AFL 2023: Jesse Hogan on reaching rock bottom, and then finding a way back
Ahead of the most important game of his AFL career, Jesse Hogan talks to JON RALPH about his rise, fall and rise again.
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The rise and fall and rise again of Jesse Hogan is the kind of narrative America makes movies about when their sporting heroes triumph after hitting rock bottom.
The GWS key forward isn’t that interested in the publicity – Hollywood-style or closer to home – as he revels in the anonymity of NRL-obsessed Sydney.
He is more likely to be found easing the day’s worries with a quick surf at Bondi or playing chess on his phone which has been his new-found passion this year.
But if the Giants did win the premiership – sealing Hogan’s extraordinary resurgence from a self-destructive period that had his career in tatters – the opening scene of that screenplay would jump off the page.
The date is November 2019 and after a disastrous first season with Fremantle, Hogan has crashed his Volkswagen into a parked car and flipped it on its side.
Just four years on from a debut season so imposing Jon Brown compared him to Wayne Carey, he has already been suspended for “poor alcohol choices”.
For Hogan, the world is closing in on him and he cannot find a way out.
As he told this masthead ahead of the GWS-Collingwood clash: “It was rock bottom, mate”.
“It was probably the most isolated I have ever been,” he says as training wraps up at Giants headquarters on a Wednesday afternoon.
“I didn’t want to talk to my family and friends, I was living with Lachie Schultz and Blake Acres and I would barely say a word to them. I was in my own little world and that wasn’t a great one.
“I made a lot of silly mistakes and had poor judgement across that period. That was rock bottom for me. Reading about the reaction and seeing the disappointment on my mum’s face, it felt so surreal. I was so disconnected from the person that I was and who I am now.
“It was an extremely depressing period of my footy career. And I take full accountability for it. I had a lot of different ways to go about it, and I chose the wrong one, but that was rock bottom.”
Hogan hasn’t dragged himself out of that deep pit with one magical intervention.
It has been a series of hard-fought steps to restore his reputation.
Those leaps of faith included seizing upon the GWS lifeline with a one-year contract when his career seemed upon footy’s scrap heap.
As he prepares for the biggest game of his career against Collingwood on Friday night after a remarkable 22-game, 48-goal season, he is on the brink of having his reputation restored.
He says he might never live down some of the life choices which were splashed across the back pages of the nation’s newspapers.
He is wrong – sport loves a great redemption story, especially from someone so prepared to own his mistakes and work hard to become a better person.
“At the moment I am just chipping away at my own reputation and trying to build back a few blocks of respect I may have lost in the last few years. It’s a slow burn, but I am slowly trending in the right direction,” Hogan says.
“I am trying to resurrect myself. Resurrect perceptions about me and the person I am and the person I believe I am.”
THE RISE
By the time West Australian football prodigy Hogan was ready to make his AFL debut in 2015 the football world had been waiting years to see him strut his stuff.
Melbourne had handed over picks three and 13 to secure him from Gold Coast in the AFL “mini-draft” of 2012 before he spent a year as a 17-year-old in the VFL then had his 2014 season decimated by a back injury.
It was worth the wait.
Four rounds into the 2015 season he had eight goals and 13 contested marks and the Carey comparisons were everywhere.
His four seasons at Melbourne harnessed 44, 41, 20 and 47 goals as he grappled with fame and outlandish expectations that eventually beat him down.
“My introduction to the Dees and spending a year in the VFL was perfect. I didn’t have a negative thing written about me in the first three years. And then I remember it vividly. My run-up was a bit off and Matty Lloyd went at me. I couldn’t believe it. It really rattled me,” Hogan says.
Essendon champion Lloyd had labelled Hogan’s body language as “horrific” and told him to turn it around or risk a spell in the VFL.
“It was really negative. When you are young and have played good footy it’s all positive. But once you get to 40 or 50 games, it’s game on. And it did shock me,” he says.
“I felt at that age people were comparing me to a player that I felt was impossible to reach. Comparing stats and all that, it just felt impossible to me. It rattled me a lot at that young an age. It got the better of me. I struggled with it.”
In 2017 came twin bombshells.
A May diagnosis of testicular cancer followed by his father Tony’s death from cancer the following month.
The innocent young kid who arrived at Melbourne began to spiral downwards.
“I struggled to talk to people about it and accept the grief of it. I was having issues with my body and I kind of felt sorry for myself. Woe is me. And then I made poor decisions which ended up becoming habits,” he says.
“I found myself being less and less happy and was going away from the things I enjoyed and the people who would take me in the right direction.
“I was only 20 or 21 but I was, if not steering down the wrong path, then going away from the things that got me where I was. It was a tough year and I didn’t handle it at all or seek help in the right manner.”
The jungle drums were beating across Melbourne; Hogan liked to live it up at the wrong times and with the wrong people.
