A group of 25-30 year 10 students from Fremont-Elizabeth High School travelled to Alberton Oval and met us in front of the Port Club where we lead them upstairs into the function room. After introducing ourselves and making them feel welcome, Russell went on to lead the discussion about their futures. There was a lot to talk about especially advice and ways to keep their options open while in the process of the most important years of their lives; so to speak.
Russell spoke about the pressure that is upon youth in their everyday lives - at school and at work. We spoke about possible career opportunities and how to achieve the best that you can during your life. A couple tips of advice that stood out to me would have been to THINK about everything don’t just go through life assuming its going to work and you have to work for everything, it is not going to be given to you.
After a short but thorough discussion on the topic one of the Power’s young guns, Jackson Trengove, spoke to the students of how he came to play at the Port Adelaide Football Club. Jackson spoke about the risks he had to take and the low points while in year 11 and 12 where his dreams of becoming an AFL footballer could have been easily crushed. He also spoke about all the players keeping their opportunities open as we learned that the average length of an AFL player’s career is 3.7 years. He explained how some players are still completing studies and working on their day off.
The group then proceeded to have a tour of Alberton Oval. The many different career opportunities were talked about, shown and proved, these included; the TAB, pokies, hospitality, event management, training, therapy & rehab, media, finances and customer relations. Jackson joined us on this tour and these staff and students were still talking about footy with him. After going through the training facilities and the future training facilities we went to the lecture room and Andrew Rondanelli, one of the Power sports trainers, came and spoke to the students. He explained all the different things his job entailed and he explained the pathway/process to where he got to today.
This program seems to be a real wake up call for the student’s futures and also is to inform us of all the many possibilities one can take on. It shows you need to work hard to get what you want to go and it definitely inspires students to fulfil their dreams after hearing from a range of different peoples stories.
