Dispelling The Ugly Parent Syndrome At Junior Sport With Rod Campbell

Rod Campbell is one of the most positive and passionate people that I have ever met.

A lifelong firefighter whose passion for educating young people has helped reduce the trauma of road incidents across a sustained period of more than a decade in one of the most vulnerable times in young kids' lives in their teenage years.

Rod is a father of five who shares my passion for wanting to change what we both see as the escalating bad behaviour of parents at junior sport.

In my view, the crazy actions of many adults at junior sport, abusing junior umpires, screaming and yelling from the sidelines at their kids and the opposition, actual physical violence, zero regard for the experience of other teams and their kids, aggressive coaches who are stacking teams, are all causing problems for our kids and their enjoyment of sport in what is a devastating way.

Rod's education program to teach the values of respect for sportsmanship.

Is for me a huge part of the answer.

What we've seen is junior leagues forced to create a number of legislative rules to try and combat this bad behaviour.

Banning parents from the field, creating umpire escorts, huge suspensions, tribunal hearings.

Whilst this has a role to play for extreme bad behaviour, it doesn't seem to be working at anywhere near the level it should.

Rod's program of educating, positive reinforcement of good behaviour.

To me is a huge part of what we do.

It's what we need to do to create better junior sporting environments for all of us and our kids going forward.

Every parent, in my view, you need to listen to this conversation.

I generally think there's a crisis out there in junior sport.

We all need to be part of the change.

Rod Campbell can be a big part of that.

It's wonderful leadership stories like Rod Campbell's that inspire the work we do at Alita.

In particular, it's our Alita Connect Signature for Spoke Leadership Forum that I want to talk to you about again today.

We're currently curating groups.

We're all around the world and one with Rod Campbell in mind.

He's a fireman, passionate about junior sport, as you're about to hear, but has great values of positivity, impacting others.

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Rod Campbell is a firefighter, football coach,

and father of five who has dedicated his adult life to helping people.

Rod uses the superpower of selflessness to inspire others to make someone else's day better.

Rod has been honoured with the Australian Fire Service Medal

for his inspirational efforts in educating adolescents in road safety.

Rod's road awareness campaign he coordinated for 15 years resulted in a 75% reduction in fatalities

in the 16 to 19-year-old bracket in South Australia

and a reduction in serious injuries of over one-third in that time.

Rod has created an education program, Learning Life Through Sport,

to tackle what, in my view, is a crisis in bad parenting behaviour in junior sport in Australia and around the world.

Rod, I've been looking forward to catching up with you and lots to talk about.

Thanks for joining me.

Yeah, thanks, Luke.

I'm really excited to be here.

Your dad, Graham Campbell, is a Hall of Famer at the Fitzroy Football Club in the AFL.

He played against my dad, David, in the VFL,

and they became great players.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They've been great mates, broadcasting football for many years in South Australia.

To sit in the back of the commentary box behind my dad and your dad,

I think they'd both be smiling now, knowing that we're catching up today, Rod.

Yeah, I think they'd be genuinely excited by that, Luke.

And when we first met, we shared a few anecdotes about our dads,

and I know we share the same love and passion for family and for our dads,

so we have that in common, which is lovely.

Your impact on reducing the road toll is a brilliant story.

Can you tell us how you went about it?

Yeah.

Yeah, thanks, Luke.

So it was in the MFS.

I'm a firefighter, qualified firefighter.

I was working in that space as a station officer,

and the predecessor who ran the road awareness program fell ill with cancer,

and he asked me just to look after the program.

I was a footy coach at the time at different levels,

and he thought footy coaches would be good in presenting the program.

So, yeah, I came into it and changed it up a bit.

We needed to sort of modernize it a bit.

It was a bit clunky, and it was like firefighters presenting in road safety,

so we created a PowerPoint.

The presentation and the strength of it was getting crash survivors in

so they could tell their story.

So it was either people who'd survived crashes,

so they were quadriplegics, paraplegics, people with brain injuries,

or parents who'd lost kids in crashes.

So one of my closest friends, Kim, lost his two children,

his wife and his kid's best friend in a crash.

So his whole family went in one crash.

And to just see the selflessness of these people

and the emotion that we would create in the room and that genuineness,

so what we wanted to do was not change things through enforcement.

We weren't seeing that as working,

but we wanted to empower people and inspire them to do things differently.

So we created some mottos.

One of them was looking after our mates, so rap looking after our mates,

so we kind of Australianized it.

But also one of our key sayings was you get to choose the risk,

but you don't get to choose the consequence.

So we would show people, young people aged 16 to 19,

so usually around about year 11 students in South Australia,

and we got the opportunity to present it around.

The risks that we choose and the consequences we couldn't control.

And ultimately we would want to empower and inspire them

to want to be better behaved,

so to be selfless on the roads and care about others.

I think we just inherit these selfish behaviours on the roads.

And because the students we would talk to,

their parents were around about my age,

we didn't have much road safety education,

but we were exposing these young people to education

and how they could look after their mates.

So the difference in the road toll we couldn't claim as the MFFs

and we don't.

But what we could say is that the young people

certainly were making the change that we needed to see.

So while we provided the vehicle, they were providing the change.

And that's where I learnt that education is the key

and that's what I use now in learning life through sport.

And Roy, we understand on the road

that there virtually aren't a lot of accidents.

They're mostly through high risk taking behaviour,

whether it be alcohol or speeding or someone doing something

that is, as you described,

selfish in a car.

And I thought the road toll was almost capped.

You couldn't make an impact.

So when you got to the 16-year-olds consistently

and you explained it in this way,

we're talking, you know, 70, 80, 90 lives a year

and then another massive bracket of people

that had life-changing injuries

that literally it didn't happen to.

So education can work even in those circumstances.

It's a powerful message, isn't it?

Yeah, until you expose people to a different way to go about it,

they don't know.

They don't know.

They don't know.

They don't know.

They don't know.

And in the road safety space,

we wouldn't talk about accidents

because accidents are unavoidable.

We talk about crashes

because crashes, someone is responsible.

And you're right, Dar,

so three major killers on our roads,

people driving under the influence,

people speeding or distracted drivers,

and they probably make up, you know,

up to 90, a high proportion,

98% of crashes that occur

are because of things that we do,

so behaviours that we have.

And if they can see the outcomes of those behaviours

and in a way where they're emotionally impacted

by these guest presenters,

so they can see how their lives have changed,

and they don't want that to be them,

they don't want their parents to have a crash like that,

they don't want their friends to go through that,

so we really bring it to the forefront.

We don't hide anything, like it's in your face,

but it's real.

If you want to be on the roads and you want to drive,

this is what you're up against,

or these are the risks that we're choosing,

the consequences we can't control.

So we want to trust you.

We want you guys to make the difference,

and that's what we're seeing in South Australia on the roads.

The young people have been amazing.

Rod, I wanted to get that story out

because it sets up ostensibly

the reason why I wanted to sit down with you.

It's a shared passion that we have,

nine children between the two of us.

Junior sport is a great passion of both of us.

It changed my life as a kid,

and for me, junior sport should be the happiest place on earth.

It should be the most fun for all kids,

regardless of ability, regardless of standard,

but having spent a fair bit of my life

either as a kid playing it and now as a dad around it,

it's not that for me at all.

The fun has gone.

The fun has gone for a lot of young kids,

and I think every parent needs to listen to this conversation,

and I couldn't be more passionate about it.

What I've seen, I've got four kids ranging from 20 to 12,

so I've spent a huge amount of time around junior sport.

The behavior of parents is horrific.

It's out of control.

It's ruining junior sport for a whole generation of kids,

and I get emotive about it because it is literally that upsetting.

Am I overstating it, Rod?

What's your thoughts?

No, I'm on the same page, Luke.

You might be understating it, to be fair.

I've experienced the same thing.

My youngest is 12 years old.

He plays footy, and I go right up to 29 years old.

