WHEN Ed Curnow was drafted by Adelaide in 2008, his youngest brother Charlie watched the midfielder move from home in Geelong, spend one year at the Crows and then be delisted.
Charlie watched how much that hurt his brother, but how it motivated him, too. He saw Ed balance his disappointment with moving on: he returned to Victoria, joined VFL club Box Hill, became a consistent player and begun to attract attention again.
After two seasons, Carlton gave Ed a second shot at an AFL career in the 2011 rookie draft, and he has flourished since, registering 66 senior games in four seasons and proving to be a valuable member of the Blues' midfield.
It has left Charlie, a tall, running and raw key forward eligible for this year's NAB AFL Draft, with a strong sense of the demands of the top level he wants to join at the end of the season.
"Ed's been awesome and it's given me a really good insight into what can happen," Curnow told AFL.com.au on the NAB AFL Academy's training camp in Florida.
"When he was delisted, it really showed your career can end whenever, but he came back and was really determined to do well.
"He's shown me you can't really lose sight of what your aim is and not to get lost in the other stuff that comes with it."
A growth spurt a year-and-a-half ago kickstarted Charlie Curnow's improvement, which saw him perform well at TAC Cup level last year for the Geelong Falcons.
At 191cm and 92kg, Curnow likes to bustle through packs, he marks well and has some presence when he's searching for the ball.
"I enjoy the battle. It's good having competition," he said.
That might be explained by some backyard contests growing up. Charlie, Ed and middle brother George, who also played for the Falcons, used to transform their family shed into an ice hockey rink, rollerblading around on the concrete floor.
"There were a few barbecues in the back shed so people got knocked into them a bit. I was pretty small back then and Ed's always been really competitive so he never let us beat him," Curnow said.
There has been other help from his siblings. His older sisters also carry athletic genes, with 800-metre runner Eliza and pentathlon Charlotte completing at national levels. Charlie felt the benefits of it.
"I did a lot of running last pre-season with my sister and I love my athletics," he said. "Not many people would like that sort of stuff but it helps to enjoy it."
Curnow's impressive performances last year saw him added to the level two academy group, which is now in the middle of a 10-day training camp in Florida.
After a quad niggle, Curnow returned to training on Wednesday at Tampa's IMG Academy where the team is staying. The 17-year-old hopes it's the last complaint he gets as he looks ahead to a big, busy and important year.
"It's obviously really exciting but you need to stay in reality, and that's why it's good to see what happened to Ed, and to know you have to keep working," he said.
"Anything can happen so you have to stay on top of it."
