Paul Roos on life outside the AFL bubble
AFL legend Paul Roos and his wife Tami invite Stellar into their house in Honolulu — where it always feels like a holiday.
Stellar
Don't miss out on the headlines from Stellar. Followed categories will be added to My News.
THE sign at the front door is the first giveaway: “No shoes required”. Inside, a pile of runners proves the point, as do the Hawaiian home’s hosts, Paul Roos and his wife Tami.
They’re going out for dinner with friends. When they drop me off on the way, near my hotel, Paul is barefoot.
The couple lives in the shadow of Diamond Head, the volcanic cone that rises above the shopping strips of Waikiki. Joggers breeze past manicured lawns in morning air freshened by frangipani. Later in the day, in a nearby park, wedding parties take turns to pose under the banyan trees.
The couple bought their Honolulu home four years ago, at a price somewhere shy of three million dollars. An ocean dip is a short walk; to catch a wave is a short drive.
They both walk, run or cycle each morning. Tami meditates every day, Paul most. They know where to source the decent coffee — the one downside to Hawaii is the American preference for drip coffee.
“It’s just the ease of the holiday,” says Paul.
“If you forget that Tami is American and the geography (of getting here), it’s the ease of the holiday. The water, the shopping, the restaurants. It’s ridiculous how cheap it is. If you factor it all in, that’s why we love it.”
It’s an 11-hour flight from the chill of Melbourne. But it feels far further, another realm of friends and barbecues and the odd surf lesson.
The Roos family landed here most recently in September, after Paul finished his three-year stint as coach of the Melbourne Demons.
Already, he’s been said to be have been approached by Collingwood, an association he quickly denied. But such rumours are inevitable, a consequence of his footballing pre-eminence.
Paul wants to talk about his surrounds — the walks and discoveries, such as the waterfall the pair uncovered a couple of weeks ago. The weather is perfect, he says, and the resorts — unlike most in Australia — offer beachfront access.
He sounds like a travel agent as he praises the shopping, restaurants and the mountain vistas that hug horseshoe bays. Former Swans player Michael O’Loughlin brought his family over for a visit recently, says Paul. On their return home, O’Loughlin’s son complained about the cold waters of Bondi Beach.
The way Paul tells it, Hawaii is a state of being, where jeans are unnecessary, and a windcheater is optional for an after-dark stroll.
“My skin’s happy,” adds Tami, referring to Hawaii’s soft sunlight.
Hawaii is also why Paul can no longer coach an AFL team. How can he live here for three months each year, as he hopes to, as well as squeeze in coaching duties?
“The plan is to spend more time here,” he explains.
“Tami wants to spend more time with her family (in California). We think we can find a good balance between being in Australia — and my continuing to earn a good living and being involved in football — and starting a business which will give us opportunities in America as well as Australia. I think the next 12 months will be about finding where the balance lies and how we will spend time in each country.”
His mind, naturally, is half-jammed on the coaching job left behind. His public life has been dedicated to Aussie rules since he first played for Fitzroy aged 18 in 1982.
He’s one of the game’s lateral thinkers, the coach who turns to meditative techniques before he opens his mouth at the post-match press conference.
He talks about “values” and “people” in an industry fixated on numbers. Paul, now 53, was thoroughly modern when the game still shielded its dinosaurs from scrutiny. He spoke of mindfulness when such terms were dismissed as quackery.
Today, when he puts wellness alongside diet and weights training, most industry observers nod in agreement.
For years, Tami ran meditation sessions for her husband’s AFL players. The Roos family and football clubs have always been interchangeable. She answers football inquiries as easily as he fields family questions.
They laugh easily and often, and they embody the mottos scattered throughout their Hawaii home — “Family: where life begins and love never ends.”
Paul has fresh views on AFL trade week machinations and the club he lifted from 17th in 2014 to finals contender in 2016.
He is a fan of the new women’s AFL competition. It seems a natural fit for an innovator. Although Paul does not envisage a foreseeable coaching role, he assumes he will help out in advisory capacities in the women’s league.
His own footballing path is without comparison, not least because he keeps choosing to leave the game. Paul shares the optimism for finals football for the Melbourne club — and sustained success — in coming years. But he doesn’t want to be leading it.
Paul was unmoved by calls for him to stay on this year, when the success of his rebuild started to emerge. He’d “ticked all the boxes”.
