytime I had an opinion I had to bite my tongue or risk being embarrassed in public or in front of other family members.  You quickly became good at not having a voice or offering any sort of feedback unless you were specifically (very rarely) asked.   You literally shrank from any sort of opinion and in effect became a piece of furniture.

Unfortunately I had plenty of opinions and so became even more withdrawn and shy.  The resident feeling was that I had too many big ideas and aspirations for my own good, and way outside what our family should have had in terms of expectations around life, job etc…  Yes, Australia in those days was far more class conscious and only a generation or two removed from being a British Colony with all of its hierarchies, structure and expectations.

Mum used to say that I was going to live a life of pain if I continued with such big dreams and that perhaps I should expect less from life.  She always said that I was too much like her father (Grandfather Conolly) and that I would have a life of heartache…

So with a long-term plan to escape this life I had to figure out how I was going to achieve it.   My first choice was to use sports as my vehicle out, but because I lacked confidence in my abilities I was at a significant disadvantage even to be a standout in local sports.   This was always going to be a long shot at best, but I was willing to try.

Newspaper article
from 1982 - see Ouyen

Playing football for the local football team started when I was 8 years old (we played in the district Under 12 football competition).   Hence, I spent a lot of time in the first couple of years trying to make the team but mostly sitting on the bench and sometimes getting a chance to play but mostly used in a reserve capacity. 

This period in my life laid an important foundation stone in my life.  It taught me lessons in patience and humility (as if I really needed another), it also taught me that if you wanted something badly enough you could find a way to make it happen even if it took years.  Staying focused and bloody-minded were the non-negotiables to make this a reality.

Its funny how rejection has a way of making your mentally tough, and although I wasn’t the most talented or gifted footballer for my age group (actually far from it) my single mindedness helped me plough on when faced with adversity and I believe its helped me across all aspects of my life and clearly shaped who I am today.

Early in my football career I realized that the only way to get ahead was to do more than everyone else, often training up to four days per week and playing twice on the weekend for different clubs in different competitions.

My family had no football pedigree and so I had a particularly steep hill to climb in the local community in terms of building my reputation – it took years.    And it wasn’t until I turned 16 that I really started to grow and fill out, up until then being smaller than my peers had been a distinct disadvantage.   Now all of a sudden I was being selected to play more frequently and this coupled with my hard work on skills training was finally beginning to pay off.   A few senior players and coaches were beginning to pay more attention and encourage me.  In fact there was a guy at the club who began taking me aside and giving me specific coaching at each break, helping me identify areas I could be improving on during the game.    All of a sudden I could play and compete...

During my first year of university (ripe old age of 17) I had moved into residence on campus (University of Ballarat) and although it was only 25 miles from my hometown I decided to go try out for one of the local teams as a walk on.  The competition (Ballarat Football League) was a big step up from my hometown club and was considered one of the states major leagues (farm league for the professional league).   I trained with East Ballarat and was selected to play in a number of practice matches to see how I'd fair prior to the start of the season, I guess they liked what they saw and put in for a transfer for me to join the club. 

Team lists - when I played for Wanderers in the NTFL 

The shock was that my old team didn’t want to now let me go – not now…oh, how the worm had turned!    We actually had to go to an arbitration hearing with my new clubs lawyer in front of the league commissioner and board to argue the case.  After a lengthy hearing I was granted my transfer, surprisingly I was the only kid from my town to make that jump.      

I was one step closer to my dream of playing in the Victorian Football League (VFL) but still a big step away….  I enjoyed my year albeit a rather unspectacular one, that said I did have a couple of really solid performances but lacked the true consistency of what I knew I could deliver. 

  

In 1982 I was teaching in the north west of the state and playing for the local club (Ouyen) who were in the Sunraysia Football League (again another major league competition).  My coach (Bruce Robinson) was an ex-Collingwood player (professional); I had worked my way along in my career and was now playing for money.  In fact being paid to play in addition to my teaching salary was a pretty good gig.  Not to mention the club owned a large 8-bedroom boarding house in the center of town where I lived as part of my deal for playing for the club (zero $$ rent) and all the food we could eat provided by the club.   Robbo, Bushy Valance (unbelievably talented player) and me became the residents of the “Pink Palace” as we liked to call it….the name stuck!

As you can imagine our house became party central!

Anyway, back to the story at hand...   Robbo was a terrific coach and was able to get the best out of me in terms of consistent high performance, perhaps it was a maturity thing, but at the ripe old age of 23 I was making newspaper headlines (local paper)…   Although the team won only a handful of games that year we were in a highly visible and very competitive league - all the better!.

The next year I was assigned to a school based in Melbourne where the VFL competition was based, my school was about 2 miles from the home of the Footscray Football Club (a storied club within the VFL).   School started in late January and one afternoon I got a call from the football administrator at Footscray to see if I’d be interested in having a trial with the club.

The program listing for when I played for the NTFA rep side
against the Tiwi Islanders - (Darwin 1987) in front of
almost 40,000 people, who were there to see
the "big game" - NTFL vs Sydney Swans.
We were the warm up game!

It was a holy shit moment – no question!    So with some trepidation (and a lot of butterflies) I went the next afternoon to meet with the club and have my trial.   It was surreal – here I was changing and getting ready to play with the guys who I’d seen playing on television…

I thought I was reasonably fit, but not at the level of the pros…   We started with a fitness test (which very nearly killed me :-) – weight circuit consisting of: max bench press, max squats, standing jump, max push ups, max sit ups, timed 10K run, sprints (40’s then 100’s) then actual ball work, and it continued well into the night.

Surviving that grueling initiation I knew it was possible...  

Ten days in and I was cut from the roster, in retrospect I now realize why I had fallen short in my dreams…  It wasn’t that I lacked the raw talent, nope had that, had the drive to succeed but doubted that I actually belonged.   Lurking somewhere in my psyche was a seed of doubt – how could I compete with the guys from TV.

The head coaches parting words – “you need to believe and trust in your abilities…you can play at this level but first you have to believe you can”.

My football career continued unabated when I moved to Darwin, playing for both Wanderers in the NTFL and later Banks in the NTFA prior to moving to Canada.

Zach and Sami know this story and it’s an important lesson – you, above all others have to believe in your own abilities and have the internal confidence to succeed.  

It starts and ends with you!