Speaker 1: Ordinarily Speaking. People look at my life from the outside
Speaker 1: and see a happy family in the perfect life, but
Speaker 1: underneath it all of pain behind these eyes.
Speaker 2: Soon time.
Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to a new episode of Ordinarily Speaking.
Speaker 3: Ryan Brockoff is an Ozzie basketball star who played with
Speaker 3: the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA. When he was cut
Speaker 3: from the MAVs suddenly in twenty twenty, he quickly found
Speaker 3: a new NBA home, but the pandemic derailed the dream. Eventually,
Speaker 3: Ryan returned home to Victoria to play in the NBL.
Speaker 3: The challenging eighteen month period saw his mental health deteriorate,
Speaker 3: and the veteran boomer made the heart wrenching call to
Speaker 3: pull out of the Tokyo Olympics. That decision was the
Speaker 3: catalyst for Ryan to seek therapy and subsequently confront the
Speaker 3: trauma he experienced as a kid. For the very first time,
Speaker 3: Ryan shares his story publicly. This episode is raw and
Speaker 3: at times confronting, as the softly spoken basketball star reflects
Speaker 3: on his complex upbringing. The little boy he once was
Speaker 3: is reflected in his eyes staring back at me, as
Speaker 3: his mother Joe expressed to me, our story is one
Speaker 3: of hardship, sacrifices, violence, adversity, sadness, lots of guilt on
Speaker 3: my part, death, and then freedom to pick up the
Speaker 3: pieces and live. Ryan shares his story in the hope
Speaker 3: it might help people listening, but please know the content
Speaker 3: may be triggering with conversations around suicide and abuse. Remember
Speaker 3: there is help out there beyond blue dot org, dot AU,
Speaker 3: Lifeline one three, double one one four or one eight hundred,
Speaker 3: respect are just a couple of places you can guy.
Speaker 3: We caught up in Ryan's home in Melbourne, where he
Speaker 3: lives with his wife, Katie and little boy Jackson. I
Speaker 3: hope you enjoyed the chat. Ryan, thanks so much for
Speaker 3: joining me for a bloke who's got the nickname ironically rowdy.
Speaker 3: You for not saying a lot. How do you think
Speaker 3: you're going to find the next hour talking about nothing
Speaker 3: but you challenging?
Speaker 1: I'm sure, but we'll get through it.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you. You coming on fair to say you've
Speaker 3: done some work on yourself in recent months, including reflecting
Speaker 3: on your childhood. Can you give me a bit of
Speaker 3: an insight into what your childhood was like and what
Speaker 3: the work you wanted to do on yourself was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. It's sort of not hidden from ending, but
Speaker 1: sort of like to keep a lot of things myself
Speaker 1: and even sort of closest friends and things like that.
Speaker 1: Sort of don't have a great sort of understanding of
Speaker 1: my childhood and upbringing. And I guess it all started.
Speaker 1: I was born fairly easy to say, but youngest of
Speaker 1: four kids. My parents divorced when I was I think
Speaker 1: about two.
Speaker 2: My father was.
Speaker 1: Diagnosed with like a frontal lobe brain tumor.
Speaker 2: A little bit before I was born.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I didn't didn't have too much to do
Speaker 1: with them growing up. You know, different stories kind of
Speaker 1: give you, you know, who's a different man before he's diagnosed
Speaker 1: and after and how it affected him. But you know,
Speaker 1: they split up and I was two when Mum raised
Speaker 1: the four of us kids by herself. Another big part
Speaker 1: of my childhood was my name. Actually she spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time raising us as well. I told you
Speaker 1: it wouldn't last very long, Okay, So yeah, mum, Mum
Speaker 1: raised us four kids. We moved around a little bit
Speaker 1: when I was younger. We were out man Danielong for
Speaker 1: a few years and then moved down to One Beach,
Speaker 1: where I spent majority of my childhood. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: it was just sort of us us four Mum and
Speaker 1: then Nan would come over and take care of us.
Speaker 1: And Mum joined the police force and when she was
Speaker 1: going through the academy and night shift and stuff. Now
Speaker 1: would would obviously come over or would go stay. It
Speaker 1: stayed hers. So she's she's a big part of part
Speaker 1: of everything.
Speaker 3: What is in the Maine to you tell me a
Speaker 3: bit more about it.
Speaker 1: She's a she's a tough woman Italian. She came over
Speaker 1: on the boat during the Wars to kind of escape
Speaker 1: Italy at the time. And yeah, just tough, very obdical thinking,
Speaker 1: very tradition and all, I guess you could say in
Speaker 1: sort of the sense of roles. And she was wonderful.
Speaker 1: She was always there when we needed her and always
Speaker 1: willing to drop whatever she was doing and help us
Speaker 1: out basketball games or coming over and cooking his dinner
Speaker 1: or us go staying there or.
Speaker 2: Whatever it was.
Speaker 1: And you know, she's still doing pretty good right now
Speaker 1: ninety two. And it's been tough not being able to
Speaker 1: sort of see her and all the COVID impacts, but
Speaker 1: she's she'll outlive us all. She's too stubborn. But yeah, wonderful,
Speaker 1: loving woman, very very strong willed though say, yeah, a
Speaker 1: big part of a big part of our childhood. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, sort of get back to sort of the
Speaker 1: early years. So we moved around a few times and
Speaker 1: changed schools a few times.
Speaker 2: We sort of.
Speaker 1: Settled in bomb Beach area sort of during my very
Speaker 1: early years. I think we had visits with my dad
Speaker 1: once a month, once every two weeks. He had remarried,
Speaker 1: I think they remarried, but he had a partner and
Speaker 1: we didn't get on too famously with her. So that
Speaker 1: made the dynamic, you know, obviously tough. My dad was
Speaker 1: sort of soft spoken and pretty quiet and and uh
Speaker 1: and hard to sort of, you know, really get too
Speaker 1: much out of from what I can remember. So we
Speaker 1: did that for for a little while, and then that
Speaker 1: sort of dried up for for quite a while. We
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot to do with sort of my
Speaker 1: dad's side of the family, my grandma and my dad's side,
Speaker 1: or you know, cousins and aunties and uncles. It was
Speaker 1: it was sort of a little bit messy, so it
Speaker 1: was just us and Uh. I started getting into basketball
Speaker 1: and and playing around Frankston and starting to come up
Speaker 1: and he was a former Frankston player. He played during
Speaker 1: their one season in the NBL, and not that he
Speaker 1: was a star player or anything like that, but u
Speaker 1: but he was a big fan of the game. And
Speaker 1: he started to come to a few games here and there,
Speaker 1: and we started to make some more have some more contact,
Speaker 1: have some more somewhat visits, and then again it's sort
Speaker 1: of dropped off for for a while and sort of
Speaker 1: out of the blue, when I was twelve, twelve or thirteen,
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, two thousand and three, we get
Speaker 1: a call sort of out of the blue that he's
Speaker 1: pretty sick, and.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he was. He was a hospital.
Speaker 1: And basically just told comes, hey, goodbye. It's still it's
Speaker 1: still hard now, but it's more of the you know,
Speaker 1: the what epps and you know, his kids turned out
Speaker 1: all right, and now we've.
Speaker 2: Got kids on our own.
Speaker 1: It's just yeah, although we'll never never close or or
Speaker 1: not never really that closest becoming a father. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you only want it's best for your kids and to
Speaker 1: be part.
Speaker 2: Of their life.
Speaker 1: And whether it's his fault or not for not being
Speaker 1: a part now, it was he was so sort of
Speaker 1: young when he did go that he's missed a lot, and.
