I’m pretty sure it was a loss, so there’s a sense of walking-on-eggshells trepidation among the boys as we wait for the meeting to start.
Then-assistant coach John Barker stood up first and announced that something had come across his desk, and our eyes turned towards the screen.
Unfortunately, a deep-scour investigation of the worldwide web from this author, couldn’t uncover a link to a video of this ad…so you’ll just have to bear with a written description of the visual.
Essentially, as ‘Yaz’ is in his living room, describing to the audience how you could press play, pause and rewind live TV.
The ad reaches its dramatic conclusion after the TV shows Yaz’s famous ‘goal of the year’ against Richmond back in Round 1 earlier that year. He then turns his head to look down the barrel of the camera and says, before he voice-controls a rewinding the highlight: “And one more time for you, Eddie Betts!”
The entire amphitheatre shook with laughter, no one laughing harder than Eddie Betts himself.
Nine years, five children, four Club leading goal kicker awards, three All-Australian jackets, three Goal of the Year awards and two states of travel later, I couldn’t think of a better theme than Yaz’s beautifully-delivered one-liner to look back at the impact of the man, Eddie Betts – who just happens to play his 350th and last AFL match this weekend.
***
Meeting someone like Eddie when he turns from someone that you paid your hard-earned to watch dazzle the opposition from behind the fence, to becoming a teammate and colleague, is a unique experience.
He is probably without peer, the most-loved footballer in the current era, delighting his own set of fans at two clubs and levelling an adoration-respect by opposition supporters.
But I can truly say that meeting Eddie Betts and knowing the person beyond the persona has been one of my life’s most treasured experiences.
For at least the first 12 months of knowing him, I got to ride somewhat shot-gun to witness his incredible on-field impact. Although, the closest I got to pull on the same jumper as Eddie Betts was the team photo day.
However, I was fortunate enough and stupid enough to take him on in enough post-training goal kicking competitions to know that the freak goals, the anticipation to read the ball off hands from a marking contest and to seemingly read the bounce of the distinctively shaped Sherrin was much more the result of travail than trematode.
He has brought opposition defenders to their knees and his own fans to their feet.
The fact that he’s managed the feat at two separate clubs, with two separate fan bases in two separate towns is extraordinary. In Melbourne, where the conversation of football is brought up as frequently as the weather, and in Adelaide, where parochialism is held as a badge of honour.
He’s made opposition coaches smirk, and his own teammates guffaw with incredulity at his on-field exploits.
Individual highlights? There are simply too many to list. But maybe a top three?
1. The real estate of both the left and right forward flanks at the Northern End of Adelaide Oval to be immortalised as ‘Eddie’s pockets’
2. The collective stadium’s crescendo-ing of “Eddieeee” just about any time that he strolled near the footy, anticipated by both Blues and Crows fans; and
3. That he did, as he said he tried to do: “For me, all I want to do is put smiles on people’s faces.”
As Greg Baum put it on Tuesday in The Age, Eddie put a smile on the face of footy.
***
One more time for you, Eddie Betts.
That Eddie’s actual legacy will carry on much deeper than his on-field achievements, speaks everything you need to know about the man.
Eddie has, for nearly his entire footballing life, been the elder statesman and mentor to Indigenous players right across the code, and particularly within the four walls of the two clubs he has played at.
He is not perfect, nor lived the perfect life. Ed has been forward that the mistakes he made both at the start of his career plus his early-20s battles with alcohol, shaped who he is.
In my direct experiences, his relationships with Jeff Garlett and Chris Yarran saw the welfare advice he provided them hold equal importance to any score-assisting disposal on the park. During the second iteration of the infamous AFLX, Eddie took the entire ‘Deadly’ squad to MJ Bale, to ensure they were ‘suited up’ for the player arrival catwalk on game night.
Those sorts of relationships and influence have extended to non-Indigenous players such as Mitch Robinson and Mitch’s fiancée Emma – a Yamatji Martu woman – who have become mentors in their own ways when Mitch moved clubs to the Brisbane Lions, taking on the same influence that Eddie had on him.
