Boak 300: The stories behind the Power great from the loved ones closest to him
Travis Boak’s 300th could have been in blue and white hoops, though his love and loyalty for the Power has never wavered. Those close to him share their stories.
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Travis Boak is about to exit his mum Chicki’s car at Adelaide Airport, bound for Melbourne, but, before he does, she has a sentiment to share.
It is Tuesday night and they have just come from an emotional dinner at Boak’s place after an uncertain day amid a hectic week.
Chicki, her daughter Sarah, sister Jenny and nine-month-old kelpie Skylar have been in SA last Thursday, driving about 5pm to beat the state’s midnight border closure to Covid-hit Victoria so they can be at Boak’s 300th game on Friday night.
But on Tuesday comes news SA is going into lockdown due to its own coronavirus outbreak, ensuring the clash is moved from Adelaide Oval to Melbourne, without spectators.
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Instead of joining him at Marvel Stadium for the Power’s match against Collingwood, Chicki will be 100km away, at home in Torquay.
Unsure when they will see each other in person again once Boak leaves, the family has a mini-celebration at his house, enjoying a meal and sharing their pride at his milestone.
Then Chicki takes her son to the airport for a late-night flight.
“A few tears were shed,” Chicki tells News Corp of the moments before drop-off.
“It’s the first milestone game of his I would’ve missed, so that’s pretty heart-wrenching.
“I told him ‘know I’m there with you, in spirit if not physically, and know your dad is with you too’.”
It has been more than 15 years since Boak’s father, Roger, died from stomach cancer, aged 48.
Boak was 16 at the time and Port Adelaide drafted the Geelong Falcons product just 18 months later.
Chicki cried and uncharacteristically swore after the Power called her son’s name at pick five, hoping a Victorian team would have selected him.
So how does she reflect now that he is set to become the sixth player in Port Adelaide’s 151-year history and second at the Power to reach 300 matches, equalling its AFL games record?
“It’s a bit surreal,” she says.
“I think back to his first year and I didn’t even know if he’d make one AFL game let alone 300 because he was playing in Glenelg’s reserves.
“I thought it may not happen but I was still super proud of him just being drafted.
“I had (Power coach) Mark Williams one side of me and (football manager) Peter Rohde the other side and they’d say ‘it’s all right Chicki, it won’t be long, he’ll be there’, trying to reassure me.”
Boak made his AFL debut in Round 12, 2007 against Essendon at Football Park.
Chicki was at that match and his other 13 from that debut season, including in Tasmania, Brisbane and the record grand final loss to Geelong.
“I saw him walk out in the middle of the ground at the MCG with Mark Williams and I just had goosebumps,” Chicki recalls of a game finishing in a 119-point defeat.
Fourteen years on, Boak, who turns 33 on August 1, is still chasing an elusive flag but his list of accolades are long.
He is a dual best-and-fairest, three-time All-Australian, including as vice-captain last year, the club’s longest serving AFL skipper and the 2020 Brownlow Medal runner-up.
When Peter Raidme watches Boak on the field, he sees traits of Roger, a former teammate and 230-game, four-time premiership winner at Torquay.
Always has.
Even when Raidme coached Torquay to the 1999 Victorian primary schools championship when Boak was one of two Year 5s in the team.
“His dad was also an on-baller,” Raidme says.
“They both have incredible footy smarts, run and they’re both fierce at the footy.”
Raidme remains a close family friend of the Boaks and has been a constant during the Power star’s career.
Before each game, he texts a supportive message, usually touching on the opposition or Boak’s strengths as a player.
“He writes back straight away — has never missed,” Raidme says.
“Early on it was about trying to give Trav that self-belief and confidence, but he’s been surrounded by good people too.”
Former Geelong Falcons talent manager Michael Turner says Boak has had an outstanding career, getting rewarded for working hard and always having a great attitude.
Turner recalls standing with Roger at an under-16 Falcons match during his cancer battle and telling him if Boak keeps developing the way he has, he will turn into an AFL player.
“When kids get drafted, you hope they have great AFL careers,” says Turner, a 245-game player and Team of the Century wingman with the Cats.
