Collective Mind still have testimonials from Crows players published online, despite being asked by the club to remove them
Despite the Crows boss asking for it to be taken down, the company hired for the pre-season camp has kept its “fact check” online. See how it matches players’ claims.
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The company behind Adelaide’s infamous 2018 pre-season camp has so far ignored requests from the Crows to remove a video testimonial featuring club personalities spruiking the benefits of their experience.
Adelaide chairman John Olsen this week asked for the promotional video be removed from the Collective Mind website — more than four years after Adelaide cut ties with the company — as the club continues to battle the fallout from explosive camp details released by former players Eddie Betts and Josh Jenkins.
In the four-minute video, players including Taylor Walker, club champion Rory Laird and Brodie Smith along with Jenkins, former coach Don Pyke and previous players Daniel Talia and Mitch McGovern endorse the program’s mind-training benefits for the Crows.
As of last night the video remained on the website. The Advertiser has contacted the company seeking clarification on whether it would remove the testimonial in line with Olsen’s request.
The football club, past and present players and the company remain at odds over specific events alleged to have taken place at the camp.
Accounts from Betts and Jenkins refute a series of “fact check” rhetorical questions centring on Adelaide’s camp that also appears on the company’s website. The “fact check” questionnaire is billed as addressing “the many mistruths you may have read or heard”.
The contents are almost identical to a question-and-answer session between The Advertiser and Sunday Mail’s Graham Cornes and the company’s chiefs, published in September, 2020.
The Advertiser has also sought answers from the company relating to whether it considers it necessary to revisit the “fact check” in light of Betts’ and Jenkins’ versions of events.
Adelaide and the AFL have both apologised following the revelations.
Among key areas of contention are whether sensitive information about the players’ pasts was shared with camp organisers.
To that suggestion, the company states: “Absolutely not. This never happened”, but Josh Jenkins says: “I can say for sure those comments were fed to the facilitators”.
Photos from the final day include a football gifted to organisers, including one signed by Jenkins with the note: “Your integrity is inspiring”.
Asked about the conflicting message yesterday, Jenkins said, “the whole thing was like a cult. Eddie’s words — brainwashed — are accurate.”
On whether Indigenous players were disappointed with several culturally offensive elements of the camp?
COLLECTIVE MIND:
“We put extensive effort into ensuring the camp was culturally honouring and inclusive for the Indigenous players in the team. We deliberately sought a local Bundjalung elder to be on site for the program and to perform a traditional Welcome to Country … We incorporated the use of a traditional talking ‘stick’ in all sharing circles as another way of honouring the traditional Indigenous connection to country. We did subsequently discover that the talking stick came from the same country as one of the players and he was unsure about whether or not this was an appropriate use of the artefact. However, we understood this was satisfactorily clarified by the player with the appropriate Indigenous elders within 72 hours of the camp ending.”
EDDIE BETTS:
“The camp ended up appropriating a First Nations peoples’ ritual of a ‘talking stick’ and attempting to apply it to all of us, even the non-Indigenous players and coaches.
“In my view, the talking stick was used incorrectly, and I was not aware that any Elder had given permission for it to be used either.
“There was all sorts of weird sh*t that was disrespectful to many cultures, but particularly and extremely disrespectful to my culture.”
On whether the company was given personal information about childhood trauma, that players didn’t think would be shared, but instead were used as forms of abuse
COLLECTIVE MIND:
Absolutely not. This never happened. We coached and trained the players in the 2017 season and knew where they needed to develop from a performance perspective. No information on players’ and coaches’ personal mental health background, personal relationships, or family and childhood issues or trauma were ever given to us by the club, or by anyone.
JOSH JENKINS:
“I specifically asked for assurance pre-camp that nothing regarding my childhood would be raised or used on the camp to spur me on or ‘break me down’.
“It’s my belief this promise was broken …
“At different stages, comments were thrown at me whilst on the harness in regards to the way I was raised and why I act like I do at the club and on the field. Some were from teammates being prompted to verbally jab me and some were from camp facilitators who had obviously shared intel on me as a person.
“I’m choosing not to reveal some of those comments because I know people who care about me are reading … but I can say for sure those comments were fed to the facilitators and I believe some of the info was passed along from people within our club.”
EDDIE BETTS:
Has detailed that a camp facilitator was on his back saying he wouldn’t be a good father because he was raised by a single mother.
“I’ve never been violent, but in that moment, I elbowed the guy in the head as hard as I could. I remember looking up at someone who knew me and I could see the dismay and embarrassment in their eyes. For me, it was traumatising. I was broken to tears and looking back now I was put into a f----d situation that I never should have been subjected to. I was put into a situation that was psychologically and culturally unsafe.
“This scenario was repeated for each and every one of the boys and we were all recruited to provide the verbal abuse aimed at our teammates.
“I’ll live with this shame for the rest of my life.”
On whether players were coerced into divulging their fears, weaknesses:
COLLECTIVE MIND:
“All conversations were facilitated by qualified counsellors. They were asked questions related to their performance. No one was ever asked to speak to vulgar or inappropriate topics. They were not coerced into divulging their fears and weaknesses. They spoke voluntarily of their immature masculine behaviours that hold them back from performing.
“They were asked questions like ‘Where is my immature masculine behaviour still appearing in my life, on the field and in my game?’. Everything they shared was completely voluntary.”
