The inside story of Eddie Betts’ journey to 300 AFL games and the respect of a nation
He’s a once-in-a-generation goalkicking freak, a family man, a kid from the bush who made it in the big time and a role model for the indigenous and broader community. There are many sides to Eddie Betts, writes Reece Homfray.
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IT’S A Saturday afternoon in footy season and Eddie Betts is doing what Eddie Betts does — captivating his audience who are spellbound watching his every move.
Only Betts isn’t at Adelaide Oval and he doesn’t even have a footy. He’s at the Aldinga Library in April with a book and the audience is hanging off his every word.
Betts is reading to a swarm of children — some who have turned up wearing their Crows guernsey — but Betts is in casual clothes because this is bigger than football.
It’s significant because when Betts was drafted to Carlton at 18 his literacy skills were that of a 13-year-old and he could barely read the contract put in front of him.
So with the help of the Blues he did three years of literacy and numeracy classes.
“I couldn’t spell, I didn’t know what I was saying or what I was reading and I was embarrassed about it, but there were a few other indigenous boys doing it at the same time and we had some ladies come from TAFE for one-on-one tutoring,” Betts said.
“I couldn’t speak in front of people either, I hated it. Playing AFL footy we had to do school visits and I remember my first one was with Jordan Bannister and I said ‘you do all the talking, I’ll go outside and kick the footy with the kids’.
“Now these days at clinics I don’t want to kick the footy, I want to sit in class with them and talk.”
And now he’s an author as well as a professional footballer who will play his 300th AFL game on Sunday and is already one of the greatest small forwards of all time.
His first book titled ‘My kind’ follows the journey of “Eddie’s little homies” and it embodies everything Betts stands for off the field.
“Growing up the way I have I wouldn’t change it — actually I would, I would go back to school and be educated — but it’s made me who I am today and why I’m so passionate about education,” he explained this week.
“The book is about who I am as a person — I treat people how I want to be treated, it’s about kindness, there’s messages about bullying, looking after the environment, helping your elders like an old lady crossing the road with her bag and speaking up when you need to.
“And treating everyone equal because there are all different characters in the book, there’s an Indian, a South African, a Japanese person, an Aboriginal and Australian, I want every kid who reads this to see themselves and apply it to their own lives.”
Given his public profile, Betts has become a beacon in the fight against racism. Sadly because he’s been constantly subjected to it himself but bravely because he’s chosen to stand up against it — both publicly and privately.
“I get a lot of people say to me ‘ignore it, don’t give these people the time of day’, but I think to myself ‘have you ever been racially abused and how many times do you have to ignore it?,” Betts said.
“I want to be strong for these young indigenous kids and make a stance.
“But there’s also stuff on my Instagram page that I could call out but I don’t.”
Betts then picks up his phone from the table and shows a photo of a teenage boy who went to a zoo last month and tagged him in a photo of a gorilla and a monkey three times.
“Normally when people do this it’s a fake page but I looked at it and thought ‘this is legit’, and he had his school uniform on, ‘this is real, what are you doing?’” Betts said.
“I could have posted this on Instagram and embarrassed him, it could affect him going forward, but I said to my wife Anna ‘this is how we’re going to do it’, and I called the school in Melbourne, spoke to the principal and she was horrified.
“They contacted his parents and they were distraught because they’re not a racist family, it was a total lack of understanding and he was doing it to be funny with his friends.
“But it’s not funny, it impacts people, and I want this kid to be educated.
“They apologised, his mother started crying to the principal and it’s a fantastic school, and he is now going through indigenous education at the school to understand, because he’s an innocent little kid but he just doesn’t understand it and the impact it can have.”
The other moment that impacted Betts recently was at the AFL’s Indigenous All Stars camp in February when the players watched a yet-to-be-released documentary on the final months of Adam Goodes’ career when he was booed every game he played.
At the end of it Betts felt compelled to stand up at the front of the theatre and speak to the group.
