Why Alex Rance almost walked away from RichmondEmma Quayle
The Age
15 April 2016Alex Rance didn't wake up one morning and decide he no longer wanted to play football, for Richmond or any other team. The idea crept up on him, really. It was there when he went home after training, exhausted and wanting only to crash out on the couch. It was there when one of his teammates asked his family how they ever put up with his exuberance and energy, and he realised they rarely got to see that side of him because he poured almost all of it into his work.
Rance hadn't worked out how to make football fit with the things his faith had helped him come to value. He wanted to be the best husband he could, the best brother and the best son. He had ideas; things he wanted to do and places he wanted to go to. He knew something he had never really believed before: that he was a good player, that he belonged, that he had proven himself. If he did walk away, no-one would ever be able to tell him he did it because he knew he wasn't good enough.
So, he decided, he was done. He didn't talk to many people about it, only one or two, because he didn't really need to. As the 2014 season reached its final few weeks, Rance knew what he wanted to do. He was going to play through the last year of his contract, giving Richmond everything he had. Then he was going to retire.
Really? "I'd decided to go. My mind was made up. In my head it was 'yeah, cool, I'm done, I'm happy to finish up'," Rance said. "I went on holidays at the end of the season and I was preparing myself financially for it. I was thinking 'this is fine, it's right, it will be easy'. For me, the main thing was becoming aware that I wanted to give the best I could to my family, and then realising I wasn't doing that. It was an easy fix from there: give footy up, walk away and be done."
Then? "Then I started playing good footy. And the media sort of picked up on what was going on. I remember speaking to my wife and she said: 'You love football, and if you give it up for me you'll get to a point where you'll look at me and hold a grudge and be resentful'. That was where the confusion came in, because whatever I decided to do, I was going to be letting people down. If I'd finished football I would have let my friends down, whereas if I'd thrown myself headlong into football without understanding why, my family would have been affected. I just had to take a step back and assess it and think 'is there a way I can keep playing football, and be financially stable, and give as much to my family as I'm giving to everything else'?"
They were complicated questions, and Rance had other things to think through. He was raised a Jehovah's Witness, believing he had a greater purpose. "Life got in the way for a while," but about six years ago he started to feel as though something was missing. "I felt a need to think that way again, because everything was so shallow," he said. "I'd started basing my life on how much money I was bringing in and how well I was playing, and that was about it, really. I'd play a crap game and think, 'life sucks'. Then I'd play a good game and everything was awesome. It was like, how can you survive like this? There were peaks and troughs all over the place. It made me think about what faith is, and what I should really be basing my happiness on."
Rance looked around, wondering which form of faith was the right one for him. The thing that brought him back to Jehovah's Witness was that it made him feel like a student, able to think critically, ask questions and form his own thoughts. "It's very personal and to be put as an example of a Jehovah's Witness, that's something I get nervous about, because my life's not perfect in any way and the whole point of the religion is that we're pretty much called bible students," he said.
"There's talks that are given on the weekends but it's more about, 'what do you think? What's your understanding? What does this mean to you'? I looked around at different faiths and tried to assess it all because there's so many out there, but this was the one where I felt they were saying: 'We're not going to tell you what you should do, but here's the information we have, so be an adult and decide for yourself what it means to you'. That's what made the difference for me, to be a student rather than just a listener. And it's funny how it all worked out. Once I found that and had a more level approach to life, my football started to fall into place. It was almost like the less I cared, or the more balanced I was, the better I was at it."
Rance's values played a large part in his decision to re-sign. But there were other things he needed to figure out first. For the first time in his career, he felt comfortable and confident, like he had some control over his contract. He knew he would be fully invested in his decision, whether he walked away or stayed, hence the four-year deal he ended up announcing on a Saturday morning last June. Rance didn't need to ask his family what he should do, because he knew all they would tell him was that they loved him and that they trusted him to make up his own mind. "But I did need to know if that was enough," he said, "or whether I could give them more."
There were other things he wanted time to turn his mind to, too. Having tried a carpentry apprenticeship, pilot training and a building course, Rance now works one day a week in a real estate office. He has a social networking app he wants to get going on, and with two partners is setting up a full-time school where boys will be able to finish off their last two years, working towards a VCAL certificate and other diplomas while learning how to be more interested, more rounded athletes. They have a site almost locked away, some teachers already shortlisted and hope to bring in their first group of students next year. One partner works in online delivery and another is taking care of government compliance, while Rance has a long list of ideas in mind for content and curriculum.
"We really want to balance the academic side of things with the athletic side of things. I think there's a real niche there for it," he said. "Most young kids when they come through tend to focus on themselves a lot, and then find it hard because you have to suddenly become part of a team. If you don't feel like you're cared about or find it hard to fully engage in the team aspect of things, then you can feel like you're always failing.
