Jack Higgins dropped out of school and enjoyed a unique footy education as he pursued AFL dream
JACK Higgins’ junior career had him rated among the best youngsters ever. The men who groomed the Tigers’ new cult hero reveal the unique grooming that helped him reach the top.
AFL News
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JACK Higgins joked after Tuesday’s star cameo a string of Year 11 “Fs” helped him make the easy decision to immediately quit school.
Until now it was the subject of raised eyebrows, from the recruiters who let him slip through to pick 17 to the punters wondering at his strange path.
Look who’s laughing now.
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His father Greg Higgins laid bare to the Herald Sun his son’s extraordinary football education and the amazing support team around him.
Higgins, who has five goals and a handful of breathtaking goals in his two AFL games, shapes as a draft steal and Tigers cult hero all rolled into one.
Champion Data followed his 33 junior games at the elite level, with his ranking point average of 145 the best they have ever measured.
Greg Higgins was an early retiree, allowing him to concentrate on Jack’s development while not becoming overbearing or obsessive.
Fitness guru Bohdan Babijczuk, just one of the many elements in Higgins’ AFL finishing school, calls Greg the perfect parent.
From the age of 13, Babijczuk trained Higgins on speed work and endurance, with footwork he says is superior to draftees Adam Cerra and Jaidyn Stephenson, who he also trained.
Also in that entourage were Oakleigh Under-16 coach Anthony Phillips (father of Collingwood’s Tom) and strength trainer Valeri Stoimenov, who has coached China’s Olympic swimming team.
Along the way they realised Higgins just needed to be taught a different way, with Babijczuk amazed at his ability to pick up drills if he showed him via iPad rather than verbal cues.
Greg Higgins, whose natural endurance means he boasts a 2 hour 56 min marathon, says it was a no-brainer to concentrate on footy instead of Year 12.
“All the things that have been said about Jack are 100 per cent true. Footy has been a real focus on his life, he has great mentors around him and guys like Bohdan and Anthony Phillips have helped him tremendously,’’ he said on Wednesday.
“He is very visual, so he just wasn’t going to do Year 12. It wasn’t for him and he understood that early.
“Year 12 wouldn’t be worth doing. It was a great opportunity to work with the AFL umpires and allow him to work on his deficiencies.
“He would do two or three-hour skill sessions with Anthony. In the off-season we would drive to Gisborne three times a week to do sessions with Valeri.
“(If footy didn’t pan out) he liked weights and the gym, so there were options there but he wanted to become an AFL footballer.”
Higgins joked post-match he had wanted to be an AFL footballer since he was in the womb, but his affiliation with Babijczuk started at 13.
The former AFL fitness staffer has fast-tracked the likes of Shane Crawford and Campbell Brown and quickly threw him in the deep end.
Babijczuk was there on Tuesday night, watching the footy IQ of a kid who used to go to the MCG just to watch the running patterns of players like Sam Mitchell.
“There was nothing super about him except his desire and love of footy,’’ Babijczuk said.
“At the same time I was coaching the Boomers and Opals, so he would be surrounded in sessions by David Anderson and Kristi Harrower, Liz Cambage and Rachel Jarry.
“So he always felt familiar around top sportspeople. He trained with Tommy Mitchell and Nathan Foley. He was actually hoping to get Nathan’s number at Richmond but he couldn’t. So it has broken down barriers.
Ex-school teacher Babijczuk says Higgins simply distilled information differently from other kids.
“I video-tape every session and Jack is a visual person and I realised when he got audio information he wasn’t fully getting it,’’ he said.
“It’s why he didn’t succeed at school, so I took an iPad to every session and everything began to click at a rate of knots.
“As soon as he got the video, he understood a concept. He is really smart, and he is smart with the footy.”
Already a two-year extension is in the offing but dad Greg and mother Lynn are aware of footy’s highs and lows.
“What you see is what you get with Jack. He has no airs and graces, he is just pretty natural,” Greg Higgins said.
“He doesn’t put anything on, he just talks from the heart. We are not getting carried away.
“We are enjoying the wins but we are all about Richmond winning first and if Jack plays well we are happy too.”
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