Round #08 - The winning ache
When Richmond’s Seth Campbell iced the game for the Tigers in their terrific win against the Eagles and against the odds, I thought of the "winning ache".
"A true vocation calls us beyond ourselves; breaks our heart in the process and then humbles, simplifies and enlightens us about the hidden, core nature of the work that entices us in the first place."
— David Whyte
___
I am often asked whether I miss the game.
"I miss it like sleep", I say.
They are the only words that even go close to describing the part of me that still feels the game in every part of my being.
I still have the game, of course. There are more matches to watch, pretty much wall to wall Thursday to Sunday, and always plenty of interest to be had, narratives to follow. The big games, the big moments still draw me, and definitely the progress or otherwise of the clubs that at one point in my life, I'd dedicated every waking moment to, until one day, I didn’t.
But after you've had this experience of the game, you can never have it the way it is enjoyed by those for whom the game truly exists.
The timeless experience of going to games with family and friends, following your team with a shared passion that connects people who might otherwise have nothing in common other than this tribal alliance.
Just following your team, its ups and downs, hope diminished and renewed, week by week, season by season, happy to live part of your life vicariously through the club and its players, is lost to you.
It feels the game is excluding you, letting you go, even though it clearly isn’t. It is merely making space for someone else, as it always has.
Owen Eastwood, in his wonderful book Belonging, speaks about the fundamental, but somehow contradictory nature of belonging itself. Yes, you get to have the sun shine on you, but it's temporary, for the sun is always moving and will stop shining on you so it can shine on someone else, as it must for the story to go on.
All that you gave is now being given by someone else.
It is a game never won.
You no longer belong as you once did, and felt so deeply. The game is now asking something different of you, as you knew it would, but could not fully understand until it was time to clean out your locker or clean out your desk.
You are left in a kind of footy 'no man's land', with the need to reconcile both identity and purpose, the parts of you willingly offered in service of the thing that was always so much bigger than you, and for which you still feel so privileged.
I have learned that privilege can quickly turn to entitlement, which can ruin lives. Some of the greatest ever contributors to our game become mired in a kind of toxic blame, and there is always something to blame.
As I have said before, blame attracts a crowd and offers nothing by way of solution, or in this case, a way forward.
The antidote to entitlement is gratitude.
And to have had the sun shine on you, be it for a moment or most of a lifetime, leaves you much to be grateful for.
You belonged.
___
For the young player, it begins when their name is called on draft day.
Their career is now in the hands of a club with which they are highly unlikely to have an existing relationship.
Their new club immediately and fully embraces them, knowing that it could easily have been someone else, given the quirks of the draft process, as well-planned as the many scenarios may well have been.
The club wraps its arms around the young player and whispers in their ear:
"We love you…", and then pauses and reminds the young tyro:
"But please do not fumble the ball"
This is what we describe as the invisible handshake. Our love comes with caveats borne of its many expectations. It will ask so much from you, and it will often feel like too much, and that could well be right, but that is the place where the growth happens, the wisdom is earned, and you will never be the same.
There is always a price to pay, and it is very likely the club will be finished with you before you are finished with it, but there will always be some part of you wearing that club's jumper or polo from the time you spent "in the arena".
___
After I explain that "I miss the game like sleep", to add insight into its nuance, I often follow up with:
"I even miss losing."
I made a choice a long time ago to reframe "regrets" as "reflections". I do choose to actively and systematically look back, but not as a regret, which so often became self-blame, the worst kind of blame, but as reflection, the world giving me feedback from the choices I made, the lessons learned, the wisdom gained, and hopefully, the opportunity to grow.
I read once about a rugby player, not a professional, but a suburban player who played the game as long as he could, and as a mid-life man, was now 'dining at the banquet of his consequences', the aches and creaks that the brutal sport will offer up as lifetime "reminders".
When asked about the damage to his body that his sport had 'gifted' him, he seemingly came from the same playbook.
Regrets none. Reflections many.
