Rollercoaster ride of ups and downs: Terry Wallace feels the scrutiny at the moment with Richmond not performing.The ride of your life
10 August 2007 AFL
Terry Wallace
"Football consumes you and it consumes your family. The grind of coaching was taking an increasing toll on my life." Chris Anderson, Sydney Roosters coach, after quitting this month.
This quote could have belonged to any of the four AFL coaches who have left our system in the past few weeks.
The media scrutiny on the game is far more intense than ever before. Believe me, it is quite a bizarre life to live.
All coaches at some time are placed under unbelievable pressure from so many outside sources.
In the past 12 months both Mark Thompson and Dean Laidley have appeared to be "dead men walking" in regards to their chosen careers, yet have managed to fight back to fill the top two positions on the AFL ladder.
Were they poor coaches at that stage? I doubt it.
This year the blowtorch has been put on two coaches in particular - Denis Pagan at Carlton and Chris Connolly at Fremantle.
Very few people understand how intense this scrutiny becomes and how it can impact on your character, personality and everyday life.
My only real experience of this was when I resigned from the Bulldogs mid-contract.
I had no comprehension of the animosity and hatred that came from this decision.
At the time it cut so deep that it affected my sleeping patterns, my behaviour, my personality as I became more insular and eventually my health.
Listening to talk-back radio, reading articles and watching football shows, I have seen Pagan analysed and attacked from all angles - all from people who can have their say and walk away, leaving behind the wreckage.
I understand this more than most as I have been the analyst harsh on others as part of my work with the media and have also been on the receiving end as a senior coach.
Time and time again I have heard that I have gotten off lightly this year.
Well, come and spend a week in my life and see whether that is the truth?
I know only too well that when the bookies set the markets at the start of next year for the first coach sacked that I will be short odds-on favourite.
In no way am I feeling sorry for myself about this situation but simply trying to give people an understanding of the mental pressures coaches are under.
As an experienced full-time professional in the industry for 30 years, I understood the environment I was getting into, although the pressures have grown tenfold in recent years.
I can hardly comprehend how first-time coaches deal with some of these issues.
WHY BE A SENIOR COACH? I OFTEN get asked why I would put myself through the life of a coach when people are so opinionated, critical, rude and nasty and where it has an ability to impact on your family and family life.
The only answer is that it is in your blood.
Each coach may answer this question differently, but for me I have always loved history of all sorts.
As a sportsperson I love the history of our great game and I am still amazed when I hear supporters talking about where they were on any given day when a particular final or big game was played.
Although many may not believe it, it was the sheer magnetism of trying to turn around a big four Melbourne-based club that has been unsuccessful for three decades that drew me back to Richmond.
To me that is the fantasy of the game and dreaming of that turnaround and working daily in an attempt to achieve it is my key motivation.
The other motivating factor is the fountain of youth.
I have no doubt that working with young people, in fact keeps you young.
I love to see players striving hard and realising their dreams. In what has been a horrible year, watching Nathan Foley work hard to become a top player at the club and viewing Shane Edwards' first dozen games in what will be a long career, still gives me a tingle down my spine.
WINNING IS EVERYTHING THERE is no such thing as patience in football.
Ask any board member at Richmond which club my plan for them was based upon, they would tell you it was Geelong.
Twelve months ago people may have said that I was crazy basing it on a club which lacked success for so many years but I thought they had a plan and a group of people totally determined to see the plan through to its end.
Because of this solidarity they are reaping the rewards and I envy them, but more particularly congratulate them, for being so committed.
It has come to a stage in AFL life where the public only sees the game on a week-to-week basis and winning weekly is the only thing that matters.
Within a month in football you can be lauded for developing some junior players then three to four weeks later, you can have your club torn apart for having no future.
In the end if you are winning you are genius, if you are losing you are an imbecile.
I was recently asked if I still enjoyed coaching and whether I have enjoyed the year.
The answers to the two questions are totally different.
I love coaching but living in a losing environment is extremely tough. The only positive feedback I have had for the year comes from my family, the board, management and Richmond's football division.
People outside of that group can't wait to tell you about somebody who has abused you on the radio or written a poor article about you. It is impossible to get away from.
My emotions range from frustration, disappointment, anger and at times disbelief regarding the savage nature of the industry. But my driving emotion is determination.
I have lived a life of knockbacks.
At 13 I could not get a game in junior football for my local team and had to catch a bus from Templestowe to Preston to continue to play footy.
I was told three years in a row that I was not required at Fitzroy. Nine months later I played in a premiership for Hawthorn.
After 12 months at Richmond in 1987 they thought they had bought a dud and wanted out of my contract.
I then went on and won two best-and-fairest awards with the Bulldogs.
I am very used to people saying that things can't be done, so my burning ambition now is to prove the knockers wrong and have confidence to finish what I started three years ago and that is to develop a Richmond list that will come through and play a decade of football together and gain success for the club.http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,22218796%255E19771,00.html
