Adam Goodes Has Given A Powerful And Candid First Interview Since Retiring From The AFL

The consistent and sustained booing of former Sydney Swan and Australian of the Year Adam Goodes by fans of rival clubs over the last two years, and the widely varying response of players, fans, sporting bodies, politicians, public figures and the media to that hostility, raised profound and uncomfortable questions about the role race plays in sport and wider Australian society.

Goodes’ retirement in September was met with widespread dismay, but the man himself chose to remain virtually silent on his reasons. Goodes gave no media appearances or overt gestures of farewell on announcing his retirement, and requested he not be considered for the Madden medal, which recognises high-profile departing players and their contribution to the game.

Now, speaking exclusively with Indigenous student reporter and activist Georgia Mantle for University of Sydney student newspaper Honi Soit, Goodes candidly and eloquently speaks on his decision to retire, the importance of country and mob, his commitment to combating racism and domestic violence and the impact the booing had on his mental health and wellbeing. It’s the first interview Goodes has given since sitting out a game against the Adelaide Crows in August, and announcing his retirement from AFL a month later. It’s also likely to be the last interview he gives for at least two months, given that he’s shortly travelling overseas on holiday.

Honi have shared an excerpt of the interview with Junkee, which is below, and you can read the interview in full over at Honi Soit’s site. Also, Like their Facebook page here, because the only outlet in the country that can score a post-retirement interview with Adam Goodes is probably worth your time.

– Junkee

–

On Retiring:

“There came a point this year when I knew that it was going to be my last season … I think going into this season, you know, I’m 35 years old, I played a couple of games in the reserves this year to get my fitness back, so I think there was a lot of factors. And obviously with all the booing and everything, that was another piece of the puzzle that made my decision quite easy.

“I was done. I was done a couple of months before that [the August hiatus], I knew when I was finishing. I didn’t want, once I’d finished footy, to be part of any other things that I had a choice in. At the end of the day, it’s my choice to do the lap. At the end of the day, it was my choice not to be nominated for the Madden medal. I had my last football responsibility as the club Best and Fairest and that’s what I was looking for. It was my supporters, my members, at that event, and you know it was a very safe environment for me to go to and give my sendoff to the people that mattered.”

–

On The Media:

“I think media has a very important role to play, and unfortunately some people in the media can have very positive and negative effects on a large amount of people. I guess that’s where you need good leaders in the industry to help steer the conversation so that one side doesn’t get too heavily outweighed by comments that aren’t true. So for me, you can’t control the media, you have to work with media to get your message out there and you just hope that there’s enough good honest reporting and people in the media that can get that job done.”

–

On Mental Health:

“It wasn’t until the day after that West Coast Eagles game that it really hit me, and I was really down and out and I didn’t want to go training on Monday. I just figured that, for me to get the best out of myself and do the right thing by myself, I really just needed to step away and find out what I really wanted to do and hopefully getting back to where my people are from and getting out bush could really re-energise me and help heal those wounds. That’s what I did. I went out country and it was amazing. It was just great to be out there.

“…You just have to be true to yourself, know where you come from, make sure that your relationships with family members back in country, back home, are really strong so that connection is always there. Whenever you are feeling down or feeling a bit shitty, you do tell someone, you do have conversations with those people, because you need to let people know how you’re feeling. And for me, I’m a big meditator, so when I meditate, I meditate about country and how I’m feeling when I’m back there and use that as the strength.”

–

On Constitutional Reocgnition And A Treaty:

“I think the [constitutional recognition] movement right now — and I don’t want to downplay what Treaty is when we’re trying to compare it to Recognise, because I don’t think we should compare it to Recognise — and the support that we have from both sides of government, is constitutional recognition. I just think that it’s a really important thing that we change this document. This document has so many things in it that don’t work for our people, and the biggest thing obviously is that it doesn’t recognise us, and there’s still parts of it which are racist to minorities in this country.

“Being a part of the Recognise movement, I can just see that we can get a real big win on the board by changing that Constitution, and making sure that this document acknowledges us and our people and our language and our culture forever by putting it into our Constitution. I don’t want it to be ever compared as ‘Constitution versus Treaty’, because it never should be compared like that. I understand why our mob and the community feel that Treaty is a higher priority, I get that, but I just think that we can get a real big win with our constitutional recognition, and I’ll be supporting both of those things — and I am supporting both of those things.”

–

Read the interview in full here, and Like Honi Soit on Facebook here.

–

Georgia Mantle is an Indigenous Australian student, activist and Honi Soit reporter. You can follow her @GeorgiaMantle.