Speaker 3: I guess it's hard for you now as a father
Speaker 3: to reconcile not having that relationship with his kids. Is that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know, that's that's why I guess a
Speaker 1: lot of my decisions and towards now now having a
Speaker 1: childs what can I do that's best for the kid
Speaker 1: or best of my wife, Like I'm here to support them,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to put my kids through the
Speaker 1: same thing. Okay, all right, we've got the first cry
Speaker 1: od of the way.
Speaker 2: We're all locked in. Do you want to take the moment? No?
Speaker 1: No, I'm okay now that that's just that's always a
Speaker 1: tough one to get through. Its completely understand. But but
Speaker 1: you know, childhood was was sort of rough. Grew up,
Speaker 1: you know, single parent. Mum worked on and off, but
Speaker 1: we got by. We were sort of scraped by. And
Speaker 1: Mom did an amazing job dealing with all us four
Speaker 1: kids and getting us everywhere and travels and basketball and
Speaker 1: you know, my sister played netball and brother played footy
Speaker 1: and cricket and and everything else in between. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's I got one kid, and I got a wife,
Speaker 1: and we're here most of the and I'm like, Jesus
Speaker 1: is hard work. And she had she had four of us.
Speaker 1: My sisters and brother are eighteen months apart, and then
Speaker 1: I'm a couple of years after. So, you know, she
Speaker 1: had a lot at an early age with us kids
Speaker 1: and sort of taken a lot of it on herself.
Speaker 2: And I didn't appreciate it when I was growing up.
Speaker 1: I was like, why can I get this, or you know,
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. But looking back now, like,
Speaker 1: it's amazing how she held it all together and got
Speaker 1: us all through it. And you know, we had some
Speaker 1: ups and downs during that period.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mum had.
Speaker 1: Had one partner that was difficult for us. So she
Speaker 1: joined the police academy and became a police officer. Met
Speaker 1: this guy who was also a police officer. I was
Speaker 1: probably seven, seven and eight somewhere around there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, just a police officer.
Speaker 1: Obviously work pretty strange hours and night shifts and things
Speaker 1: like that. So and and he wasn't a very pleasant fellow.
Speaker 1: He he had a lot of back problems and back pains,
Speaker 1: and he was on on some pay meds sort of
Speaker 1: at the time, but generally just wasn't wasn't very pleasant
Speaker 1: person to be around.
Speaker 2: It was always difficult.
Speaker 1: So if mum was away at night shift, you know,
Speaker 1: we sort of had to be on the best behavior,
Speaker 1: and if if things didn't go well or we weren't
Speaker 1: well behaved, you know, there was consequences where there was
Speaker 1: you know physically with you know, belts across the knuckles
Speaker 1: or ruler or something like that. And then there was
Speaker 1: also sort of more of a mental side where he'd
Speaker 1: kind of get you out of bed at two three
Speaker 1: in the morning and would run the stairs in the house,
Speaker 1: or a few times he he locked me out of
Speaker 1: the house at two three in the morning and just
Speaker 1: basically shut off all lights and locked me out and
Speaker 1: left me out there for I don't remember how long,
Speaker 1: but at that age you're scared of everything and every
Speaker 1: little noise, and it wasn't sort of the where we
Speaker 1: lived was okay, but yeah, it was just sort of
Speaker 1: things like that that that we.
Speaker 2: Dealt with for a while, and.
Speaker 1: Me being the youngest, I probably didn't process it as
Speaker 1: much as sort of the other kids until it sort
Speaker 1: of builds up. So that was always tough. It's tough here,
Speaker 1: And if mum was on night shift and then she
Speaker 1: slept during the day, then Basically we were confined to
Speaker 1: the downstairs so we wouldn't wake mums as the kitchen
Speaker 1: and their bedroom are on the and the land room
Speaker 1: were on the top floor. So yeah, it just was
Speaker 1: sort of a great happy place to be around for
Speaker 1: for a little while. And one morning we're getting up
Speaker 1: for school. I don't remember I heard anything over through
Speaker 1: the night or not, but he was found in our
Speaker 1: front room. Mhkah, and uh he shot himself. H m hmmm.
Speaker 1: So it was I don't remember much around.
Speaker 2: That day. I remember we didn't go to school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't don't sort of recalled too much
Speaker 1: from from that time, but yeah, I remember the front
Speaker 1: room was kind of the spare room. That's where we
Speaker 1: had sort of the old desktop computer and the landline
Speaker 1: and then log into the internet and make all the
Speaker 1: buzzy noises and it was it had to be obviously
Speaker 1: recarpeted and repainted and everything like that, and that's that's
Speaker 1: what I remember most. It's just sort of the changing
Speaker 1: that that happened up there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: It's obviously easies e from the outside. He wasn't a
Speaker 1: happy person and took it out on us kids and
Speaker 1: eventually sort of got to himself. Mum became even more
Speaker 1: sort of protective after all that, and.
Speaker 2: You know, the early stages that.
Speaker 1: I guess things, things that I'd never to dealt with
Speaker 1: or not not stuff that outside of Katie and my
Speaker 1: media family that would know about. It's not something you
Speaker 1: kind of bring up to people, Yeah, how's your weekend.
Speaker 1: So it's obviously a lot behind the scenes that that
Speaker 1: I didn't didn't deal with and kept down for a
Speaker 1: long period of time. But you know, it was always
Speaker 1: kind of not the back of thought, but it always
Speaker 1: made me a little bit a little bit more, a
Speaker 1: little bit more sort of to myself, a little bit
Speaker 1: more reserved, a little bit more cautious and and worrying
Speaker 1: about sort of little things. I don't know if that
Speaker 1: was just a coping mechanism or or what if it's
Speaker 1: just how I was supposed to be anyway, that just
Speaker 1: the quiet, quiet kid. But after that sort of period,
Speaker 1: things things got, you know a little bit better, and
Speaker 1: basketball started to take a big, a big chunk of
Speaker 1: my time, big part of my life, and a lot
Speaker 1: of great things started to come from that, with with
Speaker 1: making teams and making friends and my mum met my
Speaker 1: now stepdad through that and he's he's awesome. Kev's been
Speaker 1: Kev's been great, and we've got a little bit of
Speaker 1: a Brady bunch family now. So Kev's got four kids
Speaker 1: and from his previous marriage and we've got four kids
Speaker 1: and two sets of twins between the families and it's
Speaker 1: all sorts.
Speaker 2: It's it was.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit of a madhouse, but me
Speaker 1: and the youngest boy, Will with the same age, and
Speaker 1: we met through but he came and joined Frankston and
Speaker 1: and we became friends, and then Mum and keV built
Speaker 1: from there. But it was it was really nice having,
Speaker 1: you know, a friend that became a brother and basketball.
Speaker 1: But they've been together ever since. Very happy to see
Speaker 1: mum happy after everything.
Speaker 2: So so Kev's been really good to her and they're
Speaker 2: out in the little farm and doing their own stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's been nice coming back after being away for
Speaker 1: sort of so long and letting my son go over
Speaker 1: there and all the all his little cousins. It's a
Speaker 1: good place to meet up. They've got a bit of
Speaker 1: space and let him all run around. So that's been
Speaker 1: a big, big, positive sort of life change for all
Speaker 1: of us. Just you know, finding good people and mom
Speaker 1: now happy. So yeah, I feel like I've just been
Speaker 1: talking and crying, so surely got some questions in there
Speaker 1: to break me up.
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry for everything that has happened to you.
Speaker 1: I really am.
Speaker 3: I just simply cannot imagine what that was like as
Speaker 3: a kid. Your mom. You spoke about her a little bit,
Speaker 3: but I mean, she sounds like one of the toughest
Speaker 3: people on earth. Can you tell me a little about
Speaker 3: your relationship with her and what she got through with
Speaker 3: the four kids as well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, incredibly tough. Yeah, how she sort of just got
Speaker 1: us all through that period, or through that long stage
Speaker 1: of of our childhood and kept us all together and
Speaker 1: kept us, you know, fair and dressed and able to
Speaker 1: get to everything that we wanted to. Yeah, is pretty incredible,
Speaker 1: look back, and we got very very close. Obviously being
Speaker 1: the youngest son of an Italian family and obviously the favorite,
Speaker 1: which all the siblings know about.
