PAUL ROOS will forever be remembered as the man who coached the Sydney Swans to their first premiership in 72 years. The Swans defeated West Coast by four points in the 2005 AFL Grand Final, and went within a point of going back-to-back a season later.
Of course, as a player, premiership success eluded him during 17 seasons and 356 games with Fitzroy and the Swans.
The silverware of the Harbour City’s favourite football club sits proudly at the SCG, and Roos remains confident there is more space to fill in the trophy cabinet.
In an exclusive interview with sydneyswans.com.au, Roos discusses his life away from football, his relationship with players and his expectations as season 2008 dawns.
In the first instalment of a four-part series, reporter Catherine Murphy chats to Roos about his interests outside the football arena, including family life with wife, Tami, and sons Dylan and Tyler.
You’re the man in charge at Sydney. When you go home, are you the boss there as well?
Not really. Myself and Tami have a pretty equitable relationship. When I go home I just try and relax. I don’t want to boss anyone around at home. If anything, the kids boss me around.
Tami is a meditation teacher and has done some work with the players. Do the players get intimidated by the fact that it’s your wife working with them?
The classes were non-compulsory, so we left it up to the guys as to whether they’d do it. I’m very conscious of making sure players do things because they want to do it, not because the coach wants them to do it. So she worked with about 14 players and they had the classes at our house. They get on really well with her and are good friends. The younger ones are maybe a little bit intimidated that it’s the coach’s wife, but the likes of Brett Kirk and Craig Bolton are really good friends with Tami anyway.
It’s quite bizarre to think of 14 Sydney Swans meditating at your house. Can you reveal any of their mantras?
It’s one of those things that is personal for everyone so you can’t go into details. But there were two groups of seven: a younger group and a more experienced group. The smaller the groups, the better. I think the players got a lot out of it.
You have two kids, both boys. Are they sporty?
They play AFL and basketball. They both go to a private school so they have to play school sports. They’re quite active but the challenge now for kids is to get them away from Playstation games and all those sorts of things, like Wii. It’s a bit different to the Space Invaders and PacMan that we had when we were growing up.
Do you play Wii?
Yes, it’s good fun. I like NBA and bowling.
You said earlier that your kids boss you around. Do they ever tell you what you should or shouldn’t be saying on the news, and so on?
We’re lucky in Sydney. We get a good deal of publicity but it’s not over the top. It’s not as if I’m on the telly or in the papers all the time here. Sometimes if I am on, their mates at school will say, ‘I saw your dad on telly’. But they do like to tell me what I should be doing on game day. They’re starting to understand the game and are a lot more interested in tactics. More so Dylan (13), than Tyler (11). He’ll say, ‘Dad, why don’t you get Barry Hall to go in the ruck sometimes?’ Or, ‘Why didn’t you do this or that at the weekend?’.
What are you like when your kids play sport? Do you like to get involved?
I try to watch them as much as I can. They ask me for advice, and sometimes it’s hard because you don’t want to give them too much or maybe not enough. I’ll actually be coaching both of the boys (at footy) this year, which will be a bit more of a challenge. I’m going to be involved with both the Under-12s and the Under-14s, helping out a bit more on a coaching panel. Previous to this year I’ve just been sitting back and watching and helping out whenever I can.
When they play basketball I’ll go and watch. I played basketball as a kid so we’ll go and shoot around and play one-on-one and stuff like that. I’m still quite active physically so I enjoy playing tennis with them and going to kick the footy.
How will you be as a coach? Will you be trying to show the other kids that you don’t have favourites?
It’s a really good club and we’re fortunate that it’s a really good group of kids. There has been a lot of Swans players’ kids who’ve been at the club. Paul Kelly’s kids were involved when he lived here, so as a club I think they’re a bit blasé about Paul Roos being there because they’ve had so many AFL and Swans’ people. I’ll just try and give all the kids as much game time as I can, like the previous coaches have done.
But will you be a tough coach?
I like the discipline of sport. I don’t like when kids muck around at training and don’t give respect to the coaches. So I think I’ll be a hard disciplinarian, which is different to the way I am here (for the Swans). I just like the idea that when you do something, you do it to the best of your ability.
Are you the sort of dad that has your kids’ future mapped out, or are you more of a ‘wait and see’ type?
I’m probably more ‘see what happens’. Tami is American; Dylan probably makes more noises than Tyler about going to America. He’s got his sights really set on going over there, even at 13. I think he might like to go to college over there, which would be really good. I think there’s a possibility that at some time I won’t be living in Australia, but I don’t have it exactly mapped out.
Was that the deal when you got married, that you would spend time in America at some point?
The only thing we talked about definitely was that when I finished playing we would spend time in America – and we lived there in 1999 for 12 months. Tami loves Sydney and Australia, but we get back [to the US] when we can. There’s never been a discussion that she definitely wants to go back. Equally, I’m aware that it’s probably something she thinks about, but there’s never been a firm commitment or discussion relating to that.
So would you be as open to one of your kids getting a basketball scholarship in the US as you would be to them getting drafted the AFL?
prefers footy to basketball. But in terms of my aspirations for the boys, as
long as they enjoy themselves when they play, whatever they play I'll be
happy.