He's my eldest daughter.

As I said, I've got five kids,

and for that whole period, I haven't seen any change.

I appreciate all the leagues and footy I'm mainly involved in,

but I've been involved in basketball, netball, other sports,

but I think everyone's working hard in the space,

but we're not getting the results that we want to see,

and it's this inherited behavior.

It's this inherited behavior that we have

that seems to be the excuse for how we behave,

and if you just want to look at one example, Luke,

and I only developed this program at the end of last year,

which is Learning Life Through Sport,

which I've shared with you,

and we share the passion to try and create

and be part of that change,

but once again, it'll be the coaches that create the change.

It'll be the leagues that create the change

or the sporting bodies that create the change,

and the program is the vehicle to do it,

but when I was reading and researching it,

there were stories in papers all over Australia,

but one really grabbed my attention.

It was in the Herald Sun,

and it was a story about umpires and junior umpire abuse,

and it went to a quote, and it said,

where else in society would two adults be able

to virtually stand on the side of an oval

and just hurl abuse at a 14-year-old,

and this might be a 14-year-old kid

who's in a green shirt, right, boy or girl,

because they're the umpire, but that's our right, okay?

So if we're in footy as an example,

and other sports are similar, we know that,

and we'll show examples of that,

but let's use footy

as the example.

So we've inherited this behavior.

When you go to the footy,

and you're a junior parent or a junior coach,

because the coaches have the biggest impact,

it seems like it's almost okay,

or it's your right to abuse the umpire.

At what point that ever became okay,

you know, I find hard to fathom.

I was brought up, I imagine, like you with your dad,

and we respected the umpire's decision,

but we don't see that out there in society,

and as soon as we get to a junior game,

at any age group, you'll hear it from the sidelines.

You'll hear the parents buying in.

You'll hear coaches commentating.

And screaming out,

ball, come on, ump, you know,

what about that decision?

And then they enable their players to do the same,

so then the players start commentating it,

and all of a sudden,

there's this massive disrespect for the umpire

who's out there to try and do a wrong.

So in this instance, the example that I gave,

you've got a 14-year-old umpire out there.

Who's supporting them?

And I would ask parents out there,

do you want the governing body or the league

to create a safe environment for your children

to play sport, to play footy,

boys or girls in footy?

And I'd imagine that their answer would be,

yes, is that what you expect, Luke?

100%, yeah, absolutely.

So do you expect it to be a safe environment

for the umpires?

Because that's someone's son or daughter as well.

Correct there, Rod.

And I talk to people overseas,

and I explain that in our leagues,

we have parents who have to escort

the 14-year-old umpires to the centres.

And I understand why leagues legislate.

So you've got umpire escorts whose job is

to protect these kids from other parents

who may say something horrifically abusive

or even physically intimidate young umpires.

Now, I've seen on more than a dozen occasions

the umpire escorts abusing the umpires

who are 14-year-old kids.

That's how crazy this has got.

You and I have shared a lot of correspondence

over the past sort of 18 months.

And even in preparation for today,

you're on a Zoom in the last week

with Chris Donnellan.

He's a 400-game AFL umpire.

He's the president of the AFL Umpiring Association.

Have a listen to this grab from him.

He's given us permission to share it.

This is someone who's been around the game

for a long period of time.

He's been around the game for a long period of time.

He's been around the game for a long period of time.

He's been around the game for a long period of time.

You'll hear him talk about his daughter

who umpires Division III community sport.

Have a listen to the language that Chris Donnellan's

talking about how bad junior sport's got.

If I could just show you some of the threats

and other stuff that's been said,

I mean, it's disgusting.

But we've got avenues.

It's okay for us.

You know, my daughter, she's umpiring

community football, Division III sometimes.

And, I mean, you guys and girls would know this.

It is horrendous, right?

We're the blessed ones.

We're the lucky ones.

We've got protection.

You know, we can go to Integral.

We can go to Integrity and have people's accounts

pulled down or whatever, or police officers

knocking on doors, or AFL Integrity, you know,

rescinding memberships, all sorts of things.

We've got all levers we can pull.

But I see it on a weekly basis at local footy,

coaches behaving like ignorant pricks,

players wanting to punch on and belt each other up,

spectators full of piss and booze,

just creating all sorts of stress and anxiety.

And, you know, I'm looking at this cohort,

apologies, but it's not a young cohort.

And umpiring is going to be in serious trouble

if we don't start creating safer environments,

and I mean match day environments, for officials.

Because my daughter, she's lucky that I'm there

to support her.

Other young people don't have that same mechanism

and that same support.

And so why the hell would young people put themselves

in a position where they're going to be abused,

racially, physically even?

We see it physically more often, emotionally.

And frankly, you know, I'm getting on a bit

of a high.

But I'm fed up with local footy.

And I think local community and groups can do a hell

of a lot more to embrace and ingratiate young people

into umpiring environments.

That old blokey behaviour's got to stop.

You know, we've got to be more inclusive and open

and supportive of all our umpires.

So pick up on the back of that, Rod.

It's a motive, and I want to set the scene in this

so that parents listening don't point the finger

and say, oh, I know Billy's the coach from that side.

He's the one that's, we've got to put a mirror up

to all of our umpires.

We've got to put a mirror up to our behaviour now

because, you know, that's one example, but we have

got dozens and dozens of examples that are turning

out to be horrific, aren't they?

Absolutely.

And please, if you're listening out there, have

some empathy for the umpire and Chris in his position.

So he speaks about the fact that at AFL level,

they've got some support and they've got people

around them that can protect them, if you like.

But these young people that go out and want to

umpire the game, you know, they want to be part

of our great game.

They might choose not to be players, but they want

to umpire.

They should have a great experience.

And Chris is experiencing it over here in community

footy.

We experience it, you know, in South Australian

community footy.

I know it's all over Australia.

It's not just here in Victoria where Chris is

exposed to it.

So we need to get on top of it.

And I love his passion and also his courage.

Like someone who's in his position, so he heads

up the umpires, the AFL umpires association, to

have the courage to come and speak out.

And again, there'll be people out there that

listen and they might find fault in that or try

and find fault in Chris.

So, you know, I think it's a great experience.

I think it's a great experience.

I think it's a great experience.

I think it's a great experience.

I would ask you to have, just have some empathy

and understand he, as the parent of someone who's

umpiring football, how animated he was and to

speak like that when he can be so controlled and

he has to be when he umpires, but his passion

came out and I think he's clearly had enough and

you're the same, Luke, I'm the same.

We need to make a difference and we're the

parents, we're the adults that can make the

change.

And until we can educate other adults and show

them a different way and empower them to be part

of the change and, you know, through the program,

which we'll talk about a bit later, we can show

how that can easily happen with three values of

sportsmanship, respect, and trying your hardest and

how we can get on top of this.

But first of all, we've got to acknowledge that

it's there.

We might blame the past.

So let's say it's inherited behavior, but until

we draw a line in the sand and take responsibility

from now on in and make it our responsibility to

leave this area better than we found it.

Okay.

It's not going to change.

So we need to get on top of it and we need to all

be part of it.

And that happens by building relationships.

All the way through.

We're using footy as an example, but all the way

through, and I'll give you a quick example.

So we're looking for change in, in culture.

The best definition I've ever heard for culture

comes from the culture code, Daniel Coyle.

You may be familiar with it, Luke, but it talks

about culture being a set of living relationships,

working towards a common goal.

It's not who you are, it's what you do.

So if we go back to junior sport, as an example,

let's have a look at the living relationships that

we are or aren't building.

So the people who are involved there.

So as a coach, I coach junior sport at the moment,

junior footy, I'm trying to build relationships

with my players.

So as a coach, I should be able to do that, but

not everyone can.

Then I'm trying, I should be building relationships

with their parents.

We know as coaches that it can be really difficult

with parents if we're not on the same page.

The other people involved are the umpires.