His footy didn’t suffer in 2018 – 47 goals in 20 games – but a fractured navicular bone in his foot on the eve of the finals gave him the chance to flee the club and city.
“I did my navicular (in round 21 against Sydney) and watched while they had that awesome finals campaign in 2018. I felt a little bit unneeded. Not unwanted, because the club was fantastic,” he says.
“But Sam Weideman had that awesome finals campaign. Tom McDonald kicked 50 goals. In my own head I created this fake narrative that didn’t exist and got pretty down on myself.
“With what happened in 2017 I thought getting closer to family was the right thing to do. I thought if I have a fresh start my problems and 2017 issues wouldn’t be there. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I thought a fresh start would instantly make it right. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
THE FALL
Melbourne reluctantly let Hogan go to the Dockers on a three-year deal worth $900,000 a season.
The Demons nailed the exchange by securing picks 6 and 23, turning them into Steven May and midfielder Tom Sparrow.
Meanwhile, Hogan arrived at Fremantle injured, in bad shape mentally and with a massive target on his back.
The summer’s horror headlines included video of him stumbling around drunk in a Santa suit at a party before being ruled out of round one for getting drunk on the previous weekend.
“I spent the first four or five months in the rehab group with my foot. I was isolated from the group and didn’t enjoy it and I knew the pressure was there,” he says.
“I take full responsibility. I am not making excuses. But it was rough. The pressure was there and it felt too much. I wasn’t able to train or gel with the group and I had all these expectations to come in and kick 60) goals). It was just a big smack in the face. They used picks X, Y and Z on me and X, Y and Z money. I knew it and I didn’t handle it. Even when I was fit and available I wasn’t at the level. It is something I think about a bit and it frustrates me. I let myself down and my family down.”
Hogan kicked 13 goals from 12 games in 2019 before re-injuring his navicular in round 14 against his old side, then five goals from seven games in 2020.
In November 2020 the Dockers released Hogan from the final year of his contract and traded him to GWS for the throwaway pick of No. 54.
Hogan told fans in a statement: “You will not know how disappointed I am that it didn’t work out the way I hoped it would”.
THE RISE AGAIN
Hogan says there has been no light bulb moment that has turned his life and career around.
Instead there are a series of small moments that have refreshed his body and mind.
In his first pre-season Covid meant he was stuck in Sydney with WA’s borders closed and teammate Shane Mumford offered to let him use his granny flat behind his house.
The pair were kindred spirits — by the second day Shane and wife Eva had offered for him to stay at their place in Pagewood, not far from Sydney’s beaches.
The pair would crank out 45km weeks of pre-season toil and return home exhausted, only to find Shane’s elder son Ollie with soccer ball in hand ready for an hour-long backyard session.
“We would be exhausted but it was a great release from footy. I stripped it back and started enjoying the smaller moments. Stuff like that became pivotal for me enjoying my time in Sydney,” he says.
“It was a stressful time coming over here not knowing anyone at the club or in the state to be honest, and for him to put his hand up and create a safe environment was something I am extremely grateful for.”
The hard yards on the track combined with careful management and a tailored program that have seen him play nine, then 18, then 22 games across three seasons.
He is happy to do the extras — yoga, pilates, physio — that a hardworking but “naive and stupid” 18-year-old version of himself wouldn’t recognise.
In his first year in Sydney he was recognised twice in total in sharp contrast to him being hassled while shopping at Coles living in South Perth as a Docker.
He kicked four goals on debut in that first game — confirmation he still had what it took — then two goals in the 2021 elimination final against Sydney.
All of it was validation that football could again become a passion into which he could invest his life.
“There was no real direct moment. The direct moment was me deciding to enjoy coming into work a bit more,” he says.
Hogan, 28, lives in Paddington and surfs three times a week at Bondi or Bronte beach.
He loves the live music scene, has replaced Netflix or social media with the chess.com app that has become a welcome distraction.
In January the lover of video games (FIFA, Call of Duty) and puzzles found the app and can be found on road trips attempting to better his chess rating of 1450 playing or studying chess videos.
“It’s something really calming for me. It’s quite stimulating and it distracts me. I love the numbers and tactics. It’s a complete disconnect for me. I am in my own little world,” he says.
Speak with Hogan for half an hour and you realise the perceptions of him are way off kilter.
He just hasn’t had the platform to tell his story given so many roadbumps to success.
“Everyone has written me off. No one really backed me in. So it was me versus the world,” he says.
“ As I reflect on the past 24 months and being able to play 45 games out of 51, it’s nice to prove a few people wrong but it’s great to play in a team playing deep into finals and having an impact.
“I was written off by 95 per cent of footy people and I can understand why. So to prove people wrong to a degree, there is still a lot more to give. But it’s a good feeling.”
Originally published as AFL 2023: Jesse Hogan on reaching rock bottom, and then finding a way back
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