Speaker 2: Else. Yes, basically, but.
Speaker 1: She played basketball and it was pretty good. She tells
Speaker 1: me she's pretty good. She keeps telling me all the
Speaker 1: names she used to play against, the Tims and so
Speaker 1: on and so forth, and I'm like, Okay, that's I
Speaker 1: know who that is.
Speaker 3: So you're all right, I'm dressed up as miss Teams
Speaker 3: for one of my school days when I was a
Speaker 3: little kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly perfect.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, she was.
Speaker 1: She was a little feisty point guard mum, But yeah,
Speaker 1: basketball was was a big connector for us and probably
Speaker 1: a big healer as well. She obviously has a passion
Speaker 1: for the game, and most of my family does. But
Speaker 1: it's been you know, every Friday night traveling to games
Speaker 1: and games throughout the week for domestic and trainings and
Speaker 1: everything else. So we spent a lot of time traveling
Speaker 1: and in the car and talking about basketball and everything
Speaker 1: like that. I didn't talk about anything else, so basketball
Speaker 1: was easy. So yeah, and that was basically all my
Speaker 1: junior basketball was. It was Mum and I traveling around
Speaker 1: and yeah, we got very close and she rode sort
Speaker 1: of all the highs and lows that I did with
Speaker 1: junior basketball and not making state teams and making state teams,
Speaker 1: and when I sort of left for the as it
Speaker 1: was hard on her, like that was a big part
Speaker 1: for her. I went away at sixteen seventeen and then
Speaker 1: spent I guess most of the next fourteen years away
Speaker 1: sort of. I was the youngest, but it was sort
Speaker 1: of out of the house first and off the other
Speaker 1: side of you know, not cameras, not too far, but
Speaker 1: then after that the other side of the world, and
Speaker 1: that was that was difficult obviously for her aunt for
Speaker 1: I but yeah, Mom, yeah, it's tough as nails. And
Speaker 1: without her it definitely would have been a lot worse
Speaker 1: for us kind of getting through and would have changed.
Speaker 3: Little boy through the room, little Jackson would have.
Speaker 1: You know, without Mum, the four of us would have
Speaker 1: been in a lot worse shape than than what we are.
Speaker 1: And although we didn't have much, she found a way
Speaker 1: to give us all the opportunities that we could ever want.
Speaker 1: And you know, a big reason for why I've had
Speaker 1: the basketball career that I have is sort of her
Speaker 1: sacrificing and putting us kids well and truly above herself.
Speaker 1: And you know, now she gets to to reap some
Speaker 1: of the waters to all the grandkids, which she loves, loves,
Speaker 1: loves all that stuff. She'll complain about it, she'll say,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty tired, but I do you want to take Jackson? Yea, yeh, yeah,
Speaker 1: bring him down, Yeah, I'll bring him down. I'll take
Speaker 1: care of him. So it's nice.
Speaker 3: And it was even harder than that, wasn't it for her?
Speaker 3: You speak of being the youngest of four, but they
Speaker 3: were twin sisters and even that wasn't straightforward for her.
Speaker 1: No, Yeah, the twin sisters, there were about ten or
Speaker 1: twelve weeks premature. One of the sisters, Melissa, she was
Speaker 1: getting more of the nutrients through the umbilical cord. So
Speaker 1: even today, they were supposed to be identical twins, males
Speaker 1: quite a bit taller than Carly, But yeah, they were very,
Speaker 1: very small, and Carlie especially had a very low chance
Speaker 1: of sort of I guess surviving.
Speaker 2: She was fitting the size.
Speaker 1: Of your hand and didn't weigh anything, and they spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time in the hospital. They were even
Speaker 1: blessed by the Pope when he came through for visit.
Speaker 1: My name being a Roman Catholic was I think she's
Speaker 1: still got the photo, but yees, so, I couldn't imagine
Speaker 1: that sort of period as a parent, sort of watching
Speaker 1: the little kids five for life. But they're both happy
Speaker 1: and healthy now. Carli still has some hearing loss from
Speaker 1: from that period from her development, but they're they're both
Speaker 1: doing great. Carli's got a couple of kids, Male's got three,
Speaker 1: and they just started getting back into the afl W,
Speaker 1: or not the afl W but the local leagues and
Speaker 1: love it. And Carlie's this tiny little whippet that gets
Speaker 1: crunched and she's as tough as NW. She just get
Speaker 1: straight back up. And Mel has a bung knees run
Speaker 1: around and first year and I think I think they
Speaker 1: went one, two and the best and fairest or something
Speaker 1: like that. So spawning family, strong women, strong women too.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's been a lot of I guess challenges
Speaker 1: and her mum especially has weathered it probably better than most,
Speaker 1: to be honest. That true.
Speaker 3: One day that you actually broke your bone as a
Speaker 3: little attacker in you you look on your face with
Speaker 3: a smile.
Speaker 2: Yes. Story.
Speaker 1: So this one's a little more well known. But I
Speaker 1: think I was in grade four, grade five, eight or nine. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So we played in the semi final, it must have
Speaker 1: been grade five, so semi final domestic. To make the
Speaker 1: ground final, I took a charge and put my hand
Speaker 1: back to brace, fell to pain. Cried obviously at that point,
Speaker 1: because what else do you do it at that age
Speaker 1: when you fall over. Basically got told you're fine, go
Speaker 1: finish the game. We don't win in the game by
Speaker 1: your mom. Yes, my mom was a coach. She has
Speaker 1: a coach. I think she's a coach. If not, she
Speaker 1: definitely was yelling at from the stands. And then back
Speaker 1: at that stage, I was playing like a mixed mixed
Speaker 1: neple as well, and my sister's played sort of netball.
Speaker 1: It was kind of there, I may as well do something,
Speaker 1: and the girls played later on in the day, so
Speaker 1: I was gold gold attack.
Speaker 2: A goal shooter.
Speaker 1: Was like, you know, I'm in a lot of pain.
Speaker 1: I can't really catch the ball or whatever. She's like.
Speaker 1: She basically stood there and looked me in the eye
Speaker 1: and said, I didn't raise a pussy, get up and
Speaker 1: go play. Fell on it a few times, wasn't happy
Speaker 1: we ended up winning. You are telling this whole story
Speaker 1: with a big smile on you. It's funny to look
Speaker 1: back now, but she'll probably feel dreadful about it as
Speaker 1: being aired.
Speaker 2: But that's that's kind of how it was.
Speaker 1: Was sort of you get knocked down, you just got
Speaker 1: to get back up. And we went to the emergency
Speaker 1: room after that and had the skin and yeah, you
Speaker 1: got a fracture or a break in your your wrist.
Speaker 1: And she felt pretty terrible after that, so she was
Speaker 1: a little a little bit more. I was like, if
Speaker 1: if I'm hurd, I'm hurt. She's like, okay, I'll probably
Speaker 1: trust you. But you know, I mean kids now they
Speaker 1: fall over and you're like, I wasn't that bad, Just
Speaker 1: go on, get up, get up. But yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: missing the Grand Final, which I was pretty pretty upset about.
Speaker 1: But yeah, just a funny story that I guess that's
Speaker 1: just our sort of family. It's just things get tough.
Speaker 1: It's just jump back up, dust off, and keep going.
Speaker 1: And eventually we figured out it was broken. So probably
Speaker 1: not the best advice, but yeah, she still feels pretty
Speaker 1: bad to this day about it.