Are we building relationships with the umpires?

Are we building relationships with the opposition coach?

Are we building relationships with the opposition players?

So now we've got all the people who are involved, and if we want

to change culture, we need to work in this space.

And again, a program like Learning Life Through Sport shows in a one hour

session with consistent reinforcement weekly with a system that's in place,

how we can build these relationships and put ourselves out there to the

umpires and tell them what we're about.

We're all about sportsmanship and respect.

You won't get any issues from our kids.

My kids won't be reacting to any of your decisions.

And I won't say one word as a coach from the boundary.

They look at me, this is before the game, I shake their hand, Luke.

They look at me like I'm stupid.

You won't say.

I won't say one word.

And the key to it is not watching decisions.

They're going to make decisions.

They'll make mistakes.

I'll make mistakes as a coach.

Players will make mistakes.

But as coaches now, we shouldn't be watching the decisions.

We should be watching how our players react.

And there's one reaction that we teach in the program.

That's zip your mouth and put your hands up on the mark.

If we're doing that and the umpires feel safe.

And then at the end of my introduction to an umpire pregame, I say,

do you guys want to have fun?

They look at me like I'm from out of Mars.

So do you want to have fun?

Like this is the game.

We love, we want you guys to have fun.

The end of the game, all of our players shake hands with the umpire and thank them.

We give them a gratitude gift bag of lollies to each of the umpires.

And I asked the umpires after the game, I'll say, guys, you did an amazing job.

I don't know what job they did.

Luke.

I don't watch one decision, but I do watch what I can coach.

And that's how our kids behave because I'm teaching them life

lessons through sport, right?

And the umpires are happy that I said they did a great job.

And then I say to them, how are our kids today?

And they say, amazing, unreal, great sports.

You know, they were so polite, you know?

And so we can't tell our kids that.

So the players are getting the reinforcement.

The umpires are feeling happy and safe.

We're giving them a gratitude gift.

And then they tell our players how well they were going.

We go into the rooms after the game.

That's our message after the game.

The umpire said to the players that we're the best behaved team that they've umpired.

We're all feeling good about our behaviors during the day, not about winning and losing.

So we're taking that paradigm of winning and losing out of it, which might get the parents

upset on the side with a yelling and screaming to one of learning great life values through sport.

And I really want to move on to you.

Because it's profound.

And, and, and there'll be people listening to that, that, you know, I want to put that

to the table today.

So what is it?

Everyone wins a prize and that's the criticism.

Absolutely opposite of that.

You can still compete really hard.

I'd be all for under eights playing for premierships and scoring.

We ban scoring at junior level at that level, because we can't trust the parents to behave

appropriately.

The kids educated the right way almost always do.

And I think you're right.

I stand there as a junior coach as well.

And I think.

And I've got a responsibility to my team.

I've got a responsibility to the opposition team.

I've got a responsibility to the umpires to make sure everyone has an enjoy.

We're talking 12 year olds, 13 year olds, 10 year olds.

So I think you're right in changing the mindset, but I just don't want to undersell the problem

first before we move to your solution.

I think it is important because I think people are able to sort of pass this off and see

it as someone else's problem.

But, you know, I want to make a documentary on this road because it needs probably four

hours.

We'll spend the time on it.

But you sent me something this morning.

It's worth playing again.

I just want to make sure people don't miss this.

This is a group of young girls.

They might be 13 or 14 playing rugby league.

It's in New South Wales.

And someone has recorded what the parents are saying on the sidelines.

Now, listen to this.

This happens at junior netball, junior basketball, junior footy.

This example is rugby, but it's happening everywhere around Australia.

Have a listen to some of the language from the parents on the sidelines.

You listen to that and you might need.

There's some subtitles that go with it.

We've got parents yelling out, hit the bitch, punch her in the face.

That's the parents who are, and we're not pointing fingers at any particular sport here,

Rob, because it is everywhere.

That's the environment our kids are now participating in junior sport.

It's horrific.

Yeah.

And it's life and death and it's junior footy and it shouldn't be that.

And, you know, some of it is, Luke, as we know, parents living their unfulfilled sporting

dreams.

It's potentially through their kids, but, you know, we get our kids out there and we

need them to have, we need to provide them with a safe environment, you know, so psychologically

and emotionally somewhere where they can go and play and learn.

And we're not providing that.

And, you know, surely that's the fundamental of us as coaches to provide that safe environment

and certainly as leagues, whatever sport it is, to provide that environment.

We're not seeing it.

And I know in basketball, as an example, in South Australia last year, there were games

that were abandoned because they couldn't get referees simply because of the poor behaviour.

I know also in the SNFL juniors this year, I was talking to an umpires coach and they're

going to employ, for the season just gone, they employed, so 200 new coaches, as I understand,

sorry, umpires, as I understand it, they're teenage umpires into the SNFL system so we

could have two umpires at every junior game of footy.

And I said to the umpires coach, I said, well, that sounds good.

That's great.

I said, so what's, what's, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's

the problem?

He said, at the end of the year, we're going to have 200 umpires that leave the game.

And I said, why?

He said, because of abuse.

I was just like, hang on a minute.

Like this is, these are people's sons and daughters that are umpiring and apparently

it's fair game to abuse them.

And I said, so what are you doing about it?

And he said, we're trying to teach them resilience.

And Dash, you can see my face now.

Like I, we're trying to teach the kids resilience so they can umpire in the game that we love.

Surely we can be better.

And the people who manage that environment are the coaches.

We've got to get to the coaches to set the environment and the leagues need to support

that as well for us to make the change that we want to see.

But it's a, it's a massive problem and it's there in every sport.

Can I share with you, Rod, the first time I got involved in junior sport and I was a

reluctant participant because my dad, who played the game at the highest level, I said

that in the intro alongside you, I didn't realize what a great gift he gave me.

I grew up as a kid.

I wanted to play NFL football, but he never once overlaid any of his world or his experience

on me.

He just sat in the background, supported me unconditionally and was there without ever

making it feel like it was his ambition.

It was always mine.

And I didn't quite understand.

You'd call that conscious parenting now.

I don't think he even had an understanding of it.

It was just who he was, Rod.

It was this great gift.

So intuitively when it came around to my own kids, I wanted to do the same and be in the

background without making it about me at all.

But before my eldest son, Sam, he was playing.

I think.

It was the under nines.

Might've been under tens.

Our coach got ill and had to have an operation.

And he rang me the day before the start of the season.

And he said, Hey, mate, I'm out.

Would you mind stepping up?

And what do you say?

It's like, yeah, of course I will.

Within that 24 hours of me taking on the under nine role, I got a series of phone calls from

other parents.

I didn't know, um, suggesting that I could leave one kid out of the team because he wasn't

good enough in the under nines.

And I remember talking to my wife.

I said, I can't believe what I'm hearing this.

And these were good people, but they were, Hey, we got to win the under nines and little

Billy.

I won't use his name.

Can't, can't catch, can't.

And so can't play, can't kick.

Hey, better result.

Now's our opportunity to get him out of the side.

And I made this pact with myself.

I said, I don't know this kid, but he's going to have the best year.

I promise you that he's ever had in his life.

And I made it my mission to just find out who he was.

He was a beautiful young kid.

And yeah, he struggled.

He struggled with the basic motor skills of sport, but we made a focus on he could

defend, he could tackle, he could spoil.

We taught him how to do all those things.

And you know what?

The boys loved him because he played a role that the other kids, you know, I went to his

mom and dad and said, Hey, it's probably appropriate that we probably just settle him down in one

position, played him in defense.

That group went on and actually won the grand final that year.

And in the grand final, he laid this tackle and I've never seen a group of kids more excited

in my entire life.

And it was genuine because they valued.

Him as a teammate.

Now, some of those kids played at a really high level at nine years of age.

Their year wasn't diminished at all by Billy coming along and having his moment as well.

And us supporting him in a great way.

