By Adrian Proszenko
Twice already, Terrell May has walked away from rugby league.
On any given day, despite being a rising star in a star-studded team, May often ponders the prospect of throwing it all in for a third time.
“I gave it away twice, when I was 18 and then when I was 20,” May says. “Both times I just didn’t want to play any more. I get like that throughout the year as well.
“Sometimes I just get ‘I don’t wanna be there and don’t wanna play’.
“It’s a weird feeling. I don’t think many people experience it where one week they love the game and go on the TV screens and the next week they don’t want to be there at all.
“Sometimes I just feel I could quit, like in a day. It sounds a bit weird, but I get those thoughts sometimes where I’m just like ‘Is this really for me? I’m very grateful to be where I am and play with the Roosters, but rugby league isn’t the whole of me.’
“Then you just look at the bigger picture. You need to support your family and I couldn’t do it without footy. I have aspirations to take the club to the GF and to play for NSW.”
It is an intriguing revelation, albeit one that shouldn’t alarm the Roosters. May, enjoying a breakout year that has him primed to become the long-term replacement for the departing prop Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, couldn’t be happier at the club.
The source of May’s ambivalence towards the game, and the reason for continuing to play it, is his family. As one of three talented brothers – Tyrone and Taylan have also played at NRL level before parting with the Panthers after off-field dramas – there were times he played footy to please his father, Jason.
“Growing up, it’s not like my dad forced us to play, but it felt like at times, he enjoyed it more than what we did.”
“All of us brothers, we always talk about it, we didn’t really enjoy playing footy, we just played it because we’re good at it.”
Roosters forward Terrell May.Credit: Louise Kennerley SMH
Indeed, the May brothers are particularly good at football. One of the reasons Terrell continues to play it is the chance to help provide for his parents, Sally and Jason, as well as for his own young family.
When they bought a house last December, it marked the first time the family didn’t live in public housing.
“It’s pretty crazy, I thought I would be in ‘housos’ forever,” May says. “People used to laugh at my old house. I want my mum and dad to retire soon. My mum’s got arthritis, she can’t even walk unless she takes her pills. My dad’s healthy, but I just want him to stop working.”
Every player has their ‘why?‘, their motivation to reach the top. For May, it’s the chance to provide his children with an easier life than he experienced.
“It was rough, I’m not going to lie. My parents grew up working long hours,” he said.
“We grew up not eating dinner often and not taking school lunch ever. But we also grew up very grateful. We grew up with boys that are on different paths, like a lot of boys just in construction, in jail, in that gangster life, some in footy. It was all different paths in Mount Druitt.
“My parents always said there are only three ways you’re going to get out of Mount Druitt; there was jail, through sport or working a normal job.
“Not many young people like working a normal job from there. They either want to go straight for the riches or end up in jail.”
After his humble beginnings, May has ended up at the NRL’s most glamourous club. Every day he makes the long commute from Sydney’s west, which he still calls home, to Bondi Junction.
‘Sometimes I just feel I could quit, like in a day. It sounds a bit weird but I get those thoughts sometimes.’
Terrell May
“I hate the beach. I hate the water. I hate sand,” he says before adding with a laugh, “But I love the club, I just wish they were out west.”
While he feels connected to the Roosters and the game, the criticism of his family remains a sore point.
“Not many people know what’s going on at home and no one will know besides the people that are in my circle,” he says.
When May does eventually give football away, he plans to take up a job in the disability sector, where he has worked previously.
Terrell May celebrates a barnstorming try.Credit: Getty Images
“That would be the job I would go back to. That was a hectic job,” he says.
“And you feel good, working with the people with a disability and you feel grateful.
“I always think back, like how could I say ‘I don’t want to do [football]’ when I’m talented enough to do it and then there’s people that don’t get a choice, you know?
“It’s crazy to think.”
It’s also crazy to think that May, during his football sabbaticals, blew out to 135kg. At school, the teachers predicted he would never make it in football, and for a long time it appeared they would be right. Despite the exploits of his brothers, the Samoan international couldn’t even make the 30-man squad at Patrician Brothers College Blacktown.
“I was disheartened,” he recalls. “I thought I was the shittest kid ever because my older brother made the team. I thought I was next and my younger brother was making the [school] teams and he was small as.”
At his heaviest at the beginning of the COVID lockdowns, the NRL seemed a pipedream.
“I was drinking like a massive 1.2-litre Coke, my whole family was on the lounge, they just all laughed at me,” he says.
“I threw the Coke in the bin and said, ‘You watch, I will make NRL one day and you won’t be laughing’.”
The turnaround began when he and friend Jake Tago undertook David Goggins’ 75 Hard Challenge, a strict training and dietary regimen. It was the catalyst for a journey that has taken him all the way to the NRL. The 25-year-old last week made his 50th first-grade appearance and such is his rise that Phil Gould predicted he will one day break into the State of Origin arena.
“My biggest motivation is my family,” he says.
“I wouldn’t play if it wasn’t for them. Just seeing them happy to see me in the NRL and doing well outside of footy, that’s my motivation for footy.”
“I don’t care about myself as much as I care about my family. If they’re happy I’m happy.”
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