Speaker 3: So with such a special I mean, lots of people
Speaker 3: have special relationships with their mum, but yours is obviously
Speaker 3: to a whole another level. What did it mean to
Speaker 3: her when when you call her up and you say, Mama,
Speaker 3: I'm playing in the NBA.
Speaker 1: Oh, it was still sort of a truck to me.
Speaker 1: So I probably hadn't processed it at the point, but yeah,
Speaker 1: just pure happiness I think from mum and from keV
Speaker 1: as well, and you know they'd seen the long journey
Speaker 1: from you know, talling away over in Europe and college
Speaker 1: to finally getting sort of the opportunity and the sacrifices
Speaker 1: that aid along the way with missing a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff from a personal side, missing birth of nieces and
Speaker 1: nephews and birthdays and weddings and Christmases and everything else
Speaker 1: you can kind of think of during that period to
Speaker 1: sort of chase chase a dream and become the best
Speaker 1: player that I could be, and to sort of see
Speaker 1: a lot of those sacrifices piece some sort of dividend
Speaker 1: have have some sort of reward and meaning to it
Speaker 1: was special and a lot of it, you know, does
Speaker 1: go to her and the sacrifice she made getting me
Speaker 1: around everywhere as a kid and supporting me all throughout
Speaker 1: my juniors and then obviously when I became a professional
Speaker 1: as well. She still gives me advice to this day.
Speaker 3: I wanted advice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just advice that's eased off a little bit.
Speaker 2: Now, what kind of advice does he?
Speaker 1: Shoot the ball? Basically, if you're open, shoot the ball
Speaker 1: and I'll drive to the rim and then get to
Speaker 1: the free throw line. Just just advice that she she
Speaker 1: obviously watches the games, and yeah, she likes the likes
Speaker 1: to let me know what I'm what I'm doing good,
Speaker 1: and especially when I'm not. And no, it's it's very
Speaker 1: it's more playful now, so it's it's fine, But it
Speaker 1: was it was a pretty pretty special call to be
Speaker 1: able to make to her and and sort of share
Speaker 1: that together.
Speaker 3: When you decided to to revisit I guess what has happened.
Speaker 3: Had you pretty much just locked it away your childhood
Speaker 3: in your mind, had you just never got therapy, never
Speaker 3: spoken about it, and just put it in a box.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, for the most part, I don't even know
Speaker 1: when I sort of opened up to Katie about a
Speaker 1: lot of it. It's not something that.
Speaker 2: The passion my father.
Speaker 1: I mean, people know about that he passed away, but
Speaker 1: you know, not a lot of the details of sort
Speaker 1: of whether we had contact or not, or you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of impact it had. But it was it
Speaker 1: was a sort of you know, put that away. There
Speaker 1: was there's a few other losses with growth, grandparents and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. You just kind of lock it away
Speaker 1: and if you don't think about it, sort of it
Speaker 1: doesn't sort of affect you, or at least that's what
Speaker 1: I kind of thought for a long time, and all
Speaker 1: the other sort of stuff. It's just it's not something
Speaker 1: you want to really dredge up. And I think that's
Speaker 1: probably a lot of times that's the best way to
Speaker 1: deal it is actually confront it. But for me, it
Speaker 1: was it was sort of a scary and obviously me
Speaker 1: breaking down a little bit earlier confronting experience to sort
Speaker 1: of acknowledge that that did happen and that we went
Speaker 1: through that and not only you know, affecting me, but
Speaker 1: affected the rest of the family, and not something that
Speaker 1: unless I'm completely comfortable both in myself and the person
Speaker 1: I'm with, that I'm not going to sort of go
Speaker 1: into any sort of details with that. But Katie eventually
Speaker 1: prided it out of me. I knew at that point
Speaker 1: that she was going to be one that I was
Speaker 1: going to be with and marry, and felt comfortable sort
Speaker 1: of divulging that sort of stuff. But Katie was one
Speaker 1: that sort of saw a lot of the toll that
Speaker 1: some of those things that I've been carrying had taken
Speaker 1: and the effect that it had on me, and how
Speaker 1: I was that, you know, she was a big proponent
Speaker 1: for I don't know, probably five to six years that
Speaker 1: I probably should speak to someone and get some help
Speaker 1: and things like that, and I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: like I'm fine, Like you know how it is.
Speaker 2: You always think.
Speaker 1: You're able to handle all the situations that life throw
Speaker 1: at you and sort of put your head down and
Speaker 1: get through it. And yeah, I think eventually just sort
Speaker 1: of chipped away. So I'm very thankful that she kept
Speaker 1: supporting me and encouraging me without trying to, I guess,
Speaker 1: force me into it. And I had to come to
Speaker 1: realization myself that I needed to take some time and
Speaker 1: go through all this sort of crap and bring it
Speaker 1: all up and put it out there and work through
Speaker 1: and figure out out you know, why exactly it's still
Speaker 1: having an effect and why I was unable to do
Speaker 1: it then and sort of work through the answers. Now,
Speaker 1: are you glad that?
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously it's traumatic, and it will always be
Speaker 3: traumatic because it is trauma, But are you glad now
Speaker 3: that you are unpacking it and working through it as
Speaker 3: tough as it is.
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's definitely not easy to speak about. And some
Speaker 1: of my sessions were very much like the first fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: I'll send you the film, where it was just not
Speaker 1: much talking and me just just sort of letting letting
Speaker 1: it out for just trying to collect myself. So it's
Speaker 1: I've noticed a change, and Katie's noticed sort of a change,
Speaker 1: and it's only been a slight gradual change, but just
Speaker 1: sort of where I was at that point and everything
Speaker 1: that led up to sort of me making that decision.
Speaker 1: It just just sort of kept building and building, and
Speaker 1: eventually everything was bound to boil over and it kind
Speaker 1: of and I myself, I guess, at that point, didn't
Speaker 1: really realize it did until I kind of took a
Speaker 1: second to really analyze every part and not just sort
Speaker 1: of me and how I'm feeling, but how I'm interacting
Speaker 1: with my kid, how I'm interacting with my wife, or
Speaker 1: you know, how I'm communicating, and how I am on
Speaker 1: a daily, day to day sort of basis with friends
Speaker 1: and just not being I guess, true to them and
Speaker 1: true to myself. It was just sort of I put
Speaker 1: on this almost like a little act and just sort
Speaker 1: of say everything, everything's good, everything's fine, you know, things
Speaker 1: are going well, almost like I'm doing an interview after
Speaker 1: the game just just sort of the basics that the
Speaker 1: people want to hear, and underneath I think I knew.
Speaker 2: I was sort of lying and lying to them.
Speaker 1: But yeah, until we kind of take a second to
Speaker 1: actually look at it and process it and think, I
Speaker 1: guess about someone else other than yourself, you kind of
Speaker 1: see the impact you're having, and it's just not not me.
Speaker 1: I'm usually pretty pretty upbeat and pretty happy and pretty easy,
Speaker 1: go lucky.
Speaker 2: As my son is staring at us.
Speaker 3: Hey buddy, then he swimmers ready to go in the backyard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's very cute, thank you. He gets it from
Speaker 1: his mother obviously, But yeah, like even dealing with with him,
Speaker 1: it just felt like I wasn't really connecting with him
Speaker 1: or being present in the moment. And that's the last
Speaker 1: thing I ever wanted to be is sort of passive
Speaker 1: through life and passive through day today where it's just
Speaker 1: sort of you get through, run through the motions, and
Speaker 1: you get through it and you get up and do
Speaker 1: it again. The other day, there was there was nothing,
Speaker 1: I guess real about how I was acting, And yeah,
Speaker 1: it sort of hit me and really shook me that
Speaker 1: that that's how I was, and you know, I would
Speaker 1: be hanging out with the kid and finding other things
Speaker 1: to kind of distract. I'd go on my phone or
Speaker 1: turn on TV. Like I wasn't I wasn't there, Like
Speaker 1: I was just finding ways to kind of pass the time.