“Travis is a very strong character and would have wanted to make dad proud and reach his full potential … and that’s a great testament to him and a sign of respect to his dad.
“Three-hundred games is a massive number — he’s in elite company, especially to play it at the one club.
“At Port, it pretty much puts you in the legendary status.”
Boak twice looked like he might become a Geelong player over the journey.
Raidme, a former Cats recruiter who is a mate of the club’s long-time list guru Stephen Wells, still has a Geelong shirt intended for Boak.
Wells handed it to Raidme ahead of the 2006 draft.
“Geelong were going to draft him but, of course, Port got in just before and Geelong picked a guy by the name of Joel Selwood,” Raidme says.
“I’ve still got the shirt in the wardrobe and I’ve said to Trav I’ve wanted to give it to him a few times.”
The Cats seemed close to snaring Boak again in 2012.
With Geelong fresh off a premiership, a contingent from the club, including Selwood made a brazen trip to Adelaide, aiming to convince him to leave the struggling Power and to return to Victoria’s Surf Coast when his contract ended after that season.
Chicki and Raidme were both unsurprised to see him stay put.
They knew he possessed another one of Roger’s traits: extreme loyalty.
“I supported his decision, whatever he decided because it’d be the right decision — and I knew which one it would be,” Chicki says.
“He’d be very loyal to the club that looked after us, looked after him, drafted him and gave him an opportunity.
“They’ve been amazing.”
Although Boak staying in Adelaide has been very difficult at times for Chicki, they have been each other’s rocks.
They are very close and talk pretty much every day, including before and after games.
“He’s been amazing for us girls (including sisters Cassie and Sarah) with his support and strength to help us,” Chicki says.
Boak says he could talk forever about how much his mum has done for him.
“She’s always been there to lend an ear or drive over or fly over to be there for me, or growing up, driving me to games and being that ear to talk to when dad wasn’t there,” says Boak, who returns to Torquay each Christmas.
“One day when I needed to train when went down to Torquay footy oval and mum was running around and ended up doing her knee, I think she did an MCL (medial collateral ligament), chasing the footy.
“I think she ended up driving home after that because I couldn’t drive her car because it was a manual.
“She’s just an incredible human.”
As SA and Victoria continue to battle the coronavirus pandemic, Chicki comes to Adelaide Oval games when she can, never misses a match with crowds in Melbourne and has been to all three Power clashes in Shanghai.
Boak tries to spot her in the stands when he emerges from the players’ race.
He also glances up to the heavens.
“He’d want to be able to chat with his old man after a game but he knows he can’t so he looks at the sky as he runs out then goes about his business,” former housemate Anthony Biemans, Cassie’s partner, says.
“I think his whole family drives him.
“Chicki does an amazing job with the debrief and information you want after a game from the people closest to you.”
Biemans has seen first-hand how dedicated Boak is to training and recovery so his longevity does not surprise him.
“It’d be 9.30pm, you’re cosied up on the couch and he walks out with a Red Bull beanie on and a towel, and it doesn’t matter if it’s bad weather or it’s sunny, he’ll sit in the pool for 10 minutes, do his business, come back inside then go sit in the (home) sauna for half an hour,” says Biemans, a South Adelaide player.
“It’s not something he just does if he’s a bit sorer than normal or he’s pulled up all right, he does it every day.
“It’s an all-year-round thing — he might give himself two weeks off a year then he’s back into it.
“He’s the ultimate professional.
“He does that in any part of his life, he knows life’s short and people can be taken away so why not give it your best chance?”
Hugh van Cuylenburg, the founding director of the Resilience Project, says Boak’s longevity can also be attributed to working harder than most athletes on his mind.
The Resilience Project, which provides positive mental health strategies while focusing on principles of gratitude, empathy and mindfulness, linked up with Port Adelaide and Boak from the 2018/19 pre-season.
“The work he’s put in is unbelievable and it comes because he’s so humble,” van Cuylenburg says.
“He’s so much more focused on being a good person than a good footballer and that’s saying something because we know how much effort he puts in to his football.”
