Kids' club champion
Sam Lane
The Age
July 31, 2005
By removing himself from the football bubble occasionally, Richmond club champion Joel Bowden feels he can challenge himself, his teammates and help kids who have plenty of other challenges in their lives. He spoke to Samantha Lane.
Joel Bowden has rainbow coloured streamers hanging out the back of his cap, Davy Crockett-style, and kids hanging off his limbs.
Chart music blares from a small stereo that doesn’t quite block out the persistent sound of the ping pong ball that’s being smashed over a table for the best part of two hours.
It’s late afternoon on a Tuesday in building six of the North Richmond Housing Estate, where up to 60 languages are spoken and most of the residents are of Vietnamese background. Here, for the past four months, Richmond players have mixed it with tigers of another kind — the kids of the commission flats — as part of the club’s expanded community development program.
For Bowden, one of Richmond’s vice-captains and who is in his 10th season at Punt Road, this is not an obligation but a wholehearted commitment. It’s rare that he misses the weekly after-school activities group, which fellow Tiger players attend on a rotational basis.
There was a record attendance of about 50 kids and parents at last week’s session. There’s no structured activities, just a mix of table tennis, cricket, footy and chat.
The most formal part of the evening was when Bowden thanked the kids for coming along and told them he’d be back next week.
Richmond’s commitment to this particular community is indefinite. Though it’s a relatively new project for Bowden, who sits on the board of the Tigers’ community committee with teammates Chris Newman and Thomas Roach, his interest in social welfare has been lifelong. It can be attributed, primarily, to the decision of his father Michael Bowden, a premiership player for Richmond in 1969, to move his young family from Mildura to the remote Ernabella mission in north-west South Australia in the early 1980s.
Michael, who spent two years studying to be a Catholic priest before meeting wife Judy, worked as a teacher and adviser to the local Pukatja community. The family later relocated to Alice Springs, where the Sunday routine of football and a visit to church led to three of the Bowden boys becoming league footballers in Melbourne.
Patrick and Joel remain on AFL lists and, after a brief period at Punt Road, brother Sean, a lawyer who has worked on several Aboriginal land council cases, returned to Darwin, where Michael and Judy now live. Another brother, Rhett, also Darwin-based, is an accomplished cricketer. Kane ran from Melbourne to Adelaide a couple of years ago to raise money for the Lighthouse Foundation, which provides housing for homeless teenagers. Charlie Kellett, who was fostered by the Bowdens, and Majella, the only girl, live in Melbourne.
“We weren’t well off in Alice Springs, we had five kids and one teacher’s income. But we’re lucky because we could all play sport, we all had an education, every night we went home and there was food, and there was a bed for us,’’ Bowden, 27 and Richmond’s reigning best-andfairest, said last week.
“In some of the town camps there, there was a three-bedroom house and there might be 15 people there.’’
Though Bowden is now comfortably established in one of North Carlton’s terrace estates, where he lives with his fiancee, dogs and a cat, he is determined not to exist in a bubble. He knows his life is a privileged one and that he is handsomely paid to play a game he loves. Bowden’s involvement at the North Richmond estate makes him feel like he’s contributing in some way and, combined with his study, creates a sense of balance that’s critical to his state of mind.
“If all I ever was concentrating on was footy, then I’d be no good. I wouldn’t be playing good footy. I need other things. For other guys, that’s not the case.
“I just feel that if I’m not active and not doing something, then I get edgy, I get maybe even antagonistic.’’
BOWDEN is only a couple of subjects away from finishing a teaching degree — and next year will become the fifth person in his family with that qualification. He has been at university part-time for most of his football career, and at times it’s made for a heavy load. One Friday, when he was on his teaching rounds, he made a dash from the northern side of town to an unusually early match at Telstra Dome. After racing home, showering and hot-footing it to the ground, he produced one of his better on-field performances.
“The times in my career when I feel I’ve played some of my best games ... have been when I’ve been out on teaching rounds, when I’ve been busy and occupied and doing something,’’ he said.
“I’ve had coaches ask me whether or not I am switched on enough, whether or not there’s been distractions that may have affected me. And my response is, ‘I need distractions. I need things to do, I need people to see and other options out there because that’s me’.’’