Speaker 1: And that's that's a terrible thing for me to kind
Speaker 1: of look back and say, that's where I was, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of where I was. And yeah, it's been
Speaker 1: really really nice taking that time away, time to figure
Speaker 1: myself out, time to find myself again. That now I
Speaker 1: can just enjoy time with him. And he's growing up quick.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that he's two and a half now,
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's They're very important to me, and I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that I'm there even you know,
Speaker 1: because I guess I didn't have that sort of farther
Speaker 1: figure when I was growing up.
Speaker 2: You want to be present, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Ordinarily, speaking with basketball star Ryan Brockoff,
Speaker 3: You've been through so much in the in the last
Speaker 3: eighteen months from a career perspective, you at COVID, you know,
Speaker 3: getting cut by Duglas and those sort of things. Do
Speaker 3: you think it's that or do you think it was
Speaker 3: the birth of Jackson or a combination of all the
Speaker 3: above that sort of set this path in process.
Speaker 1: I guess probably a little bit of everything. I think
Speaker 1: it's always kind of been lingering, and during certain times
Speaker 1: I'd revert back to just kind of finding ways just
Speaker 1: to get through it and being able to sort of
Speaker 1: wheel myself back to sort of a normal stage until
Speaker 1: something else happened and kind of flip flopping back and forth.
Speaker 3: And what would would you shut down? Would would you cry?
Speaker 3: How did you deal with those moments?
Speaker 1: Just internalized? Just just sort of shut down. It was
Speaker 1: never a huge crier until today, make me feel bad.
Speaker 1: This is part of my therapy, but yeah, it just
Speaker 1: just sort of eternalized and just sort of shut down,
Speaker 1: kepting myself, find ways to just sort of distract myself
Speaker 1: watching TV or play video game or getting out and
Speaker 1: just doing something that just sort of takes your mind
Speaker 1: off things if you're going through a hard time or
Speaker 1: or something you know, brings up an old memory that
Speaker 1: you kind of had forgotten about or tried to repress
Speaker 1: and push down. And it was very much just keep
Speaker 1: myself and that's it's not a healthy way to deal
Speaker 1: with a lot of that stuff. And Katie was good
Speaker 1: about sort of coaxing a lot of that stuff to
Speaker 1: get me to talk about it and bring it up.
Speaker 1: But it's one thing to sort of speak to a
Speaker 1: loved one that wants you to get it all out,
Speaker 1: but in a very sort of safe environment. For me,
Speaker 1: it was I needed to speak to someone independent to
Speaker 1: sort of be in a vulnerable state that I needed
Speaker 1: to just get everything out on the table and get
Speaker 1: things I guess looked at from a different perspective as
Speaker 1: to why I was still holding onto it and still
Speaker 1: affected me. And obviously the last eighteen months were difficult.
Speaker 1: We got cut by Dallas, but we're still living there,
Speaker 1: and then signed by Philly to go to the Bubble
Speaker 1: a few months later, and we're in Philadelphia, and then
Speaker 1: my wife got COVID and because she's high risk to
Speaker 1: do an underlying condition, and my son got sick. We
Speaker 1: were there as well, but not with COVID, with something else.
Speaker 1: But so Katie was trying to isolate and I'm getting
Speaker 1: tested and trying to prepare to fly out to the
Speaker 1: Bubble within a four or five days. And then Jack
Speaker 1: gets sick and I'm spending nights taking him to the
Speaker 1: emergency room and things like that. And eventually just having
Speaker 1: to pull the plug from my career. It would have
Speaker 1: made sense to go and join Philadelphia at that point.
Speaker 1: They needed tuning, they were interested in in me from
Speaker 1: you know, for the previous season, and career wise, it
Speaker 1: was a good opportunity. But there was no way I
Speaker 1: was leaving a wife that was high risk and this
Speaker 1: was early in COVID when there was less information about
Speaker 1: how it affects and the problems that could cause. And
Speaker 1: luckily Katie was pretty mild, just just a lot of
Speaker 1: tigue and things like that. But but yeah, leave those
Speaker 1: two or or Katie trying to take care of herself
Speaker 1: when she's sick and Jack sick, and so pulling out
Speaker 1: of that was it was easy decision for that reason.
Speaker 1: I couldn't leave them just to go further my career
Speaker 1: or try and chase something career wise like bast Well,
Speaker 1: eventually it's going to be finished, but I want to
Speaker 1: make sure that least these guys are around and push
Speaker 1: them away for something something like that. So we're stuck
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia for a couple of weeks in a small apartment,
Speaker 1: basically quarantining. I think after that we went back to
Speaker 1: Dallas and they were there for a little while. I
Speaker 1: was trying to get to the bubble later on once
Speaker 1: sort of Katie and Jack were okay and fine, we're
Speaker 1: back in Dallas in our house, but was only able
Speaker 1: to do to the league and bringing players in at
Speaker 1: that point. But yeah, then it headed into the off
Speaker 1: season and there was a few teams that were showing interest,
Speaker 1: and weird everything locked away with one team basically, yep,
Speaker 1: all things are good. The gym was like, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: just going to check with the owner and we'll get
Speaker 1: back to you sort of tomorrow and a couple days past,
Speaker 1: and nothing happened, and then Facey said, oh no, we
Speaker 1: can't do it. So we're left scrambling, and you know,
Speaker 1: things didn't quite go to plan. We left Philadelphia and
Speaker 1: went to Michigan to be with sort of Katie's family.
Speaker 1: I think it was for us. We just needed to
Speaker 1: see some friendly faces and kind of get away escape
Speaker 1: from basketball a little while. And I was still training
Speaker 1: most days and working out, but there was a bit
Speaker 1: of a headspin sort of back and forth and this
Speaker 1: team that team. Yes, no, still sort of getting some
Speaker 1: calls from NBA teams. Yeah, maybe things may happen, just
Speaker 1: sort of wait around, and we got to the point
Speaker 1: where we were just why sort of just keep waiting
Speaker 1: around on waiting on the hook, And that's when sort
Speaker 1: of the Phoenix popped up. And yeah, it was sort
Speaker 1: of not too long after that. We sort of made
Speaker 1: a long trip with our son and two weeks quarantine
Speaker 1: and then yeah, straight into sort of the Phoenix season,
Speaker 1: jumping straight in and obviously that was very up and
Speaker 1: down with injuries and my form and everything else to
Speaker 1: go win with it. So it was just a lot
Speaker 1: of moving around in a short period of time, a
Speaker 1: lot of backflipping on things, and a lot of changes.
Speaker 1: And what sort of really started to worry me was
Speaker 1: sort of all those changes within the States. We could
Speaker 1: see the effect it was starting to have on Jack.
Speaker 1: So he was always a good sleeper and no worries,
Speaker 1: but he started to sort of act out and would
Speaker 1: climb out of his bed and he was in new,
Speaker 1: unfamiliar places every other week. But it was just a
Speaker 1: lot for him and he was starting to know just
Speaker 1: have some effects, and that was a big thing to
Speaker 1: try and come back to Australia and have something that
Speaker 1: we know would be a little bit more settled. I
Speaker 1: wasn't enjoying basketball during sort of that period of time.
Speaker 1: Very much became a job that you know, I still
Speaker 1: did to best of my physical abilities, still put in
Speaker 1: the world, put in the time, and but I don't
Speaker 1: think mentally, I just I hadn't I didn't have the
Speaker 1: love for it. I didn't enjoy it, which didn't help either,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's you go to something you don't
Speaker 1: enjoy every day and you bust in your ass and
Speaker 1: physically each day you come home tie and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: what am I doing this for? Like it's it's not
Speaker 1: it's not providing me with any happiness. It's not providing
Speaker 1: the family with any happiness or support, support of stability.