“I said ‘that was shocking because it felt like Adam was on his own’, we didn’t see the impact it was having on him, just watching it over and over, every game, footy shows, radio, people slamming him, and he had no support except for the Sydney Footy Club,” Betts said.
“If that happens again I want us to come together as a group and stick up for each other. No matter how small the incident we have to have each other’s back, stamp this out and educate people.”
The other thing that Betts says “grinds my bones” is when people tell him what he’s doing is different to Goodes.
“One other thing that really pisses me of is when people say ‘you’ve handled this way better than Adam Goodes’,” Betts said.
“I say ‘well what if I went this way?’ are you going to treat me like you treated Adam? Are you going to boo me?
“Don’t even say that, that’s just wrong. Adam was making a stance against racism and he copped a lot of criticism, so don’t compare me to Adam because we are both making a stand against the same thing.”
EDWARD Robert Betts Jnr comes from good football pedigree. His grandfather, Edward Frederick Betts, won a Mail Medal playing in Ceduna and his father Edward Robert Betts was a midfielder for Mallee Park who had the chance to join Port Adelaide in the SANFL but it didn’t eventuate.
Betts was born in Port Lincoln but moved to Kalgoorlie with his mother when his parents separated at a young age.
His earliest football memory is being in the backyard of his grandparents place in Boomerang Crescent, Kalgoorlie.
“My older cousin would kick the ball up for the rest of us and play marker’s up,” Betts said.
“I’d try to take a hanger and the goal posts would be shoes on the ground or jumpers or T-shirts, there were no posts.
“They had a big tree in the backyard as well and we would cut out the bottom of a crate and nail it to the tree to use it as a basketball ring.
“My aunty still lives in that place and it’s a really family house that we love. My grandmother got really sick in the house and passed away, my grandfather did and passed away in hospital, my mum’s brother got really sick in the house and passed away and my mum’s other brother passed away in a caravan in the house, so there’s a lot of significance in that house and they’ve still got it.
“I went back to that house last year and it is a special place to recognise where you come from.”
Getting into trouble in Port Lincoln, Betts moved to Melbourne with his mum and aunty and two younger sisters when he was 14 and played at Templestowe Football Club.
But he didn’t go to school beyond Year 9 and when he did he skipped a lot of classes. He struggled to concentrate and later in life learned that he had ear problems — just as his sister who has recently had surgery at 28.
But his football talent was obvious and he was taken by Carlton with Pick No. 3 in the 2004 pre-season draft.
Carlton coach at the time, Denis Pagan, knew nothing about him but warmed very quickly to his infectious personality.
“When he came to the club he wasn’t in the greatest condition and kept trying to pull his jumper down, and from that day you really fell for him because you thought ‘geez he’s got some talent if we can get him fit’,” Pagan said.
Betts said: “I used to hold my singlet out with my thumbs when I ran because my guts was so big, I was so embarrassed but I did it for the whole pre-season.
“I didn’t understand what it took to be a professional athlete ... it was very challenging but I said ‘alright I’m just going to dig deep here’ and I thank Denis for that opportunity.”
But he very nearly blew that opportunity early on.
“I went back to Port Lincoln and stayed with my dad and got nice and comfortable with family and started drinking, and stayed there,” Betts said.
“Training was on Monday and I didn’t turn up, didn’t ring the club, I was still in South Australia, I told them my dad was sick — which he wasn’t.
“When I got back for the next training on Wednesday (then Carlton footy admin manager) Shane O’Sullivan said ‘Ed, come with me’ and we went into Denis’ office.
“Shane said to me later ‘this is how I knew you were so honest from that day forward’ ... Denis was ripping shreds through me and going off, I’m 18 and he says ‘now tell me the truth, how many did you have to drink?’
“And I said ‘oh, about three slabs’.”
