Inside story of Tyson Stengle’s redemption from fallen Crow to All-Australian Cat
Tyson Stengle’s Cats lifeline is his chance to alter the course of his life after a traumatic and turbulent background that he has touched on publicly for the first time.
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Eddie Betts’ mind was spinning as he weighed the consequences while waiting for the news report to load on his mobile phone.
It was the summer of 2019-2020 and a dramatic headline had popped up on his news feed.
Betts and wife Anna had welcomed young Indigenous player Tyson Stengle into their Adelaide home for the 2018 pre-season, but two years later the Crow’s patience was wearing thin.
Stengle had been involved in a drink-driving incident and caught with cocaine alongside teammate Brad Crouch that summer.
Back in Melbourne playing at Carlton, Betts had a sinking feeling he knew the player at the heart of the report.
“It was tough when those incidents started to occur,” Betts told the Herald Sun on Tuesday of Stengle’s eventual exit from Adelaide.
“I looked on my phone one day and there was a story about an Adelaide player who had been done for drugs. It didn’t say who it was and as I was waiting for it to load I was thinking, ‘Please don’t be Tyson, please don’t be Tyson”. And then it came up as Tyson Stengle. F***.
“I rang him and said, ‘What are you doing putting yourself in these situations? You are a role model. You are an elite athlete. Kids in the community are looking up to you’.
“I am light on him, I am the good cop. Anna is the firm one. I was locked up in the CBD and arrested (for drunk and disorderly) after that Carlton boat cruise. Anna helped me change my life and it’s about hard work and putting your head down….”
Betts was at Geelong on Monday — almost exactly 18 months to the day since Stengle’s trail of incidents saw him sacked by Adelaide on March 16, 2021 — as the Cats players were announced to a GMHBA Stadium crowd.
“I had a big smile on my face,” Betts says.
“There were 5000 or 6000 people there and they were cheering but when Tyson walked out, the cheer he got gave me chills. This kid, they love him down there. He has shown them what he can do.
“He has created history as the first delisted free agent to be All Australian. He can go back-to-back premierships from SANFL to AFL. And who knows, he could be the Norm Smith Medallist if he plays really well. It’s just an amazing story.”
TRAUMATIC UPBRINGING
By now most football fans are well acquainted with the bare bones of Stengle’s story.
A young Indigenous kid from South Australia’s Ceduna, 800km northwest of Adelaide.
Drafted by Richmond as an exciting goalsneak rookie but traded back to Adelaide after two years where he then mixed nice cameos in 14 games with off-field shenanigans.
Sacked by Adelaide he then dominated the SANFL for Woodville-West Torrens but he was still overlooked by wary recruiters in the 2021 mid-season draft.
Then finally, Geelong took a punt on him for the 2022 season.
His talent has blossomed into a 49-goal season, including a glorious three-goal preliminary final.
It is the ultimate story of a bad boy redeemed.
And yet as those who know Stengle are aware, it is a much more complex and nuanced story than that.
For the 23-year-old it is his chance to alter the course of his life after a traumatic and turbulent background that he touched on publicly for the first time on Monday.
He was brought up by grandmother Debra from the age of four and then with Emily and Cecil Betts, his grandparents on the other side of his family.
But with one parent absent and another who passed away early, Stengle and his siblings were in and out of care at times through his early years.
It’s why Stengle next year will begin studying to equip him with the skills to help kids going through the same experience he endured.
“I want to work with Indigenous kids through child support,” Stengle says.
“I grew up and went through that as well, when I was a younger kid. So it’s pretty tough. There are not many Indigenous people in that space, so I want to try to do that.”
One day Stengle will feel comfortable enough to tell that story in full.
In his recent autobiography Betts writes of Stengle: “He’s overcome serious adversities to be where he is today” but that “we could instantly see that he had the ability to be a great man”.
Said Betts of someone he calls his brother and will host in Melbourne on Friday night with his choice of pasta and garlic bread: “He is a kid who has gone through some trauma in his upbringing and to break through the barriers he has, it’s just unbelievable.”
‘STORM IN A TEACUP’
Stengle drags his Geelong hoodie over his head with showers falling over GMHBA Stadium; as he is asked if he knows how much he is inspiring young Indigenous kids.
“Yeah, I think I am a little bit aware,” he tells the Herald Sun.
“Especially the kids back home in Ceduna, from my hometown. I want to be a role model for those guys. I loved playing footy and wanted to play at the highest level and to come down here and play at the highest level has been pretty good.
“After the mid-season draft I didn’t get picked up and my mindset was just to keep playing good footy until the end of the year with the Eagles (in the SANFL).
“I was hoping towards the end of the year a couple of clubs would stay in contact and it panned out pretty good. There were a couple of times where I thought, ‘I don’t know if I will be able to get back to that level’.
“But luckily enough Geelong took me in and I am really starting to believe in myself now and I am feeling pretty good out there now.”
Cats assistant coach and former Adelaide teammate Josh Jenkins says Stengle has never been a bad person, he just made a series of bad choices.
“Not to take away from how great the story is, but he wasn’t a bad dude,” Jenkins says.