Speaker 1: It was it was sort of iron for me that
Speaker 1: it's it's less about me, you know, that sort of
Speaker 1: young basketball that that doesn't have the responsibilities is able
Speaker 1: to do that and move around and change and chase
Speaker 1: these things and put things on hold. But when you
Speaker 1: got a wife and family and things like that, it
Speaker 1: puts a lot of things in perspective that I need
Speaker 1: to to make sure that yes, I'm doing everything I
Speaker 1: can to support them and do my job.
Speaker 2: But it has to.
Speaker 1: It has to be in balance. It can't be or
Speaker 1: tilted towards me, which which it was for a long
Speaker 1: long time. Katie followed me everywhere around Europe and she
Speaker 1: did biology and chemistry and she's a lot smarter than
Speaker 1: I am, and you know, she had things that she
Speaker 1: was playing to do after college and that sort of
Speaker 1: up on hold and to sort of follow me around as.
Speaker 2: I chase this dream.
Speaker 1: But it gets to a point where it's not worth
Speaker 1: it to keep fighting and scratching and chasing the small
Speaker 1: chance just to put my family through a lot that
Speaker 1: they don't need to do when we can sort of
Speaker 1: come back here to Australia and find some stability and
Speaker 1: be able to play and enjoy basketball again and also
Speaker 1: sort of have a stable family life.
Speaker 3: That's the thing about the NBA, right, and elite sport,
Speaker 3: but particularly I think the NBA that people always see
Speaker 3: that you know, the fame and the money and the
Speaker 3: glitz and the glam and the big names, but it
Speaker 3: is brutal, right, particularly if you're not one of the
Speaker 3: starting five or one of the biggest teams. How brutal
Speaker 3: was that day with Dallas because it is the club,
Speaker 3: you know, the franchise that you get your big chance
Speaker 3: with and all your dreams come true. Can you tell
Speaker 3: me about that day and just giving an insight into
Speaker 3: two fans listening of just how cutthroat EAT is.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah. It sort of caught me a little
Speaker 1: bit by surprise. I had heard that they were thinking
Speaker 1: of signing a different player. Even of my eighteen months there,
Speaker 1: when I got opportunities, I felt like I was able
Speaker 1: to show and do a ride and help the team.
Speaker 1: We made some big trades my first year where we
Speaker 1: had a full roster one night and then half the
Speaker 1: team got traded away the next day and we had
Speaker 1: another game the next night, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: where is everybody like this? And this got traded to
Speaker 1: I think it was for the Porzingis trade. And there
Speaker 1: was also the trade with Sacramento I think around that
Speaker 1: time as well. And he's like, oh, so they've gone like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you got like forty eight hours to once you traded
Speaker 1: to report to the new city and basically pack your
Speaker 1: whatever you got head over there.
Speaker 2: And that's how it is.
Speaker 1: So I think we had like eight or nine for
Speaker 1: the next game and the next few games while all
Speaker 1: that was transition was happening, and I felt like that
Speaker 1: was sort of a good stretch for me. I got
Speaker 1: to play quite a bit and show quite a bit.
Speaker 1: And then obviously those new players then integrate into the team,
Speaker 1: and being sort of lowest on the money tot and pole,
Speaker 1: you kind of get pushed back to the bench. But
Speaker 1: you know, with injuries here and there, you'd kind of
Speaker 1: jump in and jump out and at least was solid
Speaker 1: and showed a little bit. And that's kind of how
Speaker 1: it was. That second year. I started to play a
Speaker 1: little bit more and then a freak incident the last
Speaker 1: play in LA and a fracture and the top of
Speaker 1: my fibula on my left leg, and then I was
Speaker 1: out six eight weeks with that, and then started to
Speaker 1: play again and started to find a little bit of
Speaker 1: form and find sort of a little bit of rotations.
Speaker 1: And then the day that it actually happened, I was
Speaker 1: getting ready. I was like, Okay, this is good game,
Speaker 1: like I should be able to get get on for here,
Speaker 1: and then didn't play the game. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty frustrating, And that's how it kind of been.
Speaker 1: I'd kind of build myself up, like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: the game, I'll get in and make sure I'm up
Speaker 1: and ready, and then pretty flat afterwards when when you
Speaker 1: don't get on and team losers, and and got called
Speaker 1: into I think the coach's office. I think it was
Speaker 1: coach Carlisle's office with Dunnie Nelson the GM, and and
Speaker 1: basically they just seven down and said the organization has
Speaker 1: decided to sort of go a different way, and we
Speaker 1: thank you for sort of the two years of service.
Speaker 1: And they were actually very very kind about it. And
Speaker 1: I'd just spoken to Rick a few times afterwards and
Speaker 1: and things like that, so it wasn't a it wasn't
Speaker 1: a bad breakup. But Mum was over there at the time,
Speaker 1: and they were at the game and they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: it took a while to get out, and I was
Speaker 1: sort of not holding back tears, but but sort of
Speaker 1: they could tell something is wrong, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I better get these two out of here before I
Speaker 1: tell them and go storm the GM's office and cause
Speaker 1: a mess. So scared of your mom, Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: Bad timing for them.
Speaker 1: But I sort of shuttled them into the car and
Speaker 1: we had we took two different cars, so basically just
Speaker 1: told me I've been released. Okay, we'll see you don't
Speaker 1: go that sort of thing and just try to get
Speaker 1: them to leave. And I just said, look, I'll probably
Speaker 1: take the long way home just to sort of clear
Speaker 1: my head and have a think about it all.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was sort of sudden, but it's yeah, the turnover
Speaker 1: rate over then in the NBA, with trades and signings
Speaker 1: and waving it it's it's pretty it's pretty brutal.
Speaker 3: What was that drive home? Like?
Speaker 1: Oh, I was just sort of you think about what
Speaker 1: you could have done better, or if you did enough,
Speaker 1: or you know what, what what are we going to
Speaker 1: do next.
Speaker 2: It happened.
Speaker 1: Just after the trade period, and I had heard that
Speaker 1: Philadelphia had tried to actually trade for me, so they
Speaker 1: were looking for shooting to put around Ben Simmons and
Speaker 1: Embiid and they didn't have a lot of shooting sort
Speaker 1: of that at that point, and Dallas the kind of
Speaker 1: said no, no, we we're pretty happy with him and
Speaker 1: things like that, so they went and traded for a
Speaker 1: couple other guys and then yeah, not too long af
Speaker 1: after that was sort of and I was released and
Speaker 1: then I was like, oh, well, it's an opportunity maybe
Speaker 1: missed and so it was just sort of, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: they didn't want me, Why didn't they sort of trade me?
Speaker 1: And you know what's sort of next, am I we're
Speaker 1: going to be able to find another team?
Speaker 2: What are we going to do?
Speaker 1: Do we have to you know, sell the house and
Speaker 1: move and you know everything else that happens with Did you.
Speaker 3: Feel the responsibility of not just your own career, but
Speaker 3: being a dad and being a husband and yeah.
Speaker 1: Jack was six months old or eight months old at
Speaker 1: that stage, like, okay, well, it's just yeah, it's just unfortunately, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just unfortunately part of that business. It's it's very cutthroat,
Speaker 1: and there's so many good players all over the world
Speaker 1: trying to buy into I think it's four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty spots or something in the NBA.
Speaker 3: Throughout this whole period, though, you're basically not acknowledging that
Speaker 3: anything's invertedcom is wrong with you? At what point did
Speaker 3: you go, I'm not okay and now I need help?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Probably not for still a while.
Speaker 1: I was probably still looking for reasons or you know,
Speaker 1: who else can kind of be to blame. Sounds terrible.