O’Sullivan — who is bringing a Carlton guernsey to Adelaide for one of Betts’ twin daughters to wear to his 300th game this Sunday — remembers that conversation clearly.
“I can still see us sitting in the room in the old Heatley Stand, and as soon as he walked out Denis and I just cracked up laughing,” O’Sullivan said.
“If something’s gone wrong he’s always been honest, he’s never avoided the situation. It’s just something about him — he’s a pretty special person to us all and I get a bit emotional when I talk about him.”
Betts defied the odds, debuted in Round 1 and lined up on Glenn Archer who had just been named North Melbourne’s ‘Shinboner of the Century’.
“I was shitting myself and my plan was just to try to run away,” Betts said.
He kicked two goals including one with his first kick and played 19 games for the season.
Eight years later and after 184 games, Betts decided to leave Carlton after Mick Malthouse’s first year as coach and joined Adelaide.
“When I first arrived at the club I had an absolute feeling that he was going,” Malthouse said.
“I had him and his wife at my place for dinner and I came away from that meeting thinking they were going to leave, he didn’t say as much, that’s just what I thought’.
“I don’t get caught up in finances, the last thing I did as coach was to find out what players were on, but I’d be disappointed if the club didn’t give him a fair and reasonable citing and do everything possible to keep him.
“As for his 300th game I am one to line up and say what an outstanding effort, I enjoy watching him play, he’s such a wonderful bloke and there’s not a bad bone in his body.”
According to Betts, Carlton offered him a two-year deal while the Crows and North Melbourne offered him four and the chance to come ‘home’ was too good to refuse.
“To be completely honest it was about a week to go in the season and I still thought Carlton might come back and offer something but they never really did and I had to make the hard choice of walking in and telling them I was leaving,” he said.
In his 115 games as a Crow, Betts has elevated his game from star to superstar — becoming a three-time All-Australian and winning the AFL’s goal of the year twice.
“When I”m on the boundary I’m not thinking, when I’m in front of goal I’m over-thinking,” he says.
“But I’m always thinking ‘yep this is going through’ and I’m excited to get it on the boundary.
“When I kicked that goal (on the boundary at Marvel Stadium) last weekend Lachy Murphy came up to me and he was smiling and said ‘how?’ and I said ‘I can’t teach it, it’s in the blood’.”
Betts has also become his own brand. His management company W Sports and Media fields corporate and government requests on a regular basis and major brands such as adidas, Google and Telstra have used him to leverage their business.
He is also about to start the Eddie Betts Foundation to help young indigenous students access technology including iPads for their schoolwork.
On the field as much as he loves kicking goals he loves giving them off. Betts makes it a point to do everything possible to be the one who gives debutants their first goal — and delivered with Hugh Greenwood and Jordan Gallucci.
“I don’t know why,” he said.
“I always try to bring my teammates into the game, that’s just who I am as a person and sometimes I get told I need to be more selfish but it’s just not who I am.
“I get more enjoyment out of seeing other people succeed — especially young kids coming into the team.”
This year Betts has taken in new teammate Tyson Stengle — adding him into the mix along with four kids including one-year-old twins at home.
“He (Stengle) lived with his grandfather Cecil Betts, and my wife at home was sitting there one day and Tyson walked in and she had a blank because it reminded her of me when we first met,” Betts said.
“The smile, the face, the look, and she just said ‘you two are the same’, and she’s like his mother now, she doesn’t want him to leave.
“But he does more for us as well, he helps with the babies, and he’s got it pretty good, his own room, Foxtel, Netflix.
“And he’s way down the other end of the house so he doesn’t hear the twins crying.
“I can’t wait to play with him, but he better give me the ball this time, if he doesn’t he might be in strife, I’m not cooking him dinner.”
It sounds like a pretty thinly veiled threat. As if Eddie Betts would do something like that.
reece.homfray@news.com.au
Originally published as The inside story of Eddie Betts’ journey to 300 AFL games and the respect of a nation
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