- Oct 19, 2020
- 21,741
- 31,467
- AFL Club
- Richmond
I think this needs a thread on the main board as it's not just a rumour anymore.
Edit: Read the full article below.
“We were told that we weren’t to do the interview with our partners in ear-shot and that the objective of the questions was to build a profile about us that we would work through on the camp,” Betts writes.
Eddie Betts with partner Anna and their children.
He says he opened up to the interviewer and divulged what he described as private life experiences, believing that it would assist the specialists to appreciate “the cultural complexities” of his life.
“I thought it would be used to build a profile about me that showed obstacles I’ve overcome to be successful and to play AFL.”
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The red flag for Betts was when the interviewer tried to gain Betts’ confidence by claiming familiarity with Aboriginal culture: “He tried to make out as though he was like me, as though I should feel comfortable disclosing to him my trauma.”
Then 30 years old, Betts, who was part of the Adelaide club’s senior leadership group, says he was told the camp would do more than just invigorate his game-day performances. “I was told that I would come back a better husband and father, a better teammate and that I’d get a lot out of the camp,” he says.
However, the Wirangu, Kokatha and Guburn man, who is a father of five, says he returned with feelings of shame and humiliation that left him angry, paranoid, secretive and “feeling drained and lethargic”. Betts says the emotional fallout immediately began to harm his family relationships. His partner, Anna, noticed “the extent of my distress”, Betts writes. “Anna noticed I was starting to get snappy at the kids and I started getting really bad anxiety,” he says.
That’s when the couple sat down and spoke about what had happened.
The Crows adopt the ‘power stance’ as they face off against Richmond before the 2017 Grand Final.
Edit: Read the full article below.
It all made me feel really sick’
Betts writes that his first “serious reservations” about the camp began after a compulsory hour-long psychological assessment, conducted over the phone by a person he understood to be a counsellor from the mind-training and leadership specialist group.“We were told that we weren’t to do the interview with our partners in ear-shot and that the objective of the questions was to build a profile about us that we would work through on the camp,” Betts writes.
Eddie Betts with partner Anna and their children.
He says he opened up to the interviewer and divulged what he described as private life experiences, believing that it would assist the specialists to appreciate “the cultural complexities” of his life.
“I thought it would be used to build a profile about me that showed obstacles I’ve overcome to be successful and to play AFL.”
Advertisement
The red flag for Betts was when the interviewer tried to gain Betts’ confidence by claiming familiarity with Aboriginal culture: “He tried to make out as though he was like me, as though I should feel comfortable disclosing to him my trauma.”
Then 30 years old, Betts, who was part of the Adelaide club’s senior leadership group, says he was told the camp would do more than just invigorate his game-day performances. “I was told that I would come back a better husband and father, a better teammate and that I’d get a lot out of the camp,” he says.
However, the Wirangu, Kokatha and Guburn man, who is a father of five, says he returned with feelings of shame and humiliation that left him angry, paranoid, secretive and “feeling drained and lethargic”. Betts says the emotional fallout immediately began to harm his family relationships. His partner, Anna, noticed “the extent of my distress”, Betts writes. “Anna noticed I was starting to get snappy at the kids and I started getting really bad anxiety,” he says.
That’s when the couple sat down and spoke about what had happened.
The Crows adopt the ‘power stance’ as they face off against Richmond before the 2017 Grand Final.
A knife, a harness and the ‘power stance’: Eddie Betts reveals ‘cult-like’ training camp
A pre-season training camp for the Adelaide Crows left the AFL champion feeling ‘shattered’, and he says his complaints led to him being dropped from the club’s leadership group. He tells the story in a new autobiography.
www.smh.com.au
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