And I remember speaking to his mom, uh, afterwards and she said, you know what?

He's actually happier at school.

He's got better friendship system.

Now I'm not, I don't deserve a medal for that.

I was doing what every basic human being should do, right?

Is look after all nine year olds, not the ones that were naturally a little bit gifted.

At eight or nine years of age.

And I was staggered at that moment.

I went, this is strange, you know, and I have only seen it get worse from then on.

And I think what you're talking about is educating parents.

They're good people around who wanted to get this kid out of the time.

We need to say to them, what if that's your son?

What if that's your daughter?

How do we have a conversation that, uh, includes everyone?

Because it's gotta be where it starts, doesn't it?

Absolutely.

And I have the shared experience that you did with my dad.

We're.

We're so lucky.

Like dad never pushed me or my brother at the time.

My sisters weren't playing footy, but me and my brother were footy and dad had a footy background.

He never pushed us at all.

And as I look back, I probably wish she had have in some ways, like I was only an average

player, but at the end of the day, he was just so supportive as was mum.

And it was quite amazing.

But what you speak of it and particularly down in those, uh, lower age groups, I think

there's a place as you get up to under thirteens and fourteens and these age groups, and we

are learning more about, you know, as you.

As you come to finals that the players do get left out and the better players do get

a game, but you don't lose sight of the players who aren't getting a game.

You wrap your arms around them.

The whole team wraps their arms around them.

And the same experience that I had with coaching, uh, at, at junior level.

So it was at school level.

And, uh, we coached in a team that we, you know, we, we didn't keep scores, but you played

a lightning premiership type thing, but you know, all the parents knew and all the kids

knew who had and hadn't kicked goals.

And I did keep a tally of who kicked goals for the only reason that I wanted everyone

to be.

To be able to kick a goal.

And that experience that you're talking about with Billy laying a tackle.

We had that when we got to our last game, we had three kids who it's a school footy,

you know, might play 10 games.

There were three kids who hadn't kicked a goal yet.

And we played them as our, as our forward three.

And ultimately they all got a goal in that game.

And just to see the joy on their faces.

And as you said, I'm sure they go back to school and think how amazing is this and the

parents as well.

So we're taking the parents along for the journey.

So again, but you were the coach at the time.

I was the coach at the time we have the biggest impact, but some

coaches don't have the background that we have.

So we need to be able to put them in the environment and show them how good this can be.

And when we do, and that they're enlightened, you can just see the enthusiasm in, in the

parents or the coaches.

Well, I can do it like this.

Cause at the moment, Das, it's like the last parent standing who's going to be coached.

Cause we're worried about what's it going to be like with the kids.

What's it going to be like with their parents?

You know, this is a hard gig, but if it's not all about winning, if it's not all about,

uh, you know, developing skills and all that.

But it's a big thing.

It's a big thing.

It's a big thing.

And if it's about developing values, lots of other people can coach and we can get in

there and teach really good values to people that they learned through sport, which again,

we'll talk about later.

Let me play one more grab, uh, for you, right.

And I, you know, I get sent this stuff all the time because people have been around me,

know how passionate I am about the role that we get to play.

When you're a junior coach, you can change someone's life for the good and regardless

of ability.

And this was sent to me, Gary Neville was an English soccer legend, um, you know, scored

dozens of goals.

Goals at the highest level for England.

He's got four boys.

He's on a podcast in the UK.

So this is a global issue.

Uh, he uses pretty direct language around what he's seen with his four boys and parenting

behavior.

This is Gary Neville, a legend of English soccer.

I've got four boys.

I've watched them all play football all through.

Just let them play.

I'm standing on the sidelines.

I'm listening to parents shouting and bawling.

Get rid of it.

Don't mess about it there.

And 99.9% of what I say.

Is wrong.

99.9% of what they say is damaging their children.

It's instilling fear into them.

Just shut up.

Yeah.

Shut up and let them play.

I remember one distinct thing, um, where a parent, Watson's pick, picked his child up

by the scruff of the neck and said, if you play like that, you're never going to make

the grade.

And I thought, mate, I've just watched him play.

He ain't going to make the grade anyway.

So just chill.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let him enjoy his football.

The truth is they'll reach the level that they'll reach.

And with that pressure though, they're less likely to make it because much less likely,

even if they had an, even if they had an inkling of a possibility of making it, they are decreasing

those chances.

So you hear him talk about, he's pretty blunt, isn't it?

The, the one kid that maybe he's going to be the one in 15,000 that does play professional

sport, the dad that's over coaching him and actually not helping and everyone else who's

screaming out from the sidelines.

None of that is possible.

And I, and I see that all the time, Rob, where you're trying to coach in a positive way.

And there's always three dads that are grabbing their kids or a mom that's sort of trying

to coach them on the side.

And I just look at the, uh, the sadness that overflows into those kids.

I, I referenced this all the time as a story in a study done in the U S called the conversation

in the car.

And I used to share it with all the parents that whose kids I was coaching and a guy did

a study in the U S around at 13 years of age, the drop off in kids playing sport in America

is really, really low.

It's ridiculous.

Like 75% or thereabouts kids stop playing sport.

His thesis is all kids love it regardless of ability.

And you know what?

They don't actually care that much about winning a little, win a 12 year old grand final.

It's a good moment, but it lasts for five minutes and they lose one.

They go and grab a hot dog and they're happy.

But he says they get in the car and little Billy sits in the car and mom or dad turns

around and says, why didn't you play more like Rod Maynard?

Why didn't you play more like, Hey, you could have gone a little bit harder there.

And immediately it just takes the fun out of sport.

Parents sap the enjoyment out of it straight away.

And his study is saying, Hey, all you need to say to the kids, only thing you need to

stay is I love watching you play.

And that's all I've ever said to my four.

Nothing else.

It's just how I love watching you play.

And at the end of the day, it's not that complicated, is it?

No, I agree a hundred percent.

And those words are amazing.

I love watching you play.

And the same with coaches.

It's the same thing, same message.

We should be saying that we love coaching you, you know, at the end of training, at

the start of training, you know, bringing these positive, uh, or bringing the positive

messaging, uh, to our coaching.

And it's not the time or place straight after a game to be talking to your kids about where

they need to improve, right?

Cause they've just finished the game.

They may not be feeling great about it.

They may have lost the game, even though we don't keep scores.

That's for another time and place.

At that time, it's just being supportive.

Come in the car.

Mate.

You did some great things.

So to your daughter, though, you just played so well today.

I love the way that you ran and the way that you got involved.

And all of a sudden that, uh, you know, there might be a little bit downhearted, heartened

at the time, but you're lifting up their spirits and like, yeah.

And you, and you talk about some things that they did really well.

And all of a sudden they feel good about their sport.

I mean, at the moment, and you've got young kids as I do, the amount of time that they

spend on their devices, you know, we want to get them out playing sport.

It's a, it's a healthy, uh, recreation to do.

And, and the opposite to that, if they're giving it away at 13 and 14, I've seen the

same studies that you speak of is they're probably going to get stuck on devices and

it's not going to help them lead a healthy lifestyle going forward, but it's not just

the health side of it.

It's the great values that we can learn through sport if we teach them.

And again, it becomes the responsibility of the, of the governing body of the club, but

most importantly, the coach and that we're all on the same page in the messages that

we're delivering.

And so I say it once again, right?

Cause I know the counter argument to this is I, he's Rod Campbell looked down, they're

sitting there.

And they're holier than now and they're taking the model higher ground.

And yeah, I brilliant, you know, it's past the parcel now at, uh, at the kids party and

everyone gets to win a prize.

It's not that I'm as competitive as anyone.

And I love seeing kids compete really hard and they should, so long as you do it with

a value set, that's fair.

I see friends of mine and people I see in our community who are used to going hard in

their business life.

They take that to junior sport and it's about list managing an under 19.

They're trying to curate every kid from the local area to win by 30 goals and tag two

players.

