Young Tigers climbing Ladderaflplayers.com.au
Mar 6, 2015With paintbrushes in hand – and spots of paint on arms, shoes, hair and walls – Richmond quartet Ricky Petterd, Anthony Miles, Sam Lloyd and Nathan Gordon stand in Ladder on Hoddle Street, cracking jokes with another group of four across the room.
At first glance, the lives of the four AFL players seem a world apart from the four who live at Ladder, a not-for-profit organisation that houses young people aged 16-25 who would otherwise be homeless.
The four Tigers live their lives in the public eye, are seen by many as role models – whether they like it or not – and have access to a large network of resources and opportunities. But as Ladder’s National Program Manager, David White points out, AFL players also know more about pressure, disappointment, making mistakes and the feeling of letting people down than most.
“There’s definitely a connection between these young people and footballers”, White says.
While the Tigers are aiming to have a positive influence, Petterd says they want to avoid being put on a pedestal.
“The one thing I didn’t want to do was to come in and be like, ‘I’m a footballer, you’ve got to listen to what I say because I’ve done everything right,’ because that’s just not the case.
“We’re not perfect either and we’ve got to earn their trust as much as they’ve got to earn ours. That’s why I didn’t want to come in and be a mentor straight away. I wanted to get to know them a bit first and then maybe they can open up a little bit to you.”
Rather than putting their hands up to mentor a tenant at Ladder, the Richmond boys spoke to former Sydney and Western Bulldogs player – now Ladder employee – Ed Barlow about other ways they could get involved.
“Ed plays in our VFL side, and I knew him at the Sydney Swans, which is how we’ve got that relationship”, Gordon explains.
“The hands-on stuff appealed to us a little bit more than coming down and talking to kids who don’t know us, and trying to gain their trust [straight away], which would be pretty hard,” Petterd adds.
“The idea of painting a room with some mates sounded like good fun to us and we’ve had a good day today.”
Pics and article here: http://www.aflplayers.com.au/article/young-tigers-climbing-ladder/
