Pressure, the fighter pilot and champion cricketer Keith Miller once said, was a Messerschmitt up your arse. It’s a quote often wheeled out by Mark Latham types bemoaning a world gone soft. It bobbed up a few times last week in regards to AFL coaches, who are apparently stressed, under-resourced and burnt out. Two of the most successful coaches of their generation stepped away from the game in recent weeks. “Coaches feel like the scum of the industry,” Caroline Wilson said. Even Craig McRae spoke of the enormous toll it takes on his wellbeing and his family life.
Not everyone is convinced. “Let’s stop pretending that earning between $600,000 and a million dollars a season to coach one of 18 AFL teams is the worst job in the world,” Kane Cornes said. “It’s arguably the best. Being a doctor and making sure a diagnosis brings pressure – a surgeon, a nurse, a real estate agent taking phone calls from buyers at all hours seven days a week and trying to sell someone’s most significant asset for the best possible price would have its moments. If they don’t list and sell homes, they don’t eat.”
Now I draw the line at real estate agents. Still, what Cornes says is true. These men are paid incredibly well. No one is forcing them to coach. There are Australians dealing with real stress, with real problems, who are earning a tenth of what an AFL coach takes home. But it’s worth reflecting on what’s happening here. Why are so many burning out and exiting the system? Is it simply a matter of resources and workload? Is the media a factor? Is it, as Chris Scott said last year, simply “not a very good job”.
In the past week, the conversation has centred around the reduction in the soft cap. Sam Mitchell says it’s ridiculous that the salaries of players and administrators have never been greater, while the coaches are being paid at 75% of pre pandemic levels. For assistant coaches in particular, it’s often easier, more lucrative and far less stressful to be the director of coaching at a big private school.
The media’s role shouldn’t be glossed over in all this. Martin McKenzie Murray wrote a savage piece for the Saturday Paper at the weekend on this very topic. “It never seemed to occur to anyone in the footy media this week that their witlessly feverish chatter might have played a role in his [Hardwick’s] exhaustion, or that footy’s infernal Hot Take Machine now resembles a giant industrial chimney, proudly belching out great clouds of psychic pollution … Hardwick tried graciously in his press conference to express how the job was simultaneously a great privilege and an intense burden. Our collective, often puerile, lack of perspective plays a part in the latter while making sacred the first.”
Five minutes of Footy Classified backs that up. On Wednesday night, two rants, three Sportsbet ads and four anecdotes in, Eddie McGuire finally drew breath and dropped his bombshell. Adam Simpson, he said, would take a three-month holiday with his family and “just get out of town”. “You watch Adam Simpson, and it’s like watching someone age in front of you,” he said.
At that precise moment, I tried to put myself in Simpson’s shoes. Your team’s being belted every week. You have about 25 players to choose from. You’re staring down a long rebuild. And here’s this gameshow host, speaking like he’s just uncovered the Watergate scandal, breathlessly speculating on your holiday plans. Is this a normal job? Is this a normal life?
A few days later, on SEN’s Fireball Friday program, David King and Cornes interviewed Alistair Nicholson, the CEO of the AFL Coaches’ Association. Prior to Covid, 60% of the coaches he surveyed said they had a good work-life balance. By last year, that had dropped to 26%. “The consistent view, from the coaches that are going really well, to the coaches that are really struggling, is the challenge of the relentlessness of it,” he said. The next morning, on the same station, King, Gerard Whateley and Mark Maclure played ‘Coaching Wildcard’, where they rifled through all 18 coaches and assessed their chances of being in the job next year – “100%, 50-50 or goneski”.
All in all, it’s pretty harmless stuff. But it’s a reminder that the same people who’ll joke and josh with you on air will sign your proverbial papers with lip smacking glee. Some handle that reality better than others. Ken Hinkley’s job is discussed by his boss on Sunrise. Last year, someone erected a “Sack Hinkley” sign in Port Adelaide. Last week, Matthew Lloyd asked him how he dealt with the stress of being an AFL coach. “I lock myself in a room,” he laughed. “Footy never makes you feel comfortable,” he said on Sunday.” “I still love it as much as I did a long time ago, but it still creates pressure. I’ll be honest – it’s not always easy to sleep.” Being an older coach helps. And winning certainly helps. His team has now won eight on the trot. They may well win the premiership. But if the wins dry up, the wolves will circle and the stress will mount.
The man he was originally slated to face on Sunday was instead on his couch at 10 in the morning, necking a beer and patting his dog. The overwhelming impression, as with nearly every coach who steps away from the game, was one of relief; a weight lifted, a normal life resumed, a Messerschmitt no longer in the rear vision mirror.
