Footy’s dark cloud: Jon Ralph examines the AFL’s major mental health battle
They might be typecast as rich young men playing out their childhood fantasies but in reality, AFL players are living a very different experience. JON RALPH examines the alarming research that shows why so many stars are unhappy.
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Paul Marsh’s first task when he arrived as the player union’s new boss in mid-2014 was to find out what made his players tick.
He knew the heavy lifting of pay deals and CBA talks lay ahead but first he needed a deep dive into their motivations, hopes and fears.
What he found out in those early months disturbed and alarmed him.
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An AFL player base typecast by its fans as rich young men living out their childhood fantasies were living a very different experience.
“My initial observation coming into this was it is a really unhappy environment,” Marsh told the Herald Sun this week.
“It really hit me between the eyes. The amount of time players were at their clubs, the lack of ability to think for themselves, almost the lack of trust in what they were doing was the biggest talking point when I got here.
“I think they are happier now than they were four and a half years ago.
“It was too much. Everything was too much. They didn’t feel like they were getting a mental break from the game, they were spending too much time there, and there has been a big shift away from all that. It’s just terrific the industry is talking about it.
“Clubs spend so much time and money on the physiology of athletes’ bodies but the mind is something that is still evolving.”
If Marsh’s statement has an echo of NBA boss Adam Silver’s lightning bolt quote that the league’s players were “truly unhappy”, he believes it is a conversation that must be had.
The entire industry has matured dramatically — clubs hiring psychologists, players bravely confronting issues, the league handing players more time off for fuller lives.
Last month AFL boss Gillon McLachlan labelled mental health the most “significant” in football.
The player union says the percentage of players with mental health issues reflects society — about one in five people.
But the stresses that come with fame, scrutiny, social media and pressure to perform on the public stage are much more intense.
In recent years Jack Steven, Jesse Hogan, Dayne Beams, Heath Grundy and many more have taken time from the game.
But as the AFL prepares to appoint a new head of mental health to tackle the issue there are varying views on exactly how to do just that.
For every Paul Roos, arguing that there is not enough face time or weeks to train players in the pre-season, there is an expert saying players need less time at clubs.
For every mature response to a player like Jack Steven stepping away to work on his mental health, there is misunderstanding when Jesse Hogan’s anxiety is revealed in conjunction with off-field hijinks.
THE SOURCE OF DISCONTENT
AFL players have never had better support structures to deal with mental health issues.
They have also never had more stresses.
Marsh says despite the perception of coddled athletes with 14 weeks of leave and money to burn, players have never been under more scrutiny.
Social media is an opportunity but also a risk given trolls and negative responses.
Players are upskilled by the PA on blocking mechanisms but often unable to resist.
“I have had players say to me it’s almost part of their post-match routine. If they have had a bad game they are almost more likely to look at it.”
Problem gambling and illicit drug use can lead to poor mental health or be manifestations of players reacting to their own underlying issues.
The savaging of players in player reviews is a thing of the past but down-the-ground footage means there is never a second on the field they are not scrutinised for their actions or non-actions.
But don’t they get paid well for that with the benefit of huge chunks of leave in the off-season and vast fortunes to boot?
As the PA’s experts say, if money was a remedy for mental health no rich person would ever have issues and the world’s problems show that to be a fallacy.
And while clubs have drawn back from Ross Lyon’s famous quote to his players that big brother was watching them in the off-season, it’s not exactly a true holiday.
“Let’s define time off. It’s one of the greatest misnomers of the industry,” Marsh says.
“These guys train every day. They might get two weeks off at the end of the season where they do nothing and they have a program to train from then on. It’s like working at home on the weekend. You are still working.
“How can you turn up to the first day of pre-season and do a PB when you haven’t trained the whole time?”
HOW ARE THEY CARED FOR?
The AFLPA’s psychologist network of 120 practitioners logged 1678 hours with players last year, as every AFL club gets to the stage where it has at least a part-time psychologist.
But the case of Jesse Hogan showed how far football must still come over its understanding of anxiety and mental health.
AFL legend Malcolm Blight wasn’t alone in believing his mental health admission was a crutch excusing poor behaviour.
The anecdotal evidence gathered by the player union is supporters will embrace a player who reveals a mental health battle unprompted but not necessarily if it coincides with bad behaviour that needs explaining.
“It’s such a convenient position to take that someone might have another issue in the background and therefore they are using mental health as an excuse,” Marsh says.
“Don’t underestimate the courage it takes to announce to the world I have got an issue.
“I find it so bad people are prepared to jump to that position. It’s not a free whack. The player has to consider if they want to share a very private personal issue with the free world.
“If he is courageous enough to say I have got this issue, not excusing the fact he turned up in an unacceptable state, but we need to try to understand why it may have happened?”
WHAT IS CHANGING?
A comprehensive AFL mental health study due at the end of April seeks to specify the glaring gaps in treatment.
Those involved — including Lions footy boss David Noble, Roos player Jamie MacMillan, player agent Tom Petroro — have interviewed 250 figures across clubland to assess strengths and weaknesses.
As Marsh says, that study will form the road map for the next four years and travel far wider than just how to intervene when players are depressed.
How are players educated on mental health before they enter the system?
What kind of culture are clubs creating that combines high performance but allows players the time and knowledge to have a sense of identity apart from just being an AFL star?
