Nine months after kicking four goals against Richmond in front of close to 95,000 people, feeling as if his feet barely touched the ground, Nick Duigan went running. This time the act seemed to take on an unusual gravity, as if on Jupiter, where his body weight was increased and the desire pressed down by lethargy and inertia.
“I’m not sure if I’m a little too sensitive or emotional, but I noticed that I was a little bit off,” says Duigan, who retired from Carlton in early 2014. But he kept running. For a year it felt like a chore until he felt back in control of his destiny once more.
“I remember coming home from a run one day and I was like ‘OK, I’m back’, and I reclaimed myself almost in a funny sort of way.”
Duigan retired from the game in 2014, an ongoing knee condition forcing him away from the field at the age of 29. Three years earlier, he was unique in that he entered the AFL as a mature-age recruit from Norwood, armed with a masters in psychology, a qualification he now puts to good use working for the mental health foundation, Headspace, in Geraldton.
Spending three years in an environment where a player has to relinquish a lot of control and where decisions are made for him – an environment where his sense of self is defined by something else – has an impact.
In The Seasons of a Man’s Life, psychologist Daniel Levinson found that being a professional sportsman can become so fundamental to a man’s self worth that their sport became inseparable from their identity – something that Duigan comprehends.
“It’s all-consuming and your identity develops around that. I am a football player, I am an AFL player, I am a Carlton player or whatever it might be. You become known among friends, among family, among the community, as this thing.”
This is particularly so in Melbourne, where being an AFL footballer places you at the centre of public life at varying degrees – from being part of the now standard Twitter hatestorms of various strengths and durations, to being universally respected in a culture that respects almost nothing.
“I can see it having a big impact on somebody who maybe didn’t have an opportunity to develop more a sense of who they are separate to the footballer,” says Duigan. “If you haven’t got clarity on that, once you retire I can imagine it feeling very isolating or directionless in some way.”
But it also goes beyond a sense of who you are.
“We might talk in terms of psychological wellbeing, but it is more having a sense of meaning and belonging somewhere, and having a real purpose to get you up each morning and to be driving for a real goal,” says Duigan. “Football clubs, particularly at the elite level, provide an environment where everyone’s working together, passionately, dedicated and really committed. It provides an enormous sense of purpose.”
It is being on that journey that Duigan says is so rewarding and addictive.
Last week, Andrew Walker and Ted Richards both announced the end to their journey, and as winter turns to spring, football careers will die in a hundred different places. For many it may feel like their career has taken on what the essayist Charles D’Ambrosio described as “the mood and look of a vacant lot”, with a “spurned and forgotten quality, as if the world had, without warning or explanation, fallen in love with someone else”.
Brett Johnson’s journey ended a little more than 10 years ago after playing 70 games for Hawthorn and Carlton. He is now the AFL Player Association’s general manager of player development, and says retirement is a fate that is likely to face over 100 players this year.
“Each year there are 120 or so stories,” says Johnson, “and each story is different, which is why we really need to tailor the support we provide.”
Player development and wellbeing is a relatively new support area in the AFL, and the AFLPA has spent much time elevating this area as an established part of the football program at clubs through initiatives such as Max 360, a resource that takes a more focused approach to player development.
“It starts as a conversation between the club and the player,” says Johnson. “Who they are, what their needs are and then the plan is developed on the back of that. Prior to this plan being put in place, not enough of these conversations were being had. There’s greater structure to it, so we can measure progress, rather than just ticking a box if a player is doing a TAFE or university course.”
In the previous collective bargaining agreement the AFLPA mandated that each club was to have a full-time person working in the player development space. And of the 11 key principles the AFLPA is working towards as part of the current collective bargaining agreement, one is player development and wellbeing, an area that Johnson sees as being crucial not only during a player’s career, but at the end of it.
“Players who struggle with the transition are ones who see themselves as a footballer only – it is a kind of identity piece. The guys that have a better balance with life and football tend to make that transition into retirement a lot easier.”
Johnson says that the AFLPA has started doing a longitudinal study on this, and are surveying past players annually to see if outcomes are improving. Duigan’s experience is an early indicator that the results are likely to be positive.
“I think it’s very important to be actively engaged in other things that aren’t all about self,” says Duigan. “Because a large part of footy needs you to be really introspective and really introverted – you have to be constantly wary of, ‘have I got any niggles’, ‘am I going to be right to perform’, ‘should I eat that or should I not’, ‘am I getting enough sleep’? It’s all me, me, me. And in a way it has to be to prepare appropriately for that level. But having something where you project outwards, with a connection to others and community left me in a far better position – I enjoyed playing more, I enjoyed training more. It helped me better perform.”
But no matter how well adjusted you may be, the end of a career is not without grief. “Even though I was grateful for having had the opportunity, and privileged to experience what I did, there was a process of loss, of grief around a loss of identity, loss of role, loss of connection to that purpose.”
But Duigan is hardly a man lacking for purpose, and was able to take a lot of what he learnt from Norwood and Carlton into his work at Headspace.
“A major part of what I got out of football was around developing team culture and developing an environment where people can thrive and people can feel safe to learn from their mistakes and become the best versions of themselves.”
In addition to his work with Headspace, one of the ways Duigan regained that connection and purpose was as coach of Towns Football Club in Geraldton for two years, where his motivation was to use his role as a vehicle to foster a connection within the community.
But come October, when lists are finalised and dreams snuffed, Duigan’s empathy will be with former team-mates and opponents in the AFL.
“A lot of players are able to get to the AFL on belief and you’re probably not able to be successful at that level unless there’s a big part of you that believes you’re worthy of being there.
“There probably wouldn’t have been too many players that have either been cut from a list or retired that thought that was the right thing, or that things couldn’t have gone differently. Whichever way you play it out, I’m sure all of those players would be saying, ‘jeez, if only…’”
Thankfully, the level of support they receive to make the transition into life outside of football is today a little more assured.
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This article was amended on 9 August to make clear the reasons for Nick Duigan’s retirement from AFL football.