"When I think about it I pretty much come back to, what would I tell my 16-year-old self, with the experience and the knowledge I have now? I had my troubles, not through lack of trying but because I needed to focus, and the thing I want to really drive in the school is that while you've got to have the athletic perspective, the personal perspective and the educational perspective are really important as well. You've got to want to learn and find new ways to keep learning and investing in yourself. It's really about having a mind that's willing to engage, knowing who you are and developing your personality so you can persevere and lead. There's so many different aspects to it."
There was one other thing Rance wanted before he said he would stay: a break. He was given an extra-long one in the off-season, flying out for the US a few days after winning Richmond's best and fairest and coming home to start training in January. He and his wife Georgia saw lots: 11 states, so many cities. Mexico, Cuba, the Caribbean. They took boat trips through canyons in Arizona, walked through cactus fields, watched sport, went to museums, partied in New York City. When Rance needed to go for a run he opened up Google maps, looked for the closest path and headed off. He trained almost every day but training became an addition to his day; it wasn't the whole point of them.
"It was really good. It was exactly what I needed, just a really refreshing time where I could actually think about football in a way that made me excited to come back into it again. Most of the time you're almost counting down the days until pre-season and there's always this cloud: I've got to go for a run, I've got to do weights, I've got to remember the game plan," said Rance, who already has this year's trip half-planned: he and Georgia will go to Europe, though not for as long. "It's funny. I trained really hard when I was over there. I made sure I never missed a session, but because it wasn't on my mind all the time I came back feeling rested and like I was really fresh.
"I flew in pretty much the day before our time trial, and because I hadn't been thinking about it I was just excited to get there and see everyone. Next thing I'm running a time trial, and I almost ran a PB. It was like, what the heck? I've been stressing about this time trial for years and years, and it was mainly just nervous energy. It's such a waste. It really stood out to me, that maybe there is this big mental element to pre-season training that I've underestimated all these years. Who cares if you run one or two seconds slower? I had the best time, and when I came back I was ready to be back and happy to be back."
He still is. His decision was the right one, he knows. But there are things Rance has needed to be mindful of, before and since he signed on. The way he explains it, playing professional football conflicts in two main ways with his religion. He doesn't want to put himself on a pedestal, to make it seem that he believes his values should be listened to more than he believes God's should be listened to. "I have my deficiencies and faults like everyone and I don't want to be a spokesman for my religion," he said. "That's the whole thing, it's about people studying it for themselves and developing their own ways of thinking and interpreting things in their own way." Then there was the highly competitive nature of the game he plays: the trying too hard to win.
That has been the difficult part. Rance is desperately competitive. It's his thing. He's passionate, he's urgent, he doesn't stop. "It is hard. It's been one of the hardest things I've had to grapple with, that it's not at all costs," he said. "It's something that's really had to come from me and from my bible-trained conscience, because at no stage did anyone say to me: 'You can do this but you can't do this'. The way I see it, it's not really the winning that matters, because if you live your life in accordance with the guidance you're given for future hope or a greater purpose then the journey is all about winning, if that makes sense.
"But it's difficult. I don't like to lose and I'm fully aware that my competitiveness is one of my better qualities. I don't even like losing at table tennis. So I'm never going to back down, but I'm going to try and beat my opponent as fairly as I can within the rules. My conscience wouldn't allow me to go further than that. I used to get into a few scuffles and stuff like that, and I've tried to remove myself from that more and more, to cultivate better values and nullify that win-at-all-costs way of thinking, that idea that to be successful you have to step over people without caring, and try to crush them. It's a bit of a work in progress."
Rance isn't sure what he would have done, where he would be or what he would be doing had his contract been up at the end of 2014. Perhaps he really would have walked away. Maybe he would still be travelling. Maybe he would have thought about the same things months earlier than he was forced to, and come to the same conclusions. All he knows now is that he has cleared his mind, worked out what matters most to him and started fitting all the pieces together. He loves playing for Richmond, mucking around with his teammates and working alongside them on the weekend. He never wanted to play for anyone else but is glad he took the time he needed to make the decision he did.
"I care about my family and I care about the boys here because I want them to succeed. But I'm always having ideas and wanting to do things and I was at a point where I was saying: 'I want to do this, I'm going to do this' without ever really thinking about the consequences, and no-one has time for everything," he said. "I feel like it's a universal story in a way. So many people feel trapped in their job and like they don't have anything else. To take a step back and think about what's really important can be hard, and I'm lucky because all I needed was time. I managed to step back and see the big picture, and now that I've done that I can immerse myself again because I know I can be the person I want to be. I'm here because I want to be here. I'm going to be going gung-ho at it."
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/why-alex-rance-almost-walked-away-from-richmond-20160413-go5tej.html