Boak has been a voluntary ambassador with the Childhood Cancer Association for more than a decade and has become close to families he regularly visits.
He is newly involved with Wombat’s Wish, a Victorian organisation that offers grief support for children who lose their parents.
Former Power teammate Cam O’Shea says Boak would go into hospitals almost weekly and as much as his extra work at training would inspire other players, so would his charitable efforts.
“He’s just a great all-round person who comes from an extremely loving family and that’s just rubbed off on him,” says O’Shea, who played 81 games for the Power from 2011-16 then 11 for Carlton.
“It’s hard to pick a fault with him.”
Raidme often tells Boak: ‘What you’ve done on the field is special, but what you’re doing off the field is pretty special too’.
“Chicki is a teacher’s aid so she loves helping kids who need that extra help.
“It’s obviously been ingrained in their kids about giving to the community.”
Chicki says her son has always been like that.
“He has a compassionate nature and is very giving,” she says.
Another airport anecdote sums him up, according to van Cuylenburg.
“I’ve been to every NRL club and 12 of the AFL clubs now and I don’t expect this from people, but he’s the only player who’s ever picked me up at 6am from the airport to drive me to the club and the only player who when I’ve finished a session, he’d take me to the airport,” he says.
“It wasn’t on his way home, it wasn’t because he needed to extra time to talk, just there was a guy who needed to go to the airport, so he’d give him a lift and it was a nice thing to do.
“I’m very insignificant at the club, I’m a no one and every time he still goes out of his way to drop me at the airport or pick me up.
“He puts everyone else ahead of himself.”
O’Shea says that includes teammates and Boak is desperate to win a flag with them.
Biemans believes if Boak does not win an AFL premiership, he will not let it define him as a person or player, but claiming one is a huge driving factor.
Boak’s most recent flag is an under-14 triumph for Torquay.
He captained that side and Roger was coach.
A photo of them holding the cup aloft sits alongside Boak’s bed.
“He’s so focused on winning a premiership for the club,” van Cuylenburg says.
“He called me two nights after the preliminary final loss to Richmond, we had a long chat — he was heartbroken.”
Chicki, who was at the six-point defeat to the Tigers, says: “I think it’d mean so much to win it with the teammates he has — the ones that have been there a while especially, like Hamish (Hartlett) and Robbie (Gray).
“They’ve been through lots of ups and downs.”
A Power premiership will no doubt be elevated alongside his one senior game for Torquay — at Queenscliff in 2006 after his dad died, wearing his No. 5 — among Boak’s favourite on-field memories.
Roger’s 200th match was at the same ground and Boak ran through the banner with him as a toddler, wearing his dad’s number.
Torquay has since named its clubrooms after Roger.
Raidme expects Boak to play in the Torquay No. 5 — now worn by each of the club’s A-grade captains — once he finishes with the Power.
“My son jokingly has said he’s keeping his jumper warm and it’s his when he comes back,” he says.
Chicki adds: “He still says he intends to, but who knows what will happen in the future”.
Even if that does occur, it may not be for a while.
As Raidme says, Boak has found football’s fountain of youth, playing some of his best seasons since turning 30.
“It’s the old thing where people have fallen into the trap of looking at the age,” Raidme says.
Chicki and Biemans both think Boak can go on for quite a few years yet.
“I said to him ‘you can do a Shaun Burgoyne’ and he just laughed,” Chicki says.
When van Cuylenburg touched base with Boak about not being able to make it on Friday night, the Power star replied: “You’ll have to be at my 400th”.
Time will tell if Boak can become the sixth player in VFL/AFL history to reach that mark.
Van Cuylenburg knows one thing.
“To play 300 is an incredible milestone but he’ll be thinking more about the family than he will be himself, that’s for sure.”
Boak will not be able to see Chicki in the Marvel Stadium stands but, as always, he will look up to the sky when he runs onto the field.
“If she’s not there, it’s not just for dad, it’s for her as well,” Raidme says.
Chicki will tune in from home with her Sarah, knowing the entire family, including Roger, will be watching and extremely proud.