He is content to cheer on from the sidelines, proud and satisfied, largely because both he and Tami seek lives and experiences beyond football.
They express gratitude for the freedom of many years living in Sydney — outside the AFL bubble.
“I think some people get so caught up in football, they think there’s nothing outside of football,” says Tami.
“You look at that and you think, ‘There is a whole world out there, and a lot of it doesn’t even know that AFL exists.’”
Paul grew up in Melbourne and starred as one of the competition’s best players. VFL (AFL) legends Bernie Quinlan and Laurie Serafini taught him hard work and respect for fans.
“There’s no doubt that because of that you learn in the early days not to be a dickhead,” he says.
“I wasn’t smart enough to necessarily know what was right and wrong all the time, so that’s why you are looking at role models.”
And he folded the personal into the public profile.
Paul met Tami Hardy in California on an end-of-season trip in 1988. She ventured to Australia the following year and they married in 1992.
When the Sydney Swans won the 2005 flag, the coach’s sons, Dylan and Tyler, sneaked on to the dais for the post-match team photo. Earlier that week, Paul and Tami shunned the Brownlow Medal function. They had a bigger date — a school concert.
After coaching the Swans for nine years from 2002, Paul walked away from the role. Back then, as now, he said he would never do it again.
Yet he says it seemed right to take over as coach at Melbourne — long blighted by failure — four years later. What convinced him, ultimately, was a text message from his son Dylan: “You have to do it.”
After he finished playing in 1998, Paul jotted down what he did and did not like about coaches. The longer they were out of the game, he had gleaned, the less empathy they had for player hardships. Chief among the points was this: players do not seek to make mistakes.
Paul, the coach, would not tug at his hair or throw phones. He points out that if it’s hard watching a team as a supporter, it’s harder as a coach, especially with a young squad that lacks consistency.
He kept the list in his office drawer at Melbourne. He didn’t pull players from the ground for skill errors. He applied the meditative tools he started learning in 1999. He avoided saying “things that could not be unsaid”. He had seen too many relationships broken by coaches “going nuts”.
Paul’s notions of leadership apply equally to the corporate sphere. The investment in people. The satisfaction of employees.
He may be the only AFL coach who counselled his players against being “outcome-focused”. He describes himself as a “feel person”, who resented that his time with his players was structured by the players’ union terms.
He alludes to a company that allows its employees to set their own holiday quotas.
“If people feel invested, they take less time off,” he says.
“And when they do, they come back more keen to work. It’s not about punching the clock in and punching the clock out.”
The Roos’ journey in meditation began with a weekend workshop. Tami later earned a doctorate in parapsychic science. She recalls telling someone how she was meditating regularly, to which the response was: “There must be something wrong with you.”
At the Swans, a number of players embraced mindfulness pursuits. Adam Goodes, Craig Bolton and Brett Kirk still talk up their importance. “It really stayed with them,” says Tami, “and it really made a big difference not only to game preparation, but post-game and for everyday life.”
In the US, Target prides itself as the “meditating merchants” and encourages employees to take time out at work. Tami believes corporate America will continue to increase awareness around mental health.
“Everyone is feeling the pinch,” she says, “everyone is looking for a way to feel better.”
Only 20 years ago, she points out, many people equated “wellness” with caves, chanting and dreadlocks.
The coming together of leadership and balance will figure in the Roos’ grand plan in coming years. Opportunities beckon, most likely in the guise of The Roos Synergy, a business they put aside after Paul took up the Melbourne role.
“Eventually I wouldn’t mind doing things in America, either Hawaii or where Tami’s family is from,” says Paul.
“Wellness is becoming a huge issue worldwide and American companies are probably more proactive in providing for their staff.”
What’s very clear is their lifestyle shift — more travel, less footwear and more time in Hawaii. Why wouldn’t they? As they say, gesturing at the palm trees and a beach wedding in the distance, it’s “always hard to leave this — very hard”.
* The writer flew to Honolulu as a guest of Hawaiian Airlines
Ben Affleck’s ‘logic-free’ Hollywood return
In the aftermath of his high-profile divorce from Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck makes his return to the big screen in The Accountant 2.
Ada gives update on romance with co-star
As she reveals what she really thinks about her enduring role on Home And Away, Ada Nicodemou has revealed new details about her relationship with co-star James Stewart.