But it’s far from the norm at AFL football clubs these days, where players are remunerated for a fulltime and meticulous commitment.
Bowden has been granted some exemptions along the way. Danny Frawley, who coached him for five seasons, last week recalled letting Bowden out of the occasional team meeting. Given the natural talent and consistent performance of the player in question, Frawley considered that what was best for the individual was probably best for the team as well.
“While you wouldn’t do it for most players, Joel needed that stimulus outside of footy,” Frawley explained.
“His preparation, the way he goes about his footy, you couldn’t question it, but you’d always sort of think, ‘Does it mean the be-all and end-all for him?’ Being out of the game now, I see that as probably being a strong point of Joel’s that it’s probably not the be-all and end-all for him.”
Bowden has long encouraged his teammates to look beyond the cruisey routine of training, eating and sleeping.
“I’ve always said ... that guys should go to uni, or should be doing some study, and if not that, involved somewhere where they’re a little bit taken out of their comfort zone, where it’s not all about you, it’s about something else.”
ASKED if he ever feels stifled by the constraints of his chosen profession, Bowden smiles and answers matter-offactly: “Every day.”
But his love of Richmond is unquestionable, and he has become less zealous when explaining his personal needs to the club.
“I think probably a few years ago, I was fighting against the footy club in a sense. I was saying, ‘Listen, I’ve got to go to uni. I can’t miss this’. Now I’m saying, ‘I really need to go to uni, here’s my timetable, I’m hoping we can work around that’. If you’re more flexible, then so is the club ... you have to learn to work within the constraints and you have to learn to adapt.
“I might have matured a little bit in my approach and not been so gung-ho about it.”
For better or worse, a toning down on that front has been compensated for by Bowden’s increased outspokenness in the playing group. It’s with pride that he estimates that in their questionnaires for the AFL Record, about 50 per cent of the playing group nominated him as their most annoying teammate. Bowden attributes this to his constant attempts to generate political discussion, even if there is a scarcity of willing participants.
“I get a bit provocative around the club trying to bring up other issues and having debates and talking about the war or the bombs going off in London. The main one in the last couple of days is whether or not the policeman should have shot the guy on the train.
“They all think I’m just a pain in the arse because I’ll argue it with them, but I say, ‘Well, I’m happy to argue it with you because let’s think about it’.”
Has he ever felt like an odd one out? “Oh yeah, a little bit, but I’m comfortable with that. I’m comfortable that some of the guys say that I should be over there fighting against America because I question the war or I question certain things.
“I feel very comfortable in my environment now. After 10 years, I feel like I’ve been around for a while and I can voice these things.” As part of the mentor program that was launched by Richmond this season, Bowden was matched — cleverly — with four-time premiership player Michael Green. The skilful ruckman had played in two flags for the Tigers, but gave footy away, in 1972, for a career in law. He was coaxed back by the club and featured in another two premierships, but retired aged 27.
Green has long been a family friend of the Bowdens, and he and Joel now speak once every couple of weeks. “In terms of an outlook on trying to balance your footy in the rest of your life, I’d say Joel and I are pretty similar actually,” Green said.
“My view of Joel is that because he does have a broader view of things, he’s not someone who can think about footy every waking moment ... he needs to exercise his brain and his intellect outside of footy so that it keeps it in a balanced state.”
According to Rita Catania, who co-ordinates Richmond’s community campaigns, Bowden’s approach to the projects is rare and exceptional. Lyn Dixon, a resident of the North Richmond flats and single mum to sevenyear- old Aymen, also speaks glowingly of him.
“Aymen idolises Joel Bowden now .. . he gives every kid that feeling that they’re important and that they’re special. It’s had a wonderful impact.
“He talks to them that well that he brings things out of kids that they otherwise might not say.’’ Mother and son now attend each of Richmond’s home games, courtesy of the club.
When his playing days are through, Bowden intends to put his hard-earned teaching degree to use, see more of Australia and the world.
“I’ve got to do something, and I don’t want to be pouring beers ... I’d rather be doing something where I can still contribute to a certain degree,” he said.
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2005/07/31/1122144064282.html