And it's like, guys, that's not the place for that age.

You know, we can still compete really well, but what that's not sport, there's gotta be

an element of education around a responsibility of the opposition and making sure that it's

a good day for them.

And I want to move now to the solution because that's where I have crossed over with you.

And I think the only way punishment and legislation, as you proved in the road safety space has

got a place and we need it, but I feel sorry for the leagues.

They have to put bands in place in our league.

Now you're not allowed to walk out to the huddle at quarter time and halftime.

I totally understand why they have done that.

It's to try and keep the crazy parents away from saying insane things to the players and

the umpire.

So I totally get it, but what a sad thing, the beautiful thing, if you have a coach spreading

a great message.

To be able to share that we've lost that now we've lost the ability for that family

environment.

So education, and this is what I love about your program, learning life through sport.

It's designed for challenge, the social norms that have become acceptable, abusing umpires

at junior footy.

It's about creating a new standard of respect at junior sport.

I could not be more supportive of what you're doing.

Can you just explain to people what you're planning, what you're doing in South Australia,

because the South Australian Football League have been bolding you to share this message.

How does it work?

Yeah.

So the SNFL juniors, our first client, so that they run with learning life through sport.

So how it's done is you show the leaders of the league, this program that we think can

help in the area.

So everyone's working hard in the area and we acknowledge that and doing the best that

they can.

And as we spoke about, Luke, enforcement is often the way that we're trying to teach.

But when you go, and I've gone and spoken to several leagues here in Victoria and around

Australia, and you'll talk to the people who are full-time employees of the leagues.

And they'll talk about the first three days of their week being spent.

There might be only one full-time employee putting out spot fires from the weekend before.

And these are behavioural issues that they've got to manage.

How good would it be if they could spend their whole week just developing the program, developing

the league, developing footy.

So putting something in place, it needs to be a united approach.

So learning life through sport is not a club by club initiative.

It's something a whole league has to take on board.

It's a little bit, and I learned this through the RAP, the Road Safety Education Program

that I was in.

We expanded our program to, say, 20% of year 11s across South Australia.

We're not going to see a change in the road toll, okay, but we expanded our program to

get to about 90% of year 11 students.

And we saw a massive change that coincided in fatalities and in serious injuries.

So learning life through sport is the same.

It's the same principle.

Let's get to a league.

Let's get everyone on the same page.

And there are three principles that go with it.

They are sportsmanship, respect, and try your hardest.

The three.

So sportsmanship is pretty obvious, the way that we behave, you know, shaking hands before

the game, shaking hands after the game.

I learned listening to, and it might have been on one of your podcasts, Luke, a soccer

coach that spoke about, at senior level, how when all of his players come to training,

they have to come and shake his hand and greet him.

So I've done that for the last four years with the junior clubs, junior team that I've

coached at Morfordville Park, so the Morphy Roos in South Australia.

So my kids come to training.

And it's beautiful, mate.

They'll come up to you.

And my nickname's Rocket.

And they'll go, hey, Rocket.

And they'll shake your hand.

And they have to look you in the eye.

So it's a young person looking you in the eye.

So they're learning to be confident and look the coach in the eye and talk to an adult.

You know?

And one of my side things that I've done in the past, I've been a host family for Port

Adelaide young footballers.

And I had one of the players there one night called Josh Sinn.

He's going to be a ripping player.

But he came out to training one night.

So he can just come out and watch and maybe just speak to the kids because they're excited

that, you know, that Rocket's got a Port Adelaide player living at his house.

And his son, who's Cruz, you know, has a player living at his house.

And so when the players would come in and shake my hand and greet me at the start of

training, I said, look, Josh Sinn's out there.

He's dressed in the Port Adelaide kit.

Can you go out and shake his hand and thank him for coming?

And I actually videoed it.

It's one of the most beautiful things you could see.

A young 13-year-old kid called Axel who goes out, looks Josh in the eye and says, hey,

Josh, thanks for coming, mate.

And then I look at Josh and I see the reaction.

Like this is understanding how sport can teach great values.

Just one example of it.

So we go sportsmanship.

That's an example of sportsmanship.

Respect for me in the program is I just go to respect for umpires and just want to teach

one thing, just one reaction to a free kick.

If you get a free kick against you, zip your mouth and put your hands up on the mark.

That's what coaches should be teaching their players.

Then the coach can't react to a free kick ever again.

Just don't react.

Just watch the reaction of your kid that you can coach.

That's what good coaches do.

They coach.

So now we're taking the heat out of the decision.

So we're learning life through sport.

These three values, once a team takes them on board, so a club takes them on board,

each team that's coached within the club, so you might have 10 junior teams,

each of the coaches will watch the presentation with their cohorts.

So people are coaching the same age group.

So they get to know each other.

So they're starting to build those relationships with the opposition coach, albeit.

Yep.

And then they'll be connecting with the opposition players.

So we're building these relationships to change culture.

Then ultimately, when we go out and deliver these messages and we're teaching the same message,

so you'll go back to your club once you adopt these principles.

And when you go back on your first night at training, you'll talk to your players about,

these are the three values, sportsmanship, respect, try your hardest, go straight to respect.

No arguing with umpires decisions.

So guys, do you understand?

Your players, boys or girls, you understand that's how we're going to coach.

The SNFL decrees that, that's how I'm going to coach.

And the kids agree to it.

Then you look over to the parent group because you have them all in on the same night.

And I'm starting to build my relationship now with the parents.

I say to the parents, this is the new paradigm we're coaching under.

These are the three values.

And in relation to respect,

your children will no longer be able to argue an umpire's decision.

We'll teach it at training.

We'll teach the reaction.

And I will never argue an umpire's decision as a coach.

Can you guys support me?

I'm talking to the parent group now.

Can you support me in doing this?

Well, the parents look over at their kids that they love.

And they're looking over at me, the coach that they, I hopefully they'll respect,

that's trying to bring good values to the game.

Well, they're not going to say no in front of their kids.

So they make a commitment to their children who they love.

They make a commitment to the coach who hopefully they respect.

They're also making a commitment with their,

cohort of parents that they're not going to say a word about umpire's decisions.

So now we're all on the same page.

So the coach who, that's his job to coach,

he's actually coaching the whole team.

He's coaching the kids and he's coaching the parents.

And this is just one area of it.

But I can tell you in four years of coaching this same team,

we have an unbelievable relationship with the players and the parents.

But my parents, they police that.

I don't police their behavior.

They know that's what we're about.

They want to be honest to their kids.

And they want to be honest.

They want to be honest to the coach.

So they're all supporting it.

So we don't have issues from our parents.

Honestly, we don't mate.

And this can be taught.

It's a taught behavior and we need to take that responsibility.

Yeah.

And I'm listening to you, right?

And I feel like I need to take responsibility as well.

I look back at myself as a professional football for 14 years playing in the AFL.

And some of my reactions to umpires was disgraceful.

You know, I look back and some of the things I said to umpires,

you know, it was really, really poor.

And, you know, I look and it's embarrassing.

When you think about it, it was the nature of the environment at the time.

So I'm not making any excuses for it.

But you look at a game like Rugby Union,

the respect for the umpires at that code is absolutely top of the tree.

Like the captains get called in.

They get immediately told around.

If there's any sign of disrespect, the game stops.

And umpires in that code umpire into their 60s

and they are held at the highest systems.

It's not as though it's not possible.

We're never going to change it at the,

at the elite level and we're trying to get behavior change there through

legislation and free kicks, which, you know, in, uh,

in the code that we're both passionate about has had some effect.

But I think you're right.

It's got to start at the grassroots level with what you're saying and,

and, and, and you can make an impact immediately.

These aren't hard things to do,

but they're going to take a cultural paradigm shift.

And I think you're, you're on the point.

Yeah.

And we're just explaining in Rugby League or Rugby Union that,

that respect that's there.

So that's their inherited respect.