Speak to anyone close to Stengle and they will admire Geelong’s decision to accept the risk profile of recruiting Stengle not long after their recent Jack Steven trade ended in a whimper.
But if others want to paint his recruitment as a boom-or-bust enterprise Jenkins says it was actually a “no-brainer”.
“He wasn’t a bad kid. He had made a few mistakes. From a football point of view it was a no-brainer, but from a character point of view there weren’t many issues. It was the same at Adelaide. I spent time with him at both levels — SANFL and AFL — and when you both feel like you should be in the AFL you lean on each other a bit and he was just longing for an opportunity.
“Sometimes it can be a storm in a teacup. He has done this, and he had done that … But once Geelong figured out he was a good kid clubs were keen on him and we had Eddie here and he was familiar with me and (ex-Tigers player) Shaun Grigg and it’s legendary about the ability to have a life and play footy here so it’s worked out pretty good for him.”
2AM CALL TO DIMMA
Ask Richmond coach Damien Hardwick about Stengle’s early years at Richmond and he echoes Jenkins’ sentiments.
Stengle’s early AFL memories are playing under Hardwick and VFL coach Craig McRae.
“Craig is one of the nicest and most genuine guys I have met,” Stengle says.
He admits he had to work on his professionalism before accepting a long-term deal at Adelaide that eased his homesickness.
Hardwick says Stengle, who is nicknamed Wombat for his low centre of gravity, “is still well-loved at our club. He has got a lot of fans”.
“One of the great stories is we were playing the Bulldogs at Marvel Stadium on a Sunday and he rang my phone at 2am in the morning (after playing VFL) and I didn’t answer it. Fair to say he had a few beers, ‘Wombo’,” Hardwick tells the Herald Sun.
“We rang him on Facetime before the game and he answered it and the boys had a great laugh. He is a great kid, we wish him all the best and hopefully he walks away a premiership winner.
“To see the second-chance guys, Paddy McCartin as well, it’s incredibly exciting and it’s what we play footy for, to see those great stories.”
During that season away from AFL football Anna and Eddie interviewed Woodville West Torrens’ key figures to ensure it was a good fit to relaunch his career.
His managers, Dimi Parhas and Garry Winter of W Sports and Media, kept recruiters in touch with his progress as he also worked 9am-4pm in the SANFL club’s offices.
Eagles coach Jade Sheedy says recruiters overlooking him in the mid-season draft was a blessing in disguise so he could remain settled for a full year as he tore opposition defences to shreds.
“Our forwards coach used to say in the coaches box when the ball went near him he just wanted everyone to get out of his way. We knew he was stable. He had good behaviour on and off the field and when AFL clubs rang we just said this kid is too good to be here. You would be crazy not to take him.”
Parhas would not confirm speculation Collingwood and Essendon also came hard at Stengle, but he knows he found the right home.
“I think landing at Geelong was the best possible thing for him. They have wrapped their arms around him,” Parhas says.
“He is such a good, quiet unassuming kid with an infectious smile and they just let him focus on playing”.
At Geelong, Chris Scott compares his coaching team to providing the same kind of service a private coach would of tennis great Roger Federer.
The coaches are there to serve the players, not make demands of them.
A weekly schedule states players must arrive before 10am and leave after 2pm, but as Patrick Dangerfiled quips: “Not long before 10am, and not long after 2pm”.
It has worked perfectly for the chilled, unassuming Stengle, who Betts would wake as he was leaving early for Adelaide training with a freshly-made coffee and a shout of “Get your hole up”.
“Everyone has weights groups, when you are supposed to do them. He was happy to fall into line early. But very quickly we realised why he has the nickname ‘The President”,” Dangerfield says.
“He does things when he wants to do them and very quickly he found himself doing weights when he likes.
“He has just had a wonderful season. So much of the commentary has been about what football has given Tyson but I look at what he has given his teammates, the club and supporters. Everyone has made blues along their journey. There is not a person who exists that hasn’t. I think one thing we do as a football club is understand that.”
Jenkins says the presidential nickname came at Adelaide.
“He can run his own show …. He is just a natural. A natural footballer, he doesn’t need to be pumping iron and doing laps,” Jenkins says.
At Geelong that footballing gift has fit hand in glove with the instincts and abilities of All Australian captain Tom Hawkins.
Hawkins pauses for a minute then finds the perfect way to describe Stengle.
“I would explain it in simple terms. That you pick the ball up with your back to goal and (when you turn) you know Tyson, being the purist he is, is going to be somewhere in your vision,” Hawkins says.
“The connection? We don’t talk about it much. It just happens and evolves. He is a pretty quiet operator, you can’t imagine Tyson and I sitting down and talking footy. It’s not us. That is sort of what forwards just are. He has been wonderful to play with.”
And Betts believes this is only the start for Stengle.
“I said to him, “You are 23. You have got 10 years ahead of you. You can make a life of these 10 years at Geelong. It’s hard to describe. He’s like family. To be honest, he is family. He is a great kid. He has had his ups and downs. And I feel like he is only just starting to blossom.”
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