He missed watching the ball sail over the opposition posts as he stood on the line, knowing the game was now lost, then sitting in the rooms with the teammates afterwards, looking down at the ground, the silence, no words but connection, something unique to this group and unique to this moment, no other version of it before or after.
He missed the hot showers afterwards, not just for the relief they gave, but the pain they revealed, scratches from studs and fingernails that he did not know he had, but would remind him of their existence for the next few days, until they heal, as they will.
He missed the bruises.
The many bruises.
But more than anything, he missed the lessons of the game, learning over and over that losing comes in many forms, but that failure is a bruise, not a tattoo.
He missed turning up to training on Tuesday night after a couple of days of working in his day job, getting back on the track, armed with the wisdom of the game just played and the optimism of the game not yet played.
He missed belonging.
___
And yes, the old rugby player missed winning.
In my experience, winning mostly felt like relief. "Thank fuck", I would say to myself as the siren went. But every so often, the rewards of the game were such that there was a feeling of elation, unique to this moment, unique to this group, that 'humbles, simplifies and enlightens us' as David Whyte says with his poet's sensibilities. Legendary coach David Parkin, perhaps less articulate but more relatable, would put it this way: "Ten kicks in the bum for one lick of the ice cream."
This is a feeling I once heard described as the 'winning ache'. I am almost certain that the saying came from the deep fatigue that athletes feel, the residue of whatever chemical the body was forced to produce to find something when there was nothing to be found.
There is a version of this that those close to the game who didn’t play also feel, those who are so heavily vested in the outcome, but in reality, they have so little control.
When the game gave up its rewards, you gave yourself up for the feeling, mostly expressed in quiet reflection in the short time after the bonhomie of the players returning to the rooms and singing the song.
It didn't last long, sometimes as short as the time in the rooms, or the bus ride to the airport or the drive back home, but I am unsure there is any feeling quite like it.
The winning ache.
When one of my friends, still in the game and with my full understanding of what the role was asking of them, has one of those wins, I will send a simple text:
"Enjoy the winning ache."
___
When Richmond’s Seth Campbell iced the game for the Tigers in their terrific win against the Eagles and against the odds, I thought of the "winning ache".
I barrack for Richmond. They represent both my deepest form of nostalgia and transition: from an early age, growing up around the club, through a defining period of my career as a very young CEO, not that long afterwards, their stories shaped my story.
One of the ways I deal with my 'no man's land' place in the game is to try to watch football now as I did when I was a recruiter, particularly when I watch Richmond.
It brings me back to the place where my "student of the game" mindset, which I spoke about last week in my article on Scott Pendlebury, “Better than human nature”, found its purpose.
When I was watching games as a recruiter, a player would do something that caught your eye, and a little dash would go into the football record, sometimes with just a small word, like:
hands
spirit
balance
clean
power
space
choices
composed
competes
time
shrug
speed
feet
They were single words, but all could be chapter titles in the recruiter's handbook.
Watching Seth Campbell play for the Tigers, I find myself making notes in my metaphoric football record. He has a nice hand to play, and is a credit to the Tiger recruiters, taken as a Rookie in 2022 from Burnie in Tasmania.
This was a great win for the Tigers, seriously against the odds, even considering where West Coast is at.
I thought of their coach, Adem Yze, who, as a player, only twenty years of age, with the kind of precocious talent not unlike Seth's, was part of a Melbourne team that made a storied run at the finals, having finished last the year before, the same place where the Tiges currently sit, only to come up one game short, beaten in a Preliminary Final.
As the players sat before him, his coach, Neale Daniher, only in his first year, starting his coaching journey as Adem is now, would remind his young team:
"The game does not give up its rewards easily."
Adem understands this, and because it is so hard, the rewards are so satisfying.
Both he and the Richmond Football Club are doing the right things, building the team the right way, but Adem also has the experience, insight and humility to understand that doesn't mean you always get it right.
All forms of wisdom are hard won. As Ryan Holiday reminds us, drawing on the Stoic philosophers, "Wisdom takes work."
It is a kind of ache.
The winning ache.
Play on!
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