EDDIE BETTS:
Betts has detailed how he disclosed sensitive information to someone he had believed to be a counsellor – “who tried to make out as thought he was like me, as though I should feel comfortable disclosing to him my trauma around growing up Black in Australia” – then used against him in an “initiation” task.
JOSH JENKINS:
“As Eddie stated in his book, I also took a phone call with the supposed counsellor and expressed my desire that my unusual upbringing was of no significance to me as an athlete or teammate.
“I, in a naive bid to allow these people to improve me, explained to this person how I was raised by my non-biological grandmother and have had no meaningful relationship with my parents … I explained my upbringing had probably led me to being more sceptical and isolated, with a determination to do things my way.
“I also stated I was proud of the person I was and that in no way was my childhood of any relevance to anything I was doing as a professional athlete.
“I stated more than once I wanted none of my upbringing to be used or even spoken of during or after the camp, something which was promised to me, but in my view, a promise that was broken.”
On whether players petrified, greeted by men in army fatigues at the bus carrying what looked like automatic weapons, blindfolded, and forced to listen to the Richmond theme song on repeat:
COLLECTIVE MIND:
Each player was escorted by a club official down to the bus, where they were met by former ADF personnel to facilitate that part of the process. They were not carrying any simulated weapons. All players and coaches were asked to voluntarily put on a blindfold, and they were handed a bottle of water and a sandwich for the 45-minute bus trip.
The goal of the bus trip was to create distraction through humour, noisy music, and not knowing, and for them to practice the reset mindset tools they’d previously learnt.
Never at any point was the Richmond Tigers theme song played on the bus, nor was it played on repeat. It was sung once in Spanish (not in its entirety), as part of a 30-minute comedy routine.
JOSH JENKINS:
“You know all the detail about fake guns, macho men, people dressed in costumes asking to be called Richmond. None of that fazed me. I was thinking … you guys know that I know those AK47s are not real, right.”
EDDIE BETTS:
In his book, Betts recalled being separated into group 1, made to hand over mobile phones and then subjected to verbal abuse and psychological intimidation involving fake weapons.
“According to Betts, players were then blindfolded, loaded onto a bus with papered-over windows and conveyed to an undisclosed location as the Richmond team song played on a loop loudly through the bus’s sound system,” The Age reported.
“When the squad arrived at the secret destination, team members were instructed to remove their blindfolds … the first thing they saw was a dozen or so burly men, all dressed in black, greeting them with the power stance.”
On whether players taken deep into the woods, tied to a tree, harnessed to a contraption, and forced to crawl on their hands and knees to a combat knife, as facilitators encouraged players to hurl personal abuse at each other:
COLLECTIVE MIND:
“No one was tied to a tree. No one was ever tied up or restrained, period. No one was naked. There was no contraption. Players were on their feet.
“There were no woods, this activity was run on an open field, with a road that went past where locals would drive and walk along with their dogs as the process occurred.
“This particular process being referred to was undertaken by just the Group 1 Leadership Group, and was run by qualified counsellors and is part of a 25-year body of work built around Men’s Rites of Passage, and creating healthy masculinity.”
JOSH JENKINS:
“We sat under a tree and witnessed a man unknown to us go through the harness ritual … when my turn on the harness arrived, I was fighting against three or four teammates who would then let go of the rope so I would fall to the ground – all of this was at the request of a camp facilitator – I guess he was some type of bush-psychologist and during the harness rituals, his word was gospel.
“Looking back, the ‘rite of passage’ as it was labelled was strange.”
EDDIE BETTS:
In his book, Betts details being put into a body harness with a rope attached and told to try and fight his way towards a knife to cut himself free while teammates holding the rope physically obstructed him, while camp instructors hurled verbal abuse at him.
“Things were yelled at me that I had disclosed to the camp’s ‘counsellors’ about my upbringing. All the people present heard these things. I was exhausted, drained and distressed about the details being shared.”
On whether players arrived in the woods and slept in teepees with no showers and no phones:
COLLECTIVE MIND:
“The Camp was held at a professional four-star TripAdvisor retreat facility 45 minutes from the Gold Coast. This facility is used by companies, schools and organisations all year round. They were housed in modern cabins, with normal beds, toilets and showers, dining hall, playing fields, and food designed by the club nutritionist. There were no teepees. Players slept in cabins.
“Yes their phones were taken away, as is commonly asked at any conference, training program or school camp. They knew this would occur in advance, and opted in to this aspect, and players with appropriate reasons, like pregnant partners, could call home each evening. All families had emergency contact details to call at anytime if needed.”
EDDIE BETTS:
“We weren’t allowed to shower … we had to stay sweaty and smell ‘manly’. We also had to keep what they described as ‘noble silence’.”
On whether players broke down and cried on the “deeply emotional” final day as they waited for the bus to go home:
COLLECTIVE MIND:
“Not one single player broke down or openly wept. Some people were moved by the power of what was being shared in a positive way. Players sang the team song at the end, and were seen laughing, joking and thanking facilitators for the camp.
“They also handed over signed jerseys and footballs as ‘thank you’ gifts to the lead facilitators, along with free tickets and dressing room passes to all facilitators, saying they were now ‘Crows for life’.”
EDDIE BETTS:
It may not have been on the final day, but Betts wrote in his book about being “broken to tears” during parts of the camp saying: “We were all recruited to provide the verbal abuse aimed at our teammates … I’ll live with this shame for the rest of my life.”
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