Much has been made – and rightly so – of Eddie’s interview on FOX FOOTY’s AFL 360.
It was in fact the second time he’d had to front a footy panel show and broken down in despair that – for all the education, the backslapping of a majority-white establishment becoming ‘progressive’ and certain individuals posterising for the sake of good PR – the trust he had in humanity had been broken again as racial vilification continued to rear its head.
Not just to him personally, but to all the Indigenous figures that make up the Australian Rules footballing community – past and present.
As Tony Armstrong put it succinctly on two separate occasions: “Too often it is left to too few”, and “We (Indigenous peoples) always have to — with a smile on our face — be the ones who take the higher ground, not be angry, be the ones to put the olive branch out and educate”.
As someone who has had the privilege to get to know him, it has been hard to grapple with how we got to the position that we’re in; where someone with such an infectious personality and spirit as Eddie’s, could be broken.
For those who, like me, have got to experience Eddie – the person, not just the footballer – have left better people. As generous with his spirit as he is his time, one distinctive memory I have of Ed was at Carlton’s Family Day at Princes Park.
At this stage, his now-wife Anna was pregnant with first-born, Lewis.
And at this Family Day, Eddie must’ve done close to 5,000 autographs for kids, mums, mums with kids, and dads who acted like kids when Eddie shook their hands.
But it was when Eddie laid his eyes on a baby being held by a Carlton supporter mother – after five thousand smiles for cameras, five thousand handshakes and five thousand autographs – that his widest smile came out. The look on his face is something I’ve not forgotten.
The Carlton-supporting parent might have been thrilled to see Eddie, but Ed was much more excited to see the baby and asked questions about the baby’s sleep patterns, what they fed him and nappy changes.
At the time, in a few short months, Eddie was going to be a father himself and the look of excitement then has seemingly carried him through every moment of his life.
And, from watching from afar, the effect that Lewy, Billy, Alice, Maggie and little Eddie Jnr have had on how Eddie uses his platform to give back to the community, has been as heart-warming as his exploits on the field.
Kindness has been at the heart of his every breath – as a footballer, a husband, a father, a mentor and an author…
***
One more time for you, Eddie Betts.
…and as a friend.
Unlike 2012 – we don’t talk to each other every day or see each other every day.
When we stopped being ‘colleagues’ and stopped calling Princes Park our mutual workplace, Eddie kept going with his storied football career, while I chose a different path, a long way from being even a remotely-decent footballer.
But when we do catch-up, the 350-gamer has a way of making me feel like I’ve won three Brownlow Medals.
In between, he sends the odd ‘Happy Birthday’ message. He always takes the time to respond to a message congratulating him on the new arrival, new book or latest milestone. He has always asked and been interested in what I’ve been up to, and then he always remembers the details of our last conversation the next time we catch up.
During the AFLX tournament, I’d managed to secure GQ Australia to cover the ‘fashion of AFLX’ during the player’s entrance, with Eddie one of the players interviewed.
At the end, Eddie asked the reporter which team they followed, to which they replied: “Carlton”.
Eddie then pointed at me: “See him? Carlton legend.”
He cackled, gave a handshake followed by a quick embrace and said: “Make sure this one’s front cover, Lodge,” before he disappeared.
Far be it from me wanting to further crowbar a very short and disappointing AFL career into this article, what the said career has done has brought me in contact with some very special people, and Eddie Betts III is at the top of the tree.
His football career has encapsulated every emotion that could be felt in football.
The rest of life is set to encapsulate a positive impact that I hope is felt for generations to come.
The one thing for Eddie that I hope this week, is that since he wrote “I hope at some point in my career I was able to put a smile on your face” on his Instagram on Monday, that he has felt the outpouring of love and adoration that justifies exactly what he had hoped.
My GWS GIANTS come up against Carlton on Saturday night in what I’m sure will be an emotionally charged match for one club wanting to secure the most unlikely of AFL Finals places, and the other club desperate to appropriately send-off one of their very best footballers.
In a world experiencing a week without a lot of hope, here's to one last bit of magic.
One more time for you, Eddie Betts.