Speaker 1: I guess I typically am pretty hard on myself. Anyway,
Speaker 1: and this was sort of like, well, I obviously did
Speaker 1: something wrong, but you know what else, who else? And
Speaker 1: all those thoughts, But it probably wasn't until back over
Speaker 1: here and after it all, and I think having a
Speaker 1: little bit more spility in the personal life, everything sort
Speaker 1: of caught up to me, if that makes sense, Like
Speaker 1: most Knights would just lay awake and just sort of
Speaker 1: think about everything that had just happened and what was
Speaker 1: going to happen next, and you know, what could I
Speaker 1: have changed or done better? And it just sort of
Speaker 1: I think everything caught up to me a lot over
Speaker 1: here and just built up and I felt, I guess
Speaker 1: I still do feel. It's I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: regret or shame or or what for not being able
Speaker 1: to sort of make it in the NBA or not
Speaker 1: being able to sort of stick so that that was
Speaker 1: another thing, and it's I think I think it all
Speaker 1: just eventually just caught up to me. I finally took
Speaker 1: my head out of the sand and realized everything that
Speaker 1: it changed and the effects was having on the family
Speaker 1: and instead of I didn'tternalize it, but it got to
Speaker 1: a point where I just couldn't keep it all down
Speaker 1: and then I had the Olympics coming up and the
Speaker 1: tryouts and things.
Speaker 2: Like that, and I just, I don't know. It was
Speaker 2: one nine. I was just I looked at my wife.
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know if I can do it,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know if I can actually get up
Speaker 1: and do it. You know, we'd spent sort of six
Speaker 1: weeks at the end of the season with run away
Speaker 1: from COVID, and then you know there was going to
Speaker 1: be another six seven weeks with the national team and
Speaker 1: just not in a good place physically, run in a
Speaker 1: good place mentally, and making that decision was it was
Speaker 1: hard because I understood the opportunity to represent your country
Speaker 1: and Olympic Games is so few and far between, and
Speaker 1: the excitement of the squad and obviously leading to bronze,
Speaker 1: but I physically just just couldn't bring myself to do
Speaker 1: it or mentally allow myself to leave and to go
Speaker 1: do that. I don't know. It was just it just
Speaker 1: it was a sinking feeling in my stomach that I
Speaker 1: just couldn't get rid of it, no matter how many
Speaker 1: times I tried to convince myself for just to argue
Speaker 1: with my own self, my own head as to as
Speaker 1: to yeah you can, and you know you regret this
Speaker 1: and everything like that. I I couldn't do it, and
Speaker 1: it's very tough, But looking back now, there there's no
Speaker 1: regrets that I didn't go. There was no part of
Speaker 1: me that thinks I would have been better off or
Speaker 1: family would have been better off if I did go.
Speaker 1: It would have been be great to have the bronze
Speaker 1: medal hanging around somewhere, but I don't know if for me,
Speaker 1: the last thing that I wanted to do was to
Speaker 1: not be myself at something like that and to impact
Speaker 1: the team in a negative way where I'm becoming an
Speaker 1: distraction or I'm not able to be fully involved in
Speaker 1: or fully not just involved. But yeah, just something like
Speaker 1: that is such a short amount of time. You have
Speaker 1: to be so on top of everything and fully on board,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't. I couldn't be that way. I couldn't
Speaker 1: do it during you know, a regular season here with
Speaker 1: the Phoenix, where I just I wasn't me how how
Speaker 1: I was I supposed to go with you know, such
Speaker 1: a big event like that, with so much pressure and expectations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would have worried about myself and the impact that
Speaker 1: would have caused and that would have that would have
Speaker 1: been something I regretted if I had been a reason
Speaker 1: as to why the team didn't achieve what it could achieve,
Speaker 1: or be a distraction that impacted a.
Speaker 3: Lot of you guys are obviously really close. Did any
Speaker 3: of them know how bad it was for you? No?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, real close.
Speaker 1: And I've not dallied over like we went to the
Speaker 1: As together at sixteen and played against each other before
Speaker 1: that and know each other a long time and always
Speaker 1: always kept in touch, and national team's always been a
Speaker 1: great way to reconnect.
Speaker 2: After long seasons. But I don't know. Maybe it was
Speaker 2: because I.
Speaker 1: Don't, I guess, open up a bout all of that
Speaker 1: stuff and have that quiet personality that people just think
Speaker 1: that that's just how I am and how I annoy
Speaker 1: I am, and that everything's fine. So it wasn't something
Speaker 1: that I wanted sort of out there or to be known.
Speaker 1: You kind of feel like you're letting people down or
Speaker 1: you're I don't know whether you should be sort of
Speaker 1: ashamed for, I guess having these feelings and having these
Speaker 1: worries as an athlete. You sort of seen as an
Speaker 1: athlete that should be able to just get up and perform,
Speaker 1: and you know, the personal side doesn't really impact the
Speaker 1: professional side when it when it clearly does and we're
Speaker 1: you know, I'm more than just a basketball player, and yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's something that I definitely kept myself for a
Speaker 1: long time and it's been very freeing to finally say
Speaker 1: something and get it out there and be able to
Speaker 1: deal with it.
Speaker 3: What do you think your friends, your family, your teammates
Speaker 3: are going to think when they listen.
Speaker 1: To this, Hopefully just a just an understanding of what
Speaker 1: went into sort of my decision with obviously with the
Speaker 1: national team, and just just maybe sort of fill in
Speaker 1: some gaps, especially with friends and stuff as to periods
Speaker 1: where I wasn't sort of me or a little bit
Speaker 1: more reserved than what I had been, and just why
Speaker 1: I am the way I am today that taking care
Speaker 1: of the two two outside ones trying to get in
Speaker 1: that taking care of those two is far and away
Speaker 1: more important to me than anything else. And the reasons
Speaker 1: why that is why why I don't want to sort
Speaker 1: of repeat or I guess put my family through some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that I went through.
Speaker 3: And is that why you've decided to speak up, I guess,
Speaker 3: like you say, trying to break the cycle, I guess,
Speaker 3: but also help anyone else out there who's feeling those
Speaker 3: things because it's so common, isn't it that you use
Speaker 3: the word shame and embarrassment and those sort of things.
Speaker 3: But it shouldn't be at all how people feel.
Speaker 1: It should it shouldn't be. But yeah, you when you're
Speaker 1: kind of going through, yeah, you're very conscious of how
Speaker 1: other people perceive you, and being an athlete here and
Speaker 1: especially I guess in the basketball world, a higher profile.
Speaker 1: The last thing I wanted to do was let people
Speaker 1: down or not live up to what I was supposed
Speaker 1: to live up to with expectations and things like that.
Speaker 1: But if someone does take something from my story or
Speaker 1: sees that this can affect anybody or you're going through
Speaker 1: something similar, that if someone then takes it and says, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need to get some help. I've been dealing with
Speaker 1: this sort of stuff and I've been feeling this way,
Speaker 1: and I haven't been myself and I have been a
Speaker 1: lot more negative than I usually have been, or having
Speaker 1: troubled thoughts or something like that, that Okay, it's there's
Speaker 1: signs that sort of indicators it maybe it's time to
Speaker 1: get some help. And it took me a long time,
Speaker 1: but yeah, a big reason why I'm open and honest
Speaker 1: and trying to be trying to be that way after
Speaker 1: so long of just sort of doing the regular interviews
Speaker 1: and saying all the right things and just sort of
Speaker 1: going through the motions.
Speaker 3: At a time. I genuinely think I'm a massive basketball fan.
Speaker 3: You know how much I love your three. I think
Speaker 3: it's the prettiest three in the in the game. But
Speaker 3: I genuinely think that your legacy is going to be
Speaker 3: this having heard your story, and I knew a little
Speaker 3: bit coming into this, but obviously I didn't know all
Speaker 3: of it. I genuinely think this is going to be
Speaker 3: your your greatest legacy. Do you wish you got help
Speaker 3: sooner or did it just you needed to take that
Speaker 3: amount of time to get to where you are now.
