Geelong forward Mikayla Bowen on grieving Adam Selwood’s death, her mission to reduce mental health stigma
Mikayla Bowen knows the impact Adam Selwood had on kick-starting her own AFLW career. On the eve of a seventh season, the Cats forward opens up on her mission to speak up on mental health.
Geelong
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Mikayla Bowen is on the precipice of her seventh AFLW season – and fourth for Geelong.
While a cross country move to the Cattery in 2022 saw the Western Australian talent seek to spread her wings, Bowen doesn’t forget where she’s come from, or those who have helped her along the way.
One such person was Adam Selwood, then the inaugural head of female football for West Coast Eagles where Bowen was one of two of the club’s first-ever AFLW signings.
It’s seen Bowen grieve his death in the lead-up to this year’s AFLW season, her tribute to Instagram days after his May passing accompanied with the words: ‘Wouldn’t be here without you’.
“I wrote those words, because I wouldn’t have meant anything less than that,” Bowen said.
Speaking to this masthead fresh out of a Geelong meeting around leadership and mentorship, the electric small forward was quickly drawn back to Selwood’s influence.
“I honestly don’t think there was anyone closer to me in that space in terms of mentoring me, and he was the first one to see it in me from an AFLW perspective,” she said.
“He was literally the first one to sign me on there at the club … he just had such a massive drive and passion for women’s sport and the West Coast program.
“I don’t think that program would be there without him and like I mentioned, I definitely wouldn’t be there without him.”
Bowen said her thoughts first and foremost were with the “beautiful” Selwood family following a year of tragedy, Adam’s death coming three months after twin brother Troy’s own passing.
“They had such an impact on so many people,” Bowen said.
“As unfortunate as it is – we lose such incredible people and I grieved that (Adam’s death) at the time, and I still am – you’ve just got to try and get your mind in a sense of trying to realise how big the impact he had was and try to continue that.
“I’ll hold him with me forever, and will continue to think of him everyday.”
Message with a meaning
Speaking up to reduce stigma around mental health isn’t new to Bowen, the footballer previously an ambassador for Lifeline while she’s also spoken publicly of her own experiences dealing with friends’ suicides.
The 24-year-old has turned to her own venture to help spread messages around mental health – her streetwear line Boxes.
While it offers an outlet outside of football, Bowen doesn’t shy away from the main reason she started the label – to make an impact.
“I do have a passion for clothing and streetwear and since moving to Geelong I’ve needed the warmest of warm hoodies, so I’ve loved that side of things,” she said.
“But there is nothing more that I love than being able to do something for a meaning, and that was mental health for me – I’ve experienced a fair bit myself — but also been around and had enough conversations to know regardless of how strong, or little you feel, everyone does feel it.
“I felt it was a space I was really passionate about and through clothing I was able to have an impact, and that impact has just purely been conversations off the back of designs, off the back of trying to collaborate with people, just spread a message, that mental health is real and we’re all a part of it.”
From phrases such as ‘Piece by Piece’ to ‘Exactly Where You Need to Be’ and ‘The Art of Staying Present’, Bowen hopes her words can spark conversations and help people open up with their own stories.
“I feel like often, one of the hardest things about mental health is actually speaking about it, or having the courage to do so,” she said.
“I’ve just found with the hoodies, with the little phrases, whatever it is, is just a platform to speak off the back of.
“Whether or not you feel like speaking today, or just being able to see someone wearing messaging like that, it’s recognising everyone goes through it.”
While Bowen wishes she and others didn’t have to lose Selwood the way they did, it has reinforced for her the reasons why she she does what she does.
“We’re losing people everyday from mental health, so from that standpoint, that just fuels my passion off the back of it,” she said.
“But I just hope as a sporting league (AFL), and just in general in society, we become more proactive about it.
“It can feel overwhelming at times, like you have to try and save the world but the world doesn’t need to be saved if everyone’s doing their own part.”
Bowen, a two-time winner of the Cats’ value-based Hoops Award, isn’t alone when it comes to promoting her latest drops – turning to several of her Cats’ AFLW teammates, from Meg McDonald to Becky Webster and Claudia Gunjaca, for help modelling Boxes’ latest designs.
The forward described her teammates as an “incredible” group of players and people.
“Not only just the clothing, but continuing to support the messaging behind it as well,” she said of their support.
“The other part behind it, it’s all well and good me having conversations … (but) that spreads and becomes a conversation with someone else.”
Bowen, Cats learning from discomfort
A Boxes’ design – reading ‘comfortably uncomfortable’ – came solely off the back of what Bowen and the Cats went through last year.
After reaching a preliminary final in 2023, the Cats struggled to hit the same heights in 2024 off the back of inconsistency, a tougher fixture and late-season injury troubles.
“A big season of growth for us – the season beforehand we probably had a deeper run into finals that we were really wanting to back up last season,” Bowen said.
“That just wasn’t what was happening … there was a few of us who got together and said ‘we’re in a position here where we can accept it and see it as a season that was’ or like, ‘how can we get something out of the losses we’re facing or the discomfort we’re feeling at the moment?’.
“That (hoodie) was purely a design that came off the back of those conversations … it’s probably the most popular jumper throughout the group.”
Bowen and the Cats will look to carry those lessons from last year into the upcoming AFLW season, their first hitout this weekend against St Kilda (Saturday, 1pm at RSEA Park) ahead of their August 16 home season-opener against North Melbourne.
Whatever happens on field this season though, Bowen – who calls the Cats her second family – will always appreciate the way the game makes people feel like they have a place and purpose bigger than themselves.
“We’ve been through a lot together as a group, but every time something tragic happens – or incredible happens – you always see the full group there in full arms and full support – it’s so much bigger than footy,” she said.
“It’s (footy) changed my life completely.”
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