Ash Brazill returns to the studio on a Friday with Tim Gossage. They kick off the show discussing their experiences with sporting camps and the vital role they play for group synergy.
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SEN WA Breakfast
Ash Brazill dissects the importance of leadership camps (28/06/2024)
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Go to united.com/australia to book your adventure. We had a lot of people asking, "Where you were last week?" "Where were you? Did a couple of weeks and was all too much for you and had to not be here last Friday?" Yeah, it's a big gig with your ghost trying to keep up with you at this time of the morning. Yeah. No, I was actually in York. Yeah. Hey, holiday with the fam. Oh, I wish. Never been to York. Beautiful place. But no, it was there with the Furry Dog of Girls, and we're on camp, and not like the Collingwood camps where they send you out to an army camp, or the navy barracks. We were actually on a sheep farm, and I was trying to, I guess, herd some sheep into different gates, and it was definitely interesting. We got to camp in some swags. We felt like minus 10 degrees, but... No, cold up there. It was definitely experience. Now, so what's your farm experience? Because you like that. You've just done the tour of Australia. You like to get out. You like property. You like getting out and about and getting hands dirty. So you would have warmed to that idea. Yeah, I'm not going to lie, I felt like I was in my natural habitat. I had probably the best sleep I've had since Louise been born, so no kids there in a swag. I had lots of, I had a sleeping bag and a quilt, so I was nice and warm. But the best thing I've seen are Irish girls. I've got a few of them. It's like 12% of our team trying to put up a swag, and I've never seen a swag in their life. And one of the girls even brought a summer sleeping bag, so she was trying to bribe people for their sleeping bags and quilts. So, yeah, it was definitely entertaining. And in your sporting journey, you would have done 1,001 camps. And you talked about the Collinwood stuff, but also through your netball and stuff like that. Do you see benefit in them? I think it's changed. I think the era is kind of changing. I used to love the army camps. Now, I think a little bit older, getting yelled at by an old bloke in a suit. Like, an army suit, I'm just like, "Come on, mate." Like, "I don't get really in your grill, too." I'm here to play netball or not. Like, so it is different. And getting woken up at 3 am, I think, as a young kid, it does teach you resilience and just getting it done when you don't want to get it done. Now, though, and seeing, like, I guess, the change in youth, that could kill a kid. Like, the way that they are, it's more about pumping them up, getting to know who they are, how you're going to motivate them. And I was always against these kind of camps, because I felt like they were a little bit fluffy. But, to be honest, I actually got more out of this camp than I reckon I have any other. I don't know if that's being a little bit older and trying to be the mentor to the younger girls, but just seeing how they work together and getting to know them on a different level away from footy. I actually preferred this. OK, so when I was very briefly coaching the Subiaco cults in the Waffle system, we had a camp more river. And one of our longtime clubbies had a property up there, and so we had 60 kids in pre-season. And I went up there early, and I went up there with my footy manager, and we parked a trailer, a cage trailer, which was mine on the side of the road, just off the highway. So they dropped them off, and they had to walk with all their bags and everything, no, they're for two days, and I had to stop. Someone had to notice that the trailer was for them, so they didn't know it was for them, but it had Subiaco Football Club written on it. So they had all their bags in there, and we watched from afar, and we had when someone was filming, to work out who was going to be the leader, to say, "Hey, this is our trailer. Subiaco Football Club has got it written on the side. Can we use the trailer to put all our bags in, instead of traipsing another three Ks on foot?" So they did, they loaded the trailer up. But there was obviously instructions, and the instruction was, everyone had to stay some form of connection to the trailer, whether it was by rope or by touching the trailer, or have it be in the trailer, whatever it was. They had to wheel the trailer, three Ks on a road to the campsite, and at the next stage was a $50 bill in an envelope. The $50 bill was spend $50 on food at the more river shop. So they bought sausages, bread, one tub of orange juice, there was 60 of them, and they had 50 bucks. And then bizarrely, they bought butter, they had tomato sauce. So these are all these, "Why would you buy butter?" It's only a snack, it's not, we're not talking about, you know, prime dinner. They sat down, and then someone bought knife and forks, plastic knives, so they could spread the butter. And we're looking at the whole range of leaders and emotions, why did someone not go into the shop, and just say, "Can we borrow knife?" There's a whole range of things, big decisions being made. We found our leaders in that group, in virtually the first half an hour, or they took longer than half an hour, about probably an hour and a half of the camps starting. All of a sudden the leaders just shone, took leadership of how we're gonna use the trailer, how we're gonna stay attached, what we did at the shop, who jumped in when they shouldn't have jumped in. Do you find that on your camps? - Yeah, I think so. I'm actually impressed that they bought all that. We're $50, we can't do that these days. - No. - That's 12 years ago. Long time ago, yeah, but I reckon leadership's changing. And I know like, I was in the net ball system professionally for 15 years, and my first captain was Catherine Cox, and to lead back then, you were scared of your captain, because they were the best player, they were intimidating, they were forceful. We're now to lead, you've got to, you're actually completely doing the opposite, you're not fearful, you're trying to bring the best out of it, other players. And you now don't just take it all on yourself, you have people around you that are better at different things. Like, I know for me, for instance, Jever and I at Collingwood were co-captains, and I was very much the on-court captain who could give direct feedback in the moment, whenever, where Jever was that off-court captain, who was more nurturing if someone had a bad day where I'm like, get over it, we're here to train and start training. So there are different types of leaders now, and what can you get out of that camp? I don't know, like you talk about all of those examples, and they might be like the on-field leaders, 'cause they're able to see a situation and work it out, but then you might've had the quietest person in the camp who was actually okay to listen, but trying to work it all out in a different way. So, I think it's complicated, it's just quite frustrating. - So you're a leader down at Fremantle, you haven't played at the club, but you've only been there a brief time, you joined after your post last year, you did the big trip and you've arrived and you're a month into your time at Fremantle, but you are a leader through experience and probably age, may I say. Have you been told what your role is as a leader, or do you just take it upon yourself? - No, I think, yeah, you can't take it upon yourself, you definitely, I don't know, I'll try and lead by example, and I think the best part about with me is I've come from another sport, and which is elite, and with netball from the age of 13, you get told to be a certain way, and if you don't fit that, it's very hard to stay in it. And the professionalism of netball, just trying to bring that into footy. So, yeah, with me, what you see is what you get. I can't be any other way, but I don't know, you get, everyone's a leader and you've just got to find out what type of leader you are, and I don't know, your career is in your own hands and you've got to take accountability for that. - 0487736736131255, and a lot of techs coming in, this is Scotty from Scarborough. - Yeah, about to pre-season, Cam, Ash, having a sleep in a swag, how do you feel knowing the West Coast Eagles girls are heading south today and staying in a five-star resort? - Soft, completely soft. Wow, that can't be true. - I've clearly got way too much money to spend I reckon. - And that's a good point. - Yeah, but you don't good on them? I can have their five-star resort. Like I said, I've had the best sleep I've had in four years in a swag, so I'm not complaining. - How many mums in your team? - Well, there was just Turbo and I, and she's now carrying another one. So, yes, and then obviously the coach, which is awesome because her kids are the same age as my little one, so it's nice to have kids around the club.