HAWTHORN defender Rick Ladson looks to his teammates for inspiration on the training track, but his greatest lessons over the past few years may come from his work with troubled children as part of an Anglicare “big brother” program.
Alongside Hawk Chance Bateman last year, Ladson met weekly with a small group of 10-12-year-olds from the Bayswater area in Melbourne’s east.
“We’d run a program where we might go out for a kick, or sit down and go through choices and consequences, that sort of thing,” Ladson says.
“We brought them to training one day and took them around and met a few of the boys and they were just stoked with that. It’s a good experience for them and for us.”
Ladson was able to pass on valuable lessons from his experience at a top-level football club, such as learning to accept support from your mates.
“You don’t have to be in it yourself. If you’re in a bit of trouble you can talk to your mate about it instead of bottling it up and maybe making the wrong choice in the end.”
Witnessing the kids’ personal transformations over the eight-week program was an eye-opener for Ladson, who says he learned something from his young charges in return.
“A never give-up attitude. If things aren’t going your way, then you’ve just got to find a way to make you happy.
“I think that’s what the kids ended up doing. They found something that they enjoyed, and a group of kids that were trying to do the same thing and they helped each other get something out of it.
“I really enjoy helping out kids. Just the joys of seeing their faces when they achieve something is really good.
“It’s something I’ve been looking into and I’m doing a similar thing this year over in Tassie with some older kids, so we’ll see how that pans out.”
On the training track with Hawthorn, Ladson looks for inspiration to players like Brad Sewell, Sam Mitchell, Tim Clarke, Chance Bateman and Danny Jacobs, who returns to form after two seasons of injury woes.
With regional training sessions at Dandenong and Pakenham adding some variety to the pre-season, the Hawks are “jumping out of their skin” to get the season started and continue last year’s momentum, Ladson says.
“We got a taste of finals football, which is fantastic for our young group, and going into this year we’ve just got to take what happened out of the finals series, more importantly that last loss, that bitter taste, if we can turn that around.
“We’ve got a lot of things to work on. We’re doing that at the moment and hopefully that will come out in our games.”
After a 2005 season cut short by injury, Ladson, 24, underwent a maturing phase in 2006-07. Discovering his strengths and limitations, he’s also learned a lot about managing his body, and has been rewarded with a top-10 spot in the Hawks’ best and fairest in both years.
“You start reading your body and listening to your body. That’s probably why I played a lot of games in two years,” he says.
“I’ve made some little steps over the last couple of years to playing consistent football. I want to maintain that for the upcoming year and hopefully go on with that a bit more.
“When you’re playing consistent footy and playing in the senior side a lot, you mature a lot, game by game. If the team is going well, usually individuals play well, consistently, which is the main thing.”
