Young Richmond star Sydney Stack opens up to Mark Robinson about his incredible journey
Sacked from his job, dumped from elite footy and charged with drink-driving, red flags AFL recruiters saw came back to haunt Sydney Stack at the 2018 draft. His story, from there, is a miracle, Mark Robinson writes.
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Sydney Stack stands with mesmerising calm behind the line of indigenous war cry dancers.
Painted and naked from the waist up, they move 10m forward to challenge a line of Essendon players standing in the cold drizzle at Dreamtime at the G.
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The tension takes your breath away as the warriors retreat to the group of Richmond players.
Sydney Stack crouches and joins the dancers as they edge forward.
Full of intimidation and within touching distance of Bombers big man Tom Bellchambers, Stack leaps with his arm raised as if wielding a spear.
It is crazy, powerful and spectacular. The stadium is transfixed. Millions more are watching it on TV.
They are witnessing a young, fearless man — in just his eighth game for Richmond and aged 19 — just being himself.
“That’s all I’m ever going to be, just me,” Stack says,
All those years learning the corroboree in Western Australia, all those years being confronted by violence, drugs and alcohol and all those years being shunted from home to home helped prepare him for the most important moment of his life.
“It was a good opportunity for me to embrace my culture,” he says.
“It’s a war cry, so it’s a dance that shows we’re here and ready, basically going into battle. It’s a dance to show we’re present and we’re ready to play.
“If you’re asking was I nervous, not at all.
“If you watch the video you can tell I’m ready to dance. Look into my eyes. I feel when we’re dancing, we’re dancing with our ancestors as well.
“It’s traditional dance, a cultural dance, a dance which represents us.
“It’s who we are and what we do. Culture is really important to me. I want to be a leader for my community back at home, for every indigenous kid and every Australian as well.
“The cycle we’ve lived in with the indigenous community back home … look at how many indigenous are in jail, how many indigenous people commit suicide, I’m pretty sure we’re the highest rate in Australia, and I just think we have to be strong.
“I look at myself and I want to lift others, especially my indigenous brothers to strive to be who they want to be and embrace their personality.
I’m not going to change who I am. I’m just me. I’m trying to do what I want to do. I’ve been way too hurt and I know what it’s like to struggle, I don’t want to go back to that.’’
Sydney Stack takes part in Richmond's #DreamtimeattheG pre-game war cry. #AFLTigersDons pic.twitter.com/uQ830MQwpG
— AFL (@AFL) May 25, 2019
The AFL’s general manager of inclusion and social policy, Tanya Hosch, was at the MCG that night last year.
“I loved the war cry,’’ Hosch says. “I thought it was a lovely nod to (Adam Goodes) Goodesy’s war cry moment, whether or not Sydney had that reference at all. I’m just saying how I connected. A lot of blackfellas I know outside of footy commented or text me and said it was beautiful to see.”
Can he change lives?
“Of course, he can. He probably already has. Young aboriginal men and women who saw the war cry got something out of it and will still be thinking about it. What Sydney did I feel is very much still with me, an inspiration to me to keep doing what I’m doing.”
ON THE MOVE
Sydney Stack has lived a lifetime inside of his 19 years.
One of seven — he has three sisters, four brothers and two of his brothers are from different mothers — he was born in Northam, Western Australia, a government agency town between Perth and Kalgoorlie.
Mum and dad split, he said, when he was three or four when dad was sent to prison, and “we moved around from there”.
With mum, he lived in Perth and Bunbury, also lived with mum’s family in Koongamia and for a while in refuge housing.
Aged six, he departed mum and moved back to Northam to live with Aunty May and Uncle Colin to start primary school and he soon started playing footy for the Barons and Federal Football Clubs in the under-9s and then the under-13s.
At 11, he was on the move again, back to Koongamia. which is in the hills near Midland, then he moved in with his brother, George, who was 17, and recently out of juvenile justice. Mum was working and elsewhere.
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“It just got too hard with my brother, so I moved in with my older sister down in Bunbury,’’ Stack says.
“It was frustrating for him. He had to get me to school and provide food for the house. He had to look after me.
“He was in and out of jail from when he was 13, 14, and it was just too hard for him I guess.”
He was 12 when he moved with his sister Renee.
At 13, it was back to Northam to live with Aunty May and Uncle Col and for three years life was settled. He played footy and went to high school and learned music and dance.
At 16, that shift was over. when Stack and Aunty May had an argument and life was unsettled again.
He moved in with one of the Kickett families — there were eight in that family — and his life spiralled out of control.
“I stayed there for about a month or so, then went off the rails a bit, stopped going to school. I didn’t know what to do, I was having a hard time.”
Football, though, always welcomed him.
FOOTY AND WORK
A super-talented and tough footballer, he was selected for the state under-16 training squad.
Three times a week he would travel to Perth to train and most times would wrangle a ride halfway and be met by WA welfare official Brad Collard.
Life was good. He made the state team and starred in the championships and he also found a job one day a week as a concreter. Soon, he was living with his boss.
Stack also made the AFL Academy squad at the end of the season, although his induction meeting with academy boss Brenton Sanderson was an eye-opener.
Stack arrived at the meeting eating KFC.
Still 16, he went to Darwin in December for a holiday. “I stayed up there too long. Three months with a mate and his family.”
Short-term planning and general commitment were never a strength.
“Growing up, I didn’t really plan stuff because it never really went to plan. People would always say ‘we’re going to do this and stuff’ — and we’d never actually do it. So, for me, growing up I went with the flow. If I went somewhere I would see where I’d end up.”