Unfortunately,

we go the other way in, in AFL or in Australian rules footy.

We don't have that inherited respect,

but it doesn't mean it can't change.

And what I do know is that rapid impactful change in culture can happen really

quickly.

And we saw it virtually happen overnight in road safety education,

just by getting the message out there and empowering people.

So if we can get the message out to, to groups of people,

so a whole league, all the coaches were all on the same page.

It's about meeting the coach, opposition coach before the game,

shaking their hand, wishing them all the best.

And I'll say, and we're about sportsmanship and respect and, you know,

you won't get any issues out of us.

We'll play good, fair footy within the rules.

We'll be fierce competitors.

I'm like you and yeah, we'll be playing to win.

It's not as though we're not trying to win,

but we're doing it with great values.

And when we lose, what a great opportunity to learn about life, Luke,

like in life you lose, right?

And it's how we handle adversity.

That's really important.

So what I do know and being a firefighter, so we, sadly, you know,

we go to suicides.

Okay.

And I know that youth suicides,

the biggest killer of young people in Australia,

imagine going and witnessing suicides as an example, you know,

and we can set our kids up for falls by having these massive expectations of

them in their sport or in life.

If our expectation is,

and this is a teaching and learning life through sport.

One of the values is try your hardest.

If our expectation is for people to try hard.

So there's no emphasis on winning or on outcomes, but just try hard.

We can teach them an amazing value.

And my biggest lesson in life,

is teach your kids with five kids, teach them to try hard.

They'll end up being the best version of themselves.

And they don't need to be AFL footballers.

They don't need to be doctors or lawyers, but if they learn to try hard,

they will give genuine effort.

They'll probably give honest effort all the time.

Now, if you're trying to employ someone in your elite space or in any of your

workspaces, I know you used to have pubs.

You would want to employ someone who tries hard, Luke, I'm sure.

And that's not a skillset.

That's a value set.

So if you, if we teach the right values through sport,

they can be a part of our life.

You can be employable in any area, you know, but I'd like to share,

if I can, the story behind trying your hardest.

So I was coaching a school football team, year threes and fours.

We played our first four games and I had a couple of players and not trying

to name drop it, Braden Maynard and John Noble played in that team.

We couldn't win a game.

Braden's your nephew, by the way, the vice captain of Collingwood Football

Club and All Australian and lives the values that you're talking.

Yeah, he epitomized the value.

So this is year three or four.

So Braden's in the team.

My son is.

John Noble.

They're playing this team.

They're all bottom age.

We're getting, getting, you know, belted each week, but no one keeps scores,

but the kids know, right?

And I'll watch the kids come off the ground.

And as they come off the ground, I would see every parent go up to those

kids and they were, it was a boy's team, put their hand on their shoulder

and say, bad luck, mate, bad luck, bad luck, mate, bad luck.

I'm thinking this has nothing to do with bad luck.

We're not good enough, but it's okay.

We can lose and still learn some good life values.

So I thought, how can we get this right?

Because I don't want to see the kids.

We're not scoring.

They come off the ground with their bottom lip on the ground.

The parents then tell them.

It's all because of bad luck.

So I said to the parents this week, I said to the players before the game,

to the assistant coach, just say to the boys, we're just going to rate them

today on how hard they try.

If they try their hardest, that's a win for us.

I got the parents into a group.

I said, look, I'm no psychologist.

And please, respectfully, what I'm seeing is you're going up your kid

and saying bad luck.

They think it's because of bad luck that they lose.

They think footy brings bad luck.

Maybe they won't play footy again, the game that we love.

How about you just take some license and from now on just say, well done.

You tried your hardest.

So imagine this, Luke.

Your son comes off the ground with his bottom lip.

He's on the ground and thinks his parents are going to tell him bad luck,

bad luck, because footy's bad luck has struck again.

But this time he gets a pat on the back.

He says, well done, mate.

You tried your hardest.

Well, hang on a minute.

So if I try hard, this is your 3-4 kid, I get a pat on the back.

So I'm encouraged now to try hard.

And then when you walk to the car, so there's no bad luck.

We take that out of our vocabulary.

It's got nothing to do with bad luck.

Then when we go to the car and sit in the car, all of a sudden the kid's there

and he's feeling pretty happy.

And you just encourage and say, mate, you tried so hard.

That was so good.

Oh, wow.

So now we're rewarding.

I love watching you play.

I love to watch you play, yeah.

And that's all kids need.

They don't need any more than that.

I'm here for you regardless.

Am I going to love you less if you won?

Am I going to love you more if you become a professional athlete?

And I think for parents to listen, you can change the whole relationship

with your kids right now.

There's this whole Tiger Woods mentality that unfortunately has ruined it,

that people think getting 10,000 hours of a golf club into the hand

of a two-year-old is good parenting.

And it's just not.

It comes with a whole range of different issues.

And that story played out for what it did because there's this mentality,

I'm going to live my life through my kids' success.

And if they are successful, I'm going to feel good

and they're going to feel good.

Reality is, what does that mean?

Like, what does that mean for the 99% of kids that just want to enjoy their sport

and enjoy their life?

And I see that so often.

I get really sad to see parents who are overlaying their world of what they may

or may not have achieved.

through the eyes of their kids and even start from there.

Just start from there around what Rod's just saying.

Did you try your hardest?

I love watching you play.

You can change your relationship with your kid there.

And if our coaches take on board what you're saying as well, Rod,

we've got a game changer on our hands.

And I appreciate you sharing it.

You know my passion for it is real.

People listening, I hope, understand we're coming from a good place with this.

This paradigm needs to shift.

Check out Learning Life Through Sport.

We're in your corner, mate.

We're in your corner.

We need to get you out there.

We need to spread.

And to me, you know, when you have got a problem with a coach,

I've seen this against coaches I've before.

They need more education, not more.

We should spend people all the time in junior footy.

12-week bands are a common place now in our league.

All those people are good people.

They actually mean well.

They think they're doing the right thing.

They need to be educated on a different way.

And this is the only way.

So thanks for sharing.

I know you've tuned into the podcast before.

And I love the idea of success.

Leaving clues and the idea of leadership showing up in different ways.

You've lived your life, mate, in an amazing way.

And I chose the words at the start around selflessness and you impacting others.

That's been your life, mate.

You should feel really proud of it.

So self-leadership is, you know, a big thing we talk about a lot in our world of a leader.

What does that mean to you?

Self-leadership for me starts with selflessness.

So I think that's the superpower we can all have.

So think about others before ourselves.

And I think that comes with...

Humility, obviously, and being true to yourself.

So you need to have a...

So self-leadership for me is being consistent with how you behave.

So you need to have a set of values that you stand for, but they're consistent in every walk of your life.

So you can't just turn them on for footy and say, this is how I behave in football, but I don't behave that in my life in general.

So I think that consistency of behavior.

And one of the things for me is that the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

So I'm really big on that, like not accepting poor standards.

So if I'm going to be a leader and I know that I'm going to be a leader, I'm going to be a leader.

And I need to have self-leadership.

I need to make sure that I don't walk past those things.

And another saying that I really like is to make someone else's day better.

So for self-leadership for me, I want to look for those opportunities to make someone else's day better.

And it might be as simple as going away with a mate and, you know, we'll make a...

You know, we'll arrive in Melbourne and come for a footy weekend and we'll jump on the Skybus to come in.

But, you know, we'll be looking for opportunities, whatever it might be, just to help someone.

It might be to help someone get their case off the Skybus or whatever it is.

Just look for some opportunities to make someone else's day better.

So that self-leadership is just that consistency of behaviour and looking to help others in a selfless way.

And I love the language that you use, Rod, and you live it every day and it comes across, mate,

and everyone who's interacted with you and you probably flow really well into that positive impact on others.

And, you know, I love what you're saying there, isn't it?

There's a chance just to make someone's day that little bit better.

Even when you're going away on a boys' weekend, you can find a way.

