Too cool for school
Class acts need a good education
WHEN young Tiger Jack Higgins was interviewed after his great performance against Melbourne, we loved his enthusiasm and vivaciousness.
He’s a happy kid living his childhood dream. Even he admits to walking with a certain swagger now.
We laughed when he joked it’s been a dream to play footy since he came out of the womb. We need young, effervescent characters like him to take the serious edge off the game. For, in the end, it is just a game.
But at 18, has Higgins already done something he’ll regret in 10 years. He’s a school dropout. Not every kid is suited to the classroom. I needed a few reality checks to sit on my bum and concentrate.
I finished Year 11 at Salesian College in Sunbury, then went to Melbourne High and lasted a couple of months before chucking it in. My mum was not impressed.
Everyone around me knew I was going to play AFL, but even back then mum told me to stop faffing around, finish school and prove I could achieve a basic level of education. I am so glad she did.
I completed my schooling back at Salesian, then got seriously stuck into my footy career.
Higgins took a different path. His education went from a classroom to a weights room, pens were swapped for footballs.
Daily he would work on his fitness and his skills. He’d watch elite players and how they’d run, make position and change the tempo of a game.
These are all crucial when playing the game, but a standard of education is important too.
It’s important when players need to make tough decisions about life, not about who to kick to.
People will argue, well, what’s one extra year sitting in a classroom going to teach you when you can become a greater footy player without it?
There’s an example in Australian sport right now that might make you think twice. Steve Smith. From a very early age all he wanted to do was play cricket, he may even use the same joke about the womb.
He was too obsessed with the game and getting a headstart on his career at a professional level that he didn’t finish Year 12, instead moving to England and playing there.
Now, he is a very good player. But his obsession with the game, the need to win and his single-minded approach to it may have been his downfall.
He made a very wrong decision. It has tarnished his reputation forever.
Would he have made the same choice to tamper with a cricket ball if he’d finished high school? Who knows?
But he would have a level of education to fall back on if this was the end of his cricket journey.
He’s got nothing but the game and now he’s got 12 months to ponder the decisions he’s made.
They earn a lot of money, these sportspeople. They’re privileged to have advisers — financial or otherwise — to help them manage it all.
But footy, and cricket, don’t last forever.
It’s hard to return to study once you’ve moved away from it for so long.
My advice for Higgins would be to go back and finish Year 12, or start on an apprenticeship. The AFLPA is there to help you.
Just don’t neglect the important pillars of life in order to get a sporting victory.