His life took a major turn when Peter Brear, from Perth Football Club, flew him down from Darwin in the new year, signed him to play under-19s, and moved him into the “Perth House”, an accommodation for young country footballers.
Curve balls, however, continued to be thrown at him.
At the end of the 2017 after his first season with the colts, his dad living in Bunbury almost died.
His kidneys were destroyed. “It was either death or dialysis. That was pretty scary for me at the time,” Stack says.
At 17, he moved back to Bunbury to be close his dad, lived with Renee again, and was driving his sister’s car to academy training three times a week.
Then everything got too complicated.
CRAZY TIMES
He was dropped from the academy for missing training.
“I just couldn’t really do it. My dad was close to death and I’d rather spend time with my dad than go to training.”
That was the start of a crazy 2018 season.
He won the colts best and fairest that season. He was dumped from the AFL Academy and the state squad. He lost his licence for drink driving and was sacked from his banking job because he didn’t turn up for work.
AFL recruiters started seeing red flags.
“Everything went to s---,” Stack says. “I got dropped from everything and I had nothing else except the Perth footy club. I kind of felt sorry for myself in a way, but I always had Peter Brear there, who was a real old school.
“He told me to just toughen up. He knew I had had a rough life growing up. He’s a good man.”
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This despite winning the B&F, playing for WA in the under-18 championships and being selected in the All Australian team, despite playing only three of the four championship games.
He missed the first game because coach Peter Sumich suspended him for missing yet another training session. He also had a tooth knocked out in a fight on his birthday.
Not being drafted was a dream killer, he says.
“It hurt, it hurt quite a bit. I have the attitude to prove people wrong and me not getting drafted was a big wake up call. Like, what are you doing in your life? You know, I’ve seen a lot of s---. I was raised around violence, drugs, alcohol. To me, footy was an escape. I was a kid that didn’t really trust anyone.
“Throughout my whole life I’ve been self-motivated. I’ve got four sisters, three of my sisters had kids at the age of 15, 16. There were drugs. My brother went to juve, dad was in jail.
“For me, to get where I am today, I think I’m strong-minded. I’ve seen my mum go through a lot, drugs, alcohol, and then dad. … I wanted to be different, I wanted to be a role model.’’
The recruiters, he says, didn’t understand what happened or what was happening in his life. “They didn’t really know me.”
Just days after the draft, Richmond footy boss Blair Hartley called Stack’s manager Paul Peos and told him to tell Stack to start training.
Here was the lifeline. On December 1, 2018, Stack flew to Melbourne without promise but with a prayer.
TAKING A CHANCE
Do you believe in miracles? Stack does.
On his first night at Damien Hardwick’s home, when he put his head down on the pillow and body on the crisp sheets in the spare bedroom, Stack’s mind was racing.
“I can remember it. Here I was in Damien Hardwick’s house. It felt like a miracle. I felt so grateful. I didn’t believe I was in Melbourne.”
The Tigers knew everything about Stack and they still took a chance. Just as they would on another indigenous player named Marlion Pickett in the mid-season draft six months later. If anything, it says plenty about the Richmond Football Club and its people.
Hardwick had rules for Stack. A curfew was set at 11pm and games were to be played in the games room.
“And if I needed anything I had to ask,” Stack says. “The family was amazing and he treated me like his own.”
Stack trained and spewed at training and trained harder and spewed again and along the way found the fitness befitting an AFL player.
The Tigers would eventually sign Stack via the supplementary list and in Round 3 last year, he made his debut against Greater Western Sydney.
Off the field Stack’s confidence grew out of initial shyness. He’s bouncy, energetic, cheeky, funny and a natural performer.
“The club has embraced the person that I am and welcomed me. Sometimes I can be over the top with my excitement and energy, sometimes I can be annoying and the boys accept it. They let me know if I’m over the top, but I feel comfortable that they allow me to be me.”
WHIRLWIND
Off the field, he’s also moved on from the coach and is living with girlfriend and superstar Tigers AFLW player Monique Conti. They live in Avondale Heights and are in isolation.
They train, eat, play board games and watch Marvel movies together.
“I’m loving it,” Stack says.
On the field, Stack wows everyone.
He possesses speed, skill, balance and timing. His bump on Melbourne’s Jack Viney in his fourth game was clinical and breathtaking. At that time, he was 18.
It’s been a whirlwind 18 months, a miracle as he described it, and not once has he forgotten where he’s come from or who he represents.
That respect, first seen at the Dreamtime game and then again in Round 12, when he hugged and high-fived opponent Eddie Betts, is paramount.
“I don’t know how to say this … I look at Adam Goodes and what he did. I watched Australian Dream and just how strong-minded he is. That motivates me. We need more people like Adam Goodes in the community, in Australia and in the world. I look at Eddie Betts, and how many people he’s touched. He’s my idol. I look at Nicky Winmar and how he stood up. If they can do it, why can’t I?”
He hopes young indigenous people can look at him and believe anything is possible.
Even missing last year’s Grand Final was a time of joy and reflection.
“It brought tears to my eyes. It was like, Oh my God, what was I doing this day 12 months ago? Sometimes I have flashbacks about what’s happened, where I’ve been, what I’ve done, what I’ve seen, and now I’m here living my dream. It’s weird.”
Originally published as Young Richmond star Sydney Stack opens up to Mark Robinson about his incredible journey