That's an example you shared before.

It's obviously something you're conscious about impacting others.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think, you know, to be a positive person, and I see that in you, Luke, it's really important.

And I'm lucky that I was brought up by positive parents.

So I've had that positivity in me.

But I think you get the opportunity, and we're talking about coaching, to bring that energy to the room.

So you can choose to bring negative energy or you can choose to bring positive energy.

So I really think that bringing that positive energy is really good.

And that get to instead of got to, I'm sure you've heard it before and it's a Ben Crowism,

that, you know, you get to.

So a quick example, you know, I drive my kids to school.

So I can either say I've got to drive the kids to school.

And as soon as I say got, you know, I'm looking for a lawn and my mouth is changing.

It's like I'm upset.

Or I can say to you, Luke, as you look at me, I get to.

When I say get, I smile.

And when I think about taking my kids to school or picking them up, it's the best opportunity I have.

They're not on their devices.

You know, I build my relationships with my two youngest kids a lot of the time just driving them to and from school.

So it's that get to, so that positivity.

But I also like this.

This one, Luke, that people won't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

So you need to show that care.

So in leadership, I reckon that's the best saying that you could go with.

The saying was from Teddy Roosevelt in 1901 to 1909.

He was a U.S. president where he espoused that.

And somewhere along the way, we've lost contact with that.

We've become selfish.

We've become, you know, all about ourselves instead of being about others.

And he had it right 110 years ago.

But we need to get back to that and leadership.

But A is about showing how much you care to others so that, you know, you can positively impact them.

And I think that relationship building, leaving things better than you found it,

but our opportunity to inspire, to motivate, and to empower, that's what we've got.

And we've all got it in us.

But it just takes that flicking of the switch to be able to do it.

It's really important.

Coming back to junior sporting for a moment, we're all emotive around our kids.

I get emotional watching them play and you want them to do well.

So I'm not saying you can't.

I'm not saying you can't feel that, but the idea that for them to have a good time, it's ultimately they have to win every single moment and at someone else's expense and you're not looking out for someone else, you can do both, you know, as an opportunity to have some care and empathy for everyone at that event.

I liken it to going to a kid's party and half of the 12-year-olds on one side beating up on the other 12 with parents on the sidelines yelling and thinking, you call human services and you say something's wrong.

But, you know, it's wonderful.

But what happens every single weekend at a range of different sports?

And I think you bring your attitude to life as you're talking about, you're a chance to change the paradigm.

Look, I remember one example.

I was coaching basketball with my son.

It's about three or four years ago.

So he would have been eight or nine.

And I am the worst basketball coach.

I don't know anything about basketball.

I'd like to think I know a little bit about leadership and about sportsmanship.

But we played against a team that I knew because one of my cousin's children were playing in the team.

And I knew that they hadn't won a game at all.

Sorry, they hadn't scored in a game.

And we were leading them pretty well.

So I said to the players, look, let's just let them score.

And the face on some of the kids, because it was only the second or third game that I'd coached them, let them score.

Because they hadn't been brought up to it.

I said, yeah, let them score.

Let them take the ball down and let them shoot.

And then let them get the rebound until they actually shoot a goal.

At the end of the game, they ended up scoring their first time they'd scored for the year in three or four games.

And I just remember the delight on the kids' faces.

And on the parents' faces.

And I said to our players who were young, I said, this is empathy.

This is caring about others.

This is not about sheep stations.

It's about them coming back and wanting to play basketball the next week.

So what you say is exactly right.

But once again, it's the coach who can change that paradigm.

He can control the environment.

You've got a vision.

And we talk about leaders having the capacity to create and share a vision.

And I love your passion for this paradigm shift in junior sport around the country.

How are you going about sharing it?

And maybe.

Making it happen.

Yeah, I think obviously I believe in it.

So the first thing with, you know, creating and sharing a vision is believing in what you're doing.

But you need to share it authentically.

So in your own style.

So we're all different.

We can have the same values.

But you make sure that you stay with your authenticity.

And you need to share it with passion and enthusiasm.

You know, like some people will listen to people talk and think, well, you're a good talker or whatever.

But for me, if it's a subject that I love and I'm passionate about, I can speak about it.

So you need to find your passion.

And I think it becomes easy to share your vision then.

But if it's coaching, if there's coaches out there, so you can describe what you want done,

then you need to put it up on a whiteboard and you need to walk through it.

Then you need to go out and teach it and action it.

So words don't teach.

It's empowering people through actions.

And that's why, you know, with the learning life through sport, we need to practice it, rehearse it.

We need to reinforce it weekly.

So it's that reinforcement that makes these things happen.

So again, creativity.

Creating and sharing a vision.

You need to bring the energy to the room and you get that opportunity if it's positive energy.

But if it's negative energy, you bring that as well, Darcy.

You get the choice whether it's positive or negative.

For me, I want to bring positive energy.

That way, you know, we can help, again, motivate, inspire, and empower people to want to behave in a certain way.

And they'll get that fulfillment by competing and doing it well to good values just as much, if not more, than winning.

Andrew Dillon, you're on notice.

We're coming your way with this.

We're coming your way with this vision.

The CEO of the AFL, who is a great community sports lover, Dills coached my daughter for four years.

And his platform, as the new CEO of the AFL, is all about really taking this sort of values to community sport.

He was a champion player in amateur football, Dills, as well.

So he gets it at a high level.

And I'm sure he'll share the passion for this, Rod.

So any way we can help to spark that message, just putting that out there publicly.

Curiosity, and through curiosity, we see people really approach their learning and development, and they're constantly curious.

Does that resonate with you?

Yeah, 100%.

I think back in the day, you know, I probably learned I wanted to be a coach.

My dad was a coach, and I wanted to learn to be a coach.

I wanted to follow in my dad's footsteps.

And along the way, I just understood that it's, you know, you give so much time to coaching.

But along the way, I was super curious, and I had the opportunity to speak to, I had the best teacher ever, which was my dad, Graham Campbell, to teach me.

But then I really sought other leaders at the time.

And Rick Charlesworth was a great hockey coach at the time, been an Australian cricketer, Australian hockey player.

And I sought him to just sit down with.

And you found that the best people would speak to you if they knew you were passionate.

Charlie Walsh was another one who was quite amazing, Australian cycling coach.

So this is back in the early 2000s.

I had a chance to speak to some amazing leaders to try and learn from them.

Malcolm Blight, I remember.

He may not remember, but I rang him up.

I was on the phone with him for about two hours just talking about footy and coaching.

This is post his.

This is Adelaide Premiership Coaching Days.

Yeah, the people will give you their time, but I've always been curious to try and learn.

And even now, like, I don't know that I'll coach going forward because I really want to get learning life through sport going.

But I still have a massive curiosity.

Like, I listen to post-match press conferences, and I love listening to podcasts like your one, Luke.

And just, you know, it's an opportunity to learn from the best.

Like, to think that, you know, 20 years ago, if you think you could sit there and listen to Mike Dunlap

and find out how to do it, you know, it's a great opportunity.

And to think about his theories on life or on sport, you know, or Ash Barty or whoever it is.

Like, it's an incredible opportunity to learn.

So I'm super curious, and I'll never lose that.

And that's how we learn and get better.

Yeah, it's a brilliant platform, isn't it, now in real time to have great people sharing the way they do.

And it's a great privilege to be able to talk to some of them in this podcast, communicating with clarity.

And as I go back to the road toll for me, and I think, you know, for you to be able to –

and I hope people then say, oh, what's a one-hour presentation with learning through life sport going to do?

I've sat through your presentation, and it immediately impacted me straight away.

I changed a couple of things I was doing that week in coaching.

You know, went over and engaged the opposition coach better and engaged their players.

And it immediately de-escalated any of the tension around a couple of coaches that were challenging in the past.

So you've got a great communication strategy.

Tell us a bit about it.