“Not just because of this major milestone,” Chicki says.
“But because of the man he’s become as well.”
Boak reveals his love for Port
By Liz Walsh
Ahead of his milestone 300th AFL game, Port Adelaide’s midfield star Travis Boak has revealed his deep love and loyalty for the club, which gave him the opportunity to become the “best player and best person” he possibly could be.
Picked up at No. 5 by the Power in the 2006 draft, Boak said he had been spending the past couple of days reflecting on the 299 games that had already gone, with his AFL debut — a 31-point win over Essendon at Football Park on June 17, 2007 — chief among the games that stick out.
He said Port Adelaide meant “everything” to him.
“They’re the club that gave me the opportunity and have stuck by me through this whole journey and there’s been a lot of ups and downs and challenges we’ve faced together along the way, but there’s no doubt that … I wouldn’t be here today without their support,” he said.
“It’s been 15 years and 300 games … Friday night will be about the footy club and the people who have supported me, more than it is about me, because I wouldn’t be here without them.
“I love the club so much and I’m forever in debt to them for what they’ve given me.”
When Boak runs out onto Marvel Stadium on Friday night with his “best mates” to take on Collingwood, he will also equal the Power’s all-time game record holder, Kane Cornes, who played 300 games before retiring.
Boak, who turns 33 on August 1, will in all likelihood go on to break Cornes’s record. He hopes to continue playing for as long as he can.
“I love the game as much as I ever have,” he said.
“My body feels really good, I’m really energised to keep learning, to keep growing, to keep getting better, to keep helping our younger guys to come through, so I don’t have a number (of games) in mind, to be honest, it’s just to continue to play footy, to continue to enjoy footy.
“I have no end in mind and hopefully there are plenty of years ahead.”
Boak heaped praise on coach Ken Hinkley as someone who had helped shape him as a player and person.
“He gets criticised way too much, which hurts at times because what he’s meant to myself and so many of these players is huge,” he said.
“He’s certainly had his office open a lot along the journey and I’ve had a lot of good, deep chats with Kenny along the way, he’s helped me through a lot of tough times on and off the field and we still have a lot of banter about him putting me in the forward line for a couple of years … he thinks he’s helped get me to 300 games through doing that.”
The AFL flew both Port Adelaide and the Crows out of South Australia on Tuesday night to avoid the state’s hard lockdown, which meant Boak would no longer be able to play his milestone game in front of family – including his mother, sister and aunty who had travelled from the Victorian seaside town Torquay to be with him in Adelaide – and the passionate Power supporters.
But the former club captain doesn’t for a moment feel like he’s been robbed.
“It’s not ideal circumstances, and not playing in front of our adoring Port Adelaide fans, which would have been lovely and my family as well, but it is what it is and these are the times at the moment and we’ll push forward and still celebrate it on Friday night,” he said.
“I’m just so grateful to be able to play for this footy club, for one game, let alone 300, and to still run out there with my best mates … is what I’m most grateful for.”
Boak’s homebase for the foreseeable future is a hotel room inside the Pullman Hotel in East Melbourne.
A number of Port players packed PlayStations in their luggage as a way to keep busy, but Boak packed a stack of books – including Brian Windhorst’s book about NBA star LeBron James, called “LeBron, Inc: The Making of a Billion-Dollar Athlete” – into his suitcase to keep his mind active in between training sessions.
“There’s another one, ‘Fear Less’ by Dr Pippa Grange, is something I’ve just started. I love all those books … that help mentally and help you perform and help you become a better person and let go of a lot of the stuff that we hold certainly in tough times and the anxiety and stress of the world to get through that kind of stuff.
“I’ve found those books help me a lot.”
But Friday night’s game against Collingwood remains a key focus and Boak is hopeful the “Holy Trinity” of Zak Butters, Xavier Duursma and Connor Rozee will all be able to play in Friday night’s clash against the Pies, having all recovered from injury.
“Hopefully we can have all three of those back in the side because we know how much they add to our group,” he said.
“No doubt we haven’t played our best footy yet, we know it’s ahead of us and we know these guys coming back into the side can help us.”
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