Weekly Times | ONE of the things that most frustrates Jake Edwards is people who say they have no regrets.
Edwards has had his fair share of life’s highs and lows — he has played at AFL level and won individual awards, but he’s also battled mental health and drug issues.
Now he shares his stories so others can learn from his mistakes.
The former Carlton footballer, 27, who plays with Ballarat league club Darley, co-founded Outside the Locker Room, a program for teenagers and young adults within sporting clubs.
OTLR aims to educate and support youths in the challenges they may face, tackling issues such as suicide, depression, resilience, drugs and alcohol, and professionalism.
“We don’t worry about the 10 goals on the weekend,” Edwards says.
“This is focusing on them as young adults and building them up to be resilient and strong enough ... so that when they do face the challenges in the community they can actually step away from them.
“They’re the areas I failed in and I just wanted to make sure there’s a program that can go back and work with these kids.”
Football has always been part of Edwards’ life.
His father, Allan “Butch” Edwards, played more than 100 VFL games, as did his grandfather and great-grandfather. Cousin Shane O’Bree played for Collingwood.
Edwards was drafted to Carlton in 2005, but his senior debut was not until 2008. He played five games before he was delisted at the end of the 2009 season. He then trained with the Western Bulldogs but was not picked up in the draft.
At that point Edwards says he considered walking away from football completely, but his older brothers, Jarrod and Dwayne, persuaded him to join them at Darley.
“I felt like I lost the love of footy during that time but coming back to local level and playing with my brothers and some mates, it really built up that fire in me again,” Edwards says.
He decided to return to elite football in 2011, and was part of Port Melbourne’s undefeated season in the VFL. He returned to Darley in 2012, and in 2013 won the Ballarat league best-and-fairest award.
But if things were going well on the field, behind the scenes it was not always easy.
Edwards was diagnosed with depression while he was at Carlton and he describes it as a diagnosis he “couldn’t comprehend”.
He says things “spiralled out of control” once his AFL career came to an end — he still believes he “threw it away” — and he battled issues with drugs, especially alcohol, on top of his depression.
Then last year — a relationship had ended and his former business was failing — after a four-day bender he resolved to commit suicide. A timely phone call from his father, by pure coincidence, saved his life, and he immediately sought professional help.
It’s a very dark place to look back on, but it’s one of the experiences he shares with young people in the Outside the Locker Room sessions.
“It took me a while to really own it, to accept that those thoughts went through my head,” Edwards says.
“Now how do I think? I try and use it to benefit other people. It shelters off any negative connotation I could have of this experience, that I am doing a good thing here.”
The concept for OTLR was conceived last year.
Ayda Hornak has known Edwards since he was 19 and says even then he was interested in developing a program like this. Edwards also knew Carlton premiership player Glenn Manton through working with Whitelion — a mentoring program for youths in the justice system — during his time with Carlton.
With OTLR they wanted to offer a mentoring and education program for young people that, crucially, offered continuing support.
Hornak, former AFL footballers Manton, Luke Ball and Heath Black, and Windana Drug and Alcohol Recovery chief executive Anne-Maree Kaser helped Edwards develop the new initiative as the advisory board.
The OTLR program includes three sessions over the football season, and attendees can remain in contact with their mentors over a 12-month period.
Last month the OTLR app was launched.
Edwards has no formal counselling training and sees his role with OTLR as mentoring and getting kids to open up through the workshops.
The advisory board members were approached for their experience. Kaser, who at Windana deals with people addicted to drugs and alcohol, was keen to get involved at the preventive end of the issue.
Kaser says having Edwards share his own experiences is a great approach as young people are more likely to respond to someone with the “lived experience”.
She says it is early days for the program but describes it as a “fantastic vehicle” for clubs — and through them, communities — to understand the issues and take active, preventive roles”.
“The program will go in and deliver to the community for a period of time; the other services are there continually. It’s important to leave people with the right support if they need them,” Kaser says.
“(It’s) almost destigmatising and giving young people the confidence or freedom to put their hands up and say ‘This is an issue for me’ … and the adults in the community to recognise and understand how to get support and assistance in their own local area.”
Hornak is “so proud” of the program, and says the feedback from the workshops’ participants “absolutely blows my mind”.
Victorian clubs have jumped on OTLR, including 13 from the Goulburn Valley, Murray and Kyabram District leagues. AFL Goulburn Murray football development manager Trevor Mellington says he is “absolutely certain” the sessions with Manton — OTLR’s head facilitator — and Edwards are changing the kids’ lives.
“I’ve had individuals come to me — kids, I’m talking teenage kids — say it’s the best thing they’ve done in their life and the feedback from the clubs is, ‘This is fantastic because our club desperately needs this level of support’,” Mellington says.
“What clubs are starting to realise is they’re more than just on-field. There’s a capacity to be able to offer support off-field that could have implications far more broadly reaching than whether you get a kick or you can throw a goal.”
Edwards recently became OTLR’s sole owner — Hornak has taken up a new opportunity, but remains on the advisory board — and plans to branch the program into cricket, basketball and rugby clubs over summer.
He says he has accepted that depression is part of who he is. He is enjoying football again and spending time with his family — his brother Jarrod is Darley’s coach. “Football now is a hobby. That’s the way I like to look at it,” Edwards says. “For me at this level it is all about family.”
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