St Joseph’s prepared Sam for AFL

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22 October 2018

By Lachie Young

Sam Walsh may just be the best player available in what is being touted as one of the strongest drafts in years.

Quick, poised with ball in hands and ‘footy smart’, he has the attributes that every club is looking for.

But he also knows that talent alone never gets young footballers drafted and it certainly doesn’t guarantee a flourishing or sustained career.

Walsh has achieved nearly all that he can in junior football, including captaining the Geelong Falcons and Vic Country and claiming the Larke Medal as the MVP of the national under-18s championships, and the likelihood is that he will have his name read aloud first at next month’s AFL draft.

But the 18-year-old says the foundations upon which his on field success has been built were laid not in the gym or on the training track, but in the classrooms of the famous football factory, St Joseph’s College, Newtown.

Here, he says, he learnt that being a footballer was just one component of what his life after school was going to involve and during his time at St Joseph’s, Walsh came to realise that the more time he spent with people from all backgrounds, the more rounded he would be away from the playing field.

‘At this stage I have spoken to most of the clubs and I have had about 10 or 12 come to my house, which has been a good process,’ Walsh said.

‘All of them are different but they already know a lot about your football so they come down to see what your character is like, your mindset and surroundings, so that has been good.

‘You always want to present well to those clubs who come down to your house, so with having so many people in our year level my mindset has been about trying to get to know a lot about other people and that builds friendships.

‘If you are building relationships you can do things like lead a year level or help out another person and from an early time at Joeys it was pretty evident that if you were able to build friendships and get along well with everyone, and be respected, that you could lead, and that has definitely helped in my footy.’

College principal, Tony Paatsch, coached the St Joseph’s senior boys team through the 2000s and looks at the alumni on AFL lists with a sense of pride and contentment.

Two — Shaun Higgins and Tom Stewart — were All-Australians this year, while a further two — Tom Doedee and Jack Henry — were nominated for NAB Rising Star honours.

In addition to that quartet, names such as Jasper Pittard, Allen Christensen, Luke Dahlhaus, Darcy Gardiner, Jackson Nelson, Sam Simpson, Matthew Ling and Tom and Pat McCartin appear on lists across the competition, while premiership captains Nick Maxwell and Cameron Ling and Brownlow medallist Jimmy Bartel — as well as countless others — are also past students.

Paatsch has tried to put his finger on what it is that makes St Joseph’s such a strong breeding ground for AFL players but suspects it is the type of people they are off the field rather than on it that clubs find so appealing.

‘We have got a lot of boys in the school and most of those people who are drafted, the majority of their football is developed elsewhere at their home clubs and at the Falcons, and while they have the opportunity to play for the school and we are in a strong competition, there has got to be something extra,’ Paatsch said.

‘We have speculated around whether it is just the kinds of people we produce, rather than the kinds of footballers.

‘It is stuff like every boy in the place doing community service and just the kinds of values of the place. We think that makes students coming out of here more likely to be drafted than students coming out of other places, and that is just speculation, there is no hard evidence around that.

‘But if you look at someone like Sam, he is the college vice-captain, he has got incredible support and recognition from staff and from students and that values base, which is partly from home and partly from school, makes him really attractive to football clubs — as well as the fact that he is obviously a really good footballer.’

Paatsch does not subscribe to the theory that young boys who want to play AFL choose St Joseph’s College because it will help them realise their dream.

But Walsh, who was originally from outside of Geelong, said it was difficult not to look at who had gone before.

He has not spoken to Patty McCartin about dealing with life as a number one draft pick because he is still genuinely uncertain if that is where he will go, but he has kept in touch with Doedee for advice on finding a balance between school and footy.

Walsh insists, however, that the staff and his classmates had made the year far easier for him as he deals with the constant speculation about when he will go in the draft and who will call his name.

‘When I enrolled at Joeys I had just moved to Geelong and didn’t really know anyone here so you hear the names of Jimmy Bartel and Cameron Ling, and while that wasn’t the reason I wanted to come here, if you love your footy you take an interest in who has come before you, so that stood out for me,’ Walsh said.

‘But who I have surrounding me in my year level, with teachers and support, the values that they hold in high regard means everyone gets along pretty well and we are all in it together. That mindset helps keep you grounded but you don’t think about it too much, you just try to be part of the school culture.

‘I see Joeys as being a massive help in what I have strived to do. This year has been massive and I think having school has been a really good balance as I am not always thinking about footy.

‘There is a bit of outside noise, which you can’t really read too much into because it is out of your control, but our leadership teachers have been a massive help in finding balance and being organised.’

Such is the maturity with which Walsh speaks, Paatsch says is difficult to accept that he is indeed only in Year 12.

But after coaching both Bartel and Maxwell and witnessing up close the way that Walsh has handled himself this year, he knows that whichever club he ends up at next month will have one of the best he has seen come through the system.

‘We have got a particular way of viewing the world at St Joseph’s and we encourage boys to view it that way,’ Paatsch said.

‘It is very altruistic, it is putting other people before yourself, it is being aware of the needs of others — particularly those most in need — and it is those types of characteristics that add to someone’s portfolio when they are being looked at by an AFL club.

‘You have a conversation with Sam and halfway through I’m often thinking to myself “who is the adult in this conversation?”

‘He is just very mature and he is not in the big three of our student leadership structure by accident, he is there because he is absolutely about as good as you get in terms of those types of characteristics.

‘I coached Jimmy Bartel and he stood out as a bona fide superstar and Nick Maxwell stood out as a leader, but Sam has both, so who knows what the future holds but it will be pretty special for him I think.’

This article was originally published in the Geelong Advertiser on 20 October 2018.