It will set minimum standards for mental health care and inform clubs of their weaknesses in dealing with players.
The clear gap in play is the amount spent on psychologists at clubs.
The PA’s general manager of player development Ben Smith says we are only now getting to the stage where all clubs have a part-time psychologist.
Fremantle has a full-time psychologist, Brisbane spends several hundred thousand dollars on a full-timer and part-timer who are run off their feet.
But some have only a handful of hours each week to consult with players, run leadership programs and even help recruiting departments consider the profiles of potential recruits.
“The review is looking at a lot of preventive work. We can have mechanisms in place when issues come up. But what is the best practice to resource the role of psychologist, how do we manage critical incidents?” Smith said.
“We need to make sure the whole industry is supported. They create the framework for the players. You can run as many educational programs for players but if their coach is under stress, that will influence the player experience in terms of fun.”
The review will be passed to the newly formed Industry Governance Committee and likely eventually to the AFL Commission.
Then in conjunction with the AFL and its new Head of Mental Health, an infrastructure will be developed where clubs, the AFL and its union are aligned on those minimum standards.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
Then it comes down to who pays for it.
AFL players fund $2.1 million a year on player services, and this year and last handed $75,000 to each club ($900,000 total) as seed money to better manage mental health.
The AFLPA’s psychologist network costs $500,000 to run, its education programs $100,000 and it invested $300,000 into the mental health review.
Ultimately a team of staff working together to service mental health needs of players could be hired but it will require significant funding.
If the AFL is to ensure minimum funding standards for clubs it will have to loosen the soft cap on spending.
“We will need more money to roll out the recommendations from the review. Where it comes from is not as important as getting the money.”
Will the AFL put the money in? Will they support the clubs to do it? If the AFL puts the money in the (restrictions) on the soft cap are not relevant. If some or all of it comes back to clubs, that cap is very relevant.”
UTOPIA
The player union’s experts talk about mental health on a wellbeing continuum.
If they have the language to talk about it, the education to know who to talk to, the security to be upfront about their problems, they can get better.
“Players move up and down that continuum and they can still play,” says the PA’s Smith.
“There has been a shift in environment where we don’t necessary have more problems but they are coming to the surface, which is pleasing as we then have a chance to address them.
“We want to get to a place where players can self-navigate their issues better.”
That will only happen if clubs are funded for the appropriate education and care, understand what stresses their players and actively attempt to build them into well-rounded people.
Says Marsh: “The reality is these players are in these careers for a very short space of their lives. A major role of ours is to look after players for the rest of their lives.
“If they can’t self-navigate their lives, we don’t have enough resources to support them day by day.
“We think they will be happy, healthy people if they can do that.”
MACMILLAN OPENS UP ON ANXIETY BATTLE
All the education in the world hasn’t stopped Jamie Macmillan from a gnawing feeling of anxiety that sometimes will not quit.
Macmillan is at the forefront of the AFL’s treatment of mental health, a player representative on the Industry Governance Committee assessing player welfare.
They will eventually make recommendations that might have far-reaching consequences on the treatment of mental health in football.
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But despite all of his achievements — a decade in the AFL, a highly-paid job, a role of the Roos’ four-man leadership group — mental health doesn’t discriminate.
Like all North Melbourne players he was shocked by Majak Daw’s Bolte Bridge fall as his mental health battle was laid bare.
But Macmillan says the growing level of understanding of mental health means many players filter in to see the club’s psychologist for issues across all ends of the mental health continuum.
“I have dealt with my issues and have for a number of years. Everyone is going to have issues they deal with. The anxiety one is a big piece for me and I have found ways to deal with it but it’s a work in progress.
“I see our psych regularly. I get heaps out of it. What people might think of me is quite tough.
“Because I want to put my best foot forward and do my family and friends proud. When you get criticism you think is unfair or quite often know is incorrect that can play on your mind a bit.
“I am like every footballer who deals with their issues.”
Macmillan, 27, conducts mindfulness training on an almost daily basis that centres him and keeps him in the moment instead of allowing his mind to race.
“I am a massive advocate for it and we have a big group of guys who do it almost daily,” he said.
“There are different methods but for us, it’s being able to stay in the moment. It’s sitting there for 15-20 minutes in dead silence and being able to focus your thoughts and control them better. So being able to identify the stresses and peel it back and deal with it.
“We are not privy to who sees our psychologist and what they talk about but I know speaking to players more guys are going to see him when they are in a good head space. If you are having a great day, wouldn’t it be good to know why? Rather only when you need help. Sometimes it’s too late.”
Macmillan was drafted with Daw and says the key position defender is now in a good space.
He can’t stop picturing an AFL return for Daw but says that priority can’t come at the expense of his mental health.
“It was obviously a shocking situation he found himself in and it’s great to see him out now and how far he has come,” he said.
“We see him out on the track and that’s one side of his rehab. But the stuff we focus on is how he is going inside, and outside the footy club.
“From all reports and conversations we have he is tracking really well and I said to someone the other day, this is bigger than football. He wants to get back to playing footy and we would love that.”
Macmillan says a return to football — which is feasible this year — would transcend football.
“I would be lying if I said hadn’t thought about it and Maj talks about it a lot. It’s his end goal and if it were to happen not only us as teammates would be in his corner.
“You would have the opposition coach and fans and whole AFL community rallying behind him. He has had his troubles but now everyone wishes him the best.”
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