Yeah, I think you need to keep the message really simple.

But you need to be clear and concise.

And you need to inspire high standards.

So high standards aren't only applicable to the highest level.

High standards we can apply at any level.

So you need to have that about you or part of your makeup so you have high standards when you're teaching.

But again, letting your passion and enthusiasm flow in specifically because I'm from a fire service background, so as a station officer.

So communicating with clarity is critical because they could be life and death situations.

So an example of that would be you have a crew working with you.

You might go into a fire situation.

So you'd explain, you'd discuss the method of how we're going to control this situation.

And then you'd discuss that with your team.

But then as you task them, you'd identify the task and then get them to repeat that task back to you.

Okay, so we've got absolute clarity on what we're doing.

And then when they go in, we know that they can perform that task or we're aiming towards that goal.

So that clarity is super important in emergency services.

So I guess that's where I learned that.

But yeah.

When you talk about communicating with clarity, so in the road safety space, a little bit different.

So it'll be the key messages.

So in RAP, the Road Awareness Program, we'd have the key messages of, you know, you get to choose the risk.

You don't get to choose the consequence.

What we do know is that most people will take what they feel emotionally away from that presentation.

And that'll give them the passion to go forward and want to be part of it.

But what messages will they remember?

So that consistency of that same saying.

So we might say that saying 20 times during a presentation.

And it might be the one thing that they go away with.

So keeping it simple, reinforcing the message and understanding that people aren't going to take away lots of messages.

They might just take away a few.

And if they take away the main ones that are going to empower them to change their behaviors, they're really important.

So that reinforcement of the message.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, listening to your words again, what you're wanting to do in sport, sportsmanship and respect and, you know, the values.

You're keeping it simple so people can recall that.

We can't absorb a whole hour.

And 15, but you get a couple of those values, right?

It's going to have a massive difference.

How important is collaboration been for you?

Collaboration is massive, Luke.

You don't get anywhere without collaborating, collaborating.

And even now with a new business that we want to move forward and try and help create change, you need to collaborate with the right people.

Uh, and I think, yeah, it's been important to learn from people, to, to be empowered by people, but also to empower, to inspire people, but also to be inspired.

So it's that.

And I think that's really important.

And I think that's really important.

And I think that's really important.

And I think that's really important.

And I think that's really important.

You just can't do any of this stuff by yourself.

So you need to get the right people on board and again, the right people aren't necessarily a skillset.

It'll be a value set.

So you get the right people with the right values on board that you collaborate with.

You'll learn from them.

You know, you can trust them.

Trust is really important in this space, particularly around change and around culture because people need to be invested to change culture.

It's a hard thing to do.

We might talk about it, but how, how badly do you want to change culture?

So if you want to change.

The culture of junior sport, if you really want to, and you're one of the leaders, you need to take the time to do it and invest the time because it's not going to happen.

So you'll see a presentation like ours and you might feel inspired.

You need to feel inspired to go forward and check it out and let's have a go at it because things aren't going to change.

I don't want to sit here in another generation's time or I may not be here in a generation's time, but in a decade's time and nothing's changed again, Luke.

Because if we look back decade by decade, we've seen no change in junior sport and it's probably as bad as it's been now.

But I see a really.

Clear vision, a really clear way to move forward.

And that happens by us all working together and, you know, taking the hit a bit, just, you know, bottle your, your, uh, anger and just understand this is not about you.

And when we talk about being selfless, this is not about the parents.

This is about their kids.

If we're talking about junior sport, but this applies to seniors as well.

But at junior level, we want to start, you know, at the base level and start teaching these great values so that we can enjoy our sport and learn some great values to take into life.

And along the way.

You might have a much better relationship with your own kids and a much happier space all around.

It's incredibly worthwhile.

Who's been the greatest leader in your life?

Oh, without question.

My dad, yeah, just, you know, incredible leader, uh, lucky to, yeah.

He passed away a bit over a year ago and had dementia for, um, you know, the last six or seven years of his life, Luke, but just an incredible leader.

Like he, he knew selflessness, but he coached Fitzroy for one year in 1978.

Yeah.

Bought our family over from Perth.

So we're from Melbourne, went over to Perth cause he couldn't get the Fitzroy coaching job and coached the reserves premiership.

Went over to WA, went from last to first in a season with West Perth, who were a great team.

And then Fitzroy got him back.

Dad coached for one year.

They had a lot of close losses.

There's some great players like Gary Wilson back in that era.

Robert Walls, Bernie Quinlan were playing there.

Dad got them to the club.

Coached for one year and then left.

Like the club wanted him for as long as he wanted to be there.

But our family wanted to go back to Perth to live cause we liked the weather.

My brother had stayed there.

He was in year 12 at school.

The family had been broken up and that had no hesitation to stop what he loved, which was coaching to keep our family together.

And like, he taught us the value that, you know, family is everything.

And yeah, just great leader.

I never heard him argue umpires decisions like that was built into me.

It was like, they'll never change their decision.

So why argue?

That was kind of his philosophy.

And he was, he was just so inspirational.

Like his pre-match speeches.

I just wish I could have had the video DAS back in the day.

And.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He was just amazingly, uh, empowering, passionate, just, just the best leader anyone could ever have.

Just so blessed.

He was a great broadcaster and I feel privileged to have got to know him.

And as I said, we were probably sitting on the sidelines of Sunday footy shows, not far apart and knocking off the pies out of the pie warmer.

And, uh, you know, dad, a very similar person.

It's interesting.

You know, you and I've both had the privilege to have, uh, fathers who have the same sort of values and they were great mates.

And I, uh, feel.

Privileged to have, uh, known your dad.

I'm not surprised by, uh, that answer.

If you collaborate with anyone on anything, who, who might it be?

I've developed a real passion for Ash Barty.

I just think she's amazing.

Like I love the way she goes about her sport.

I love the way she's developed herself to be, to be a great role model.

She just epitomizes the values that learning life through sport stands for.

And, and, you know, I listened to her on podcasts.

Uh, I've followed her, her development and she's clearly.

Gone through a lot of adversity, but she's learned from adversity and she's her own person, but she's amazing.

I I'd love to potentially sit down with her, uh, and, and Craig McCrae is the other one.

Like I know he's flavor of the week at the moment, but I just watched the way that he coaches and the way that he empowers.

And when you talk about people, won't care how much, you know, until they know how much you care, uh, he epitomizes that as well.

So I know he does coach my nephew, Braden.

So Bray, if you're listening out there and you can get me an audience with Craig McCray at some point, I'd love to sit.

Down for an hour.

Uh, I know Hayden Skipworth, who coaches under him is a great man.

And yeah, there's some good people.

I mean, I, I love collaborating with my, my children.

You know, I've got three adult kids that are amazing.

Like one's a school teacher, come counselor.

She's 29 and my next son down, uh, he's a paramedic.

Uh, my next son down is a fly in fly out worker.

They've all got their own experiences and they're all, um, contemporary people.

And, you know, you stay in touch with that because they're the people that you're working with.

And, and even my youngest two kids, like to collaborate with them, you know, they all go through stuff and we need to be there for them.

And I learn as much from my kids as, as I do from others.

But yeah, that's, you know, that family first and, and, uh, and those two people really come to mind.

Beautifully said, uh, right.

And you can hear the selflessness and the positivity and the impact that, uh, just pours out of you.

And I should be incredibly proud of what you're doing.

I'd love to collaborate with you in any way to support this program that, uh, learning life through sport is all about.

It's a, it's a free hit really in a country like our sports, so much of our DNA want it to be a happy and fun place.

It's got to get back to being that we need to educate ourselves and we need to educate each other on making this a better space.

So I'm in your corner big time, as you know, um, incredibly, um, you know, amazed by the work you're doing, the passion that you're showing.

So well done again, uh, Rod, look forward to maybe doing this again in the future with some impact in the coming years.

Thanks so much, Luke.

Appreciate it.

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