Speaker 1: I do know getting help earlier not would fix things
Speaker 1: or make things change a lot of things, but for
Speaker 1: me on a personal level, would have allowed me to
Speaker 1: handle and process a lot of stuff a lot differently
Speaker 1: and be a little bit more proactive with that.
Speaker 2: So I kind of do it.
Speaker 1: My wife tells me I should listen to her all
Speaker 1: the time and that she's always right, but in this case,
Speaker 1: she was and she's been as you know, with me
Speaker 1: day and Dawn out.
Speaker 2: For Oh gosh, it feels like forever.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: You met way back in college.
Speaker 1: I did, so, Yeah, I don't know. We're coming up
Speaker 1: on nine years together. I hope I'm right. I remember
Speaker 1: the wedding anniversary, so that's all it matters. But yeah,
Speaker 1: she of all people to sort of see changes in
Speaker 1: the day to day lifestyle, she would be the one.
Speaker 1: And she, you know, years ago, said you probably need
Speaker 1: to to speak to somebody, and I wish I did.
Speaker 1: But I think for a lot of people it's almost.
Speaker 2: On their own timeline.
Speaker 1: Like you can try and force someone or encourage someone,
Speaker 1: but until they kind of reach I don't know if
Speaker 1: I reached a rock bottom por se, but a point
Speaker 1: where they're able to reflect and really see it for themselves.
Speaker 1: It goes in one ear and out the other. I
Speaker 1: myself didn't think that I needed it. You have to
Speaker 1: get to a certain point before you actually can acknowledge it,
Speaker 1: and I think that's the only time that you really
Speaker 1: if you do go and get helpy, actually can be
Speaker 1: open and.
Speaker 3: Honest Are you doing better now? How are you doing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still still working through some stuff, but definitely
Speaker 1: feel a lot lighter day to day, being able to
Speaker 1: enjoy things, not sort of getting too anxious about the
Speaker 1: past or what's the car, more worried about too many things.
Speaker 1: It's more so being able to stay in the moment
Speaker 1: and be happy in the moment and be very sort
Speaker 1: of thankful for the life that we have and get
Speaker 1: that joy back in basketball and in playing. And I
Speaker 1: didn't realize how much I missed it over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years. The enjoyment and the fun, the reason
Speaker 1: I got into it as a kid, and when I
Speaker 1: found love with it as a kid, that was gone
Speaker 1: for it for a while. And to kind of get
Speaker 1: that back at I guess you'd say that a later
Speaker 1: end of my career. It's been almost like a new
Speaker 1: Lis on life, Lisa on basketball, and Yeah, and may
Speaker 1: prolong my bastel, or at least give me the film
Speaker 1: and enjoyment that I want from it before I get
Speaker 1: a little too old and I get a little too slow,
Speaker 1: And I'm still gonna be able to shit the three,
Speaker 1: but but all the other parts are going to fall
Speaker 1: without all the parts. So yeah, just just make sure
Speaker 1: that basketball's on the finite career and that I enjoyed
Speaker 1: and get the filming out of it. Otherwise, why am
Speaker 1: I doing it?
Speaker 3: I messaged Katie or spoke to Katie, your wife heading
Speaker 3: into this one, and I as part of the phone call,
Speaker 3: I asked her why she loves you, what it is
Speaker 3: about you that she loves, and she spoke at the
Speaker 3: time of how humble you were and the fact that
Speaker 3: you know, you would stay there and signing autographs until
Speaker 3: the lights literally went out in arenas and those sort
Speaker 3: of things. But she sent me a text afterwards and said,
Speaker 3: I just wanted to add a little bit more as
Speaker 3: to why I love Ryan. He's a great father to Jack,
Speaker 3: and Jack loves his dad so much. He's so kind
Speaker 3: towards me and understanding. He really hears me and cares
Speaker 3: about what I think. Obviously, his career determines a lot
Speaker 3: of what our life looks like, but he values my opinion.
Speaker 3: He knows it affects more than just himself. That can
Speaker 3: be seen throughout his career. When I got sick with COVID,
Speaker 3: him putting us ahead of an NBA opportunity and putting
Speaker 3: our family's health above his last Olympics or this last Olympics.
Speaker 3: I should say, I'm not you out next one. It
Speaker 3: does say this last Olympics. When I do speak, he listens.
Speaker 3: We truly have a partnership because no one else can
Speaker 3: understand what we've been through in this life thus far.
Speaker 3: It's the two of us in the trenches. That's what
Speaker 3: has helped us in life, as we have always had
Speaker 3: each other's back, because sometimes all we had was one another.
Speaker 3: It's a pretty nass triviut that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like I've wrote it myself.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: She's a good one, and yeah, even our time together
Speaker 1: hasn't always been smooth sailing, and very lucky to have
Speaker 1: found someone like her.
Speaker 3: Do you, because I hope you do. Do you look
Speaker 3: at your son now and are you kinder to yourself
Speaker 3: for what you went through and who you are now
Speaker 3: and the pressures you put on yourself? Because when you
Speaker 3: look at your little boy and you imagine yourself at
Speaker 3: that age and growing up and everything you went through,
Speaker 3: are you kinder to yourself?
Speaker 1: I think I'm just aware of the impact even at
Speaker 1: a young age like my son, is that I can
Speaker 1: have both positive and negative and why I want to
Speaker 1: be as present as possible during his childhood. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that makes it makes me take it easier
Speaker 1: actually sort of harder on myself to make sure that
Speaker 1: putting more pressure just to make sure that I am
Speaker 1: I am there when I say it will be. And
Speaker 1: I just want him to have as smooth a childhood
Speaker 1: and as he can and happy and healthy. That's really
Speaker 1: all I care about. Now that I'm a dad, sort
Speaker 1: of think how my dad would have been, and I
Speaker 1: think he really enjoyed a lot of this sort of
Speaker 1: stuff and seeing not just where I've been, but the
Speaker 1: rest of the siblings and how they've grown. And I
Speaker 1: feel sad that he was gone so young and not
Speaker 1: able to.
Speaker 3: Do that.
Speaker 1: And it's just something I think that has always been
Speaker 1: in my head that I want a family, and I
Speaker 1: want a big family. My wife doesn't want a huge family,
Speaker 1: but that, oh, I hear the kid crying, but that
Speaker 1: my family is going to be the most important thing
Speaker 1: to me, and to be present and to be as
Speaker 1: involved as I can be. I've seen, I guess firsthand,
Speaker 1: the other way that it goes and the effects he
Speaker 1: can have and the growing up, how challenging it can be,
Speaker 1: and I don't want that for my son.
Speaker 3: Thank you for being as honest as you have and
Speaker 3: for even allowing me into your home and to share
Speaker 3: this story. I've loved watching you play.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: The good news for me is that you're now back
Speaker 3: in the NBA when us I was, your fans see
Speaker 3: plenty more of us, So we're loving watching you for
Speaker 3: Southeast Melbourne and I just hope there's many more years
Speaker 3: to come in many more highlights.
Speaker 1: No, just just a big thank you and the big
Speaker 1: check for our therapy session being in the mail. Can
Speaker 1: you just send me an itemizing voice for It's a
Speaker 1: big thank you. It's not always easy talking about this
Speaker 1: sort of sort of stuff, but I very much appreciate
Speaker 1: that the platform to be able to do this, and
Speaker 1: I feel very comfortable to be able to talk about
Speaker 1: this stuff with you. And maybe thank you for thinking
Speaker 1: to me with your podcast. And I love the work
Speaker 1: you're doing with this and looking at athletes, I guess
Speaker 1: not just much as athletes, but people as people, not
Speaker 1: just the things that they do. Thank you time.
Speaker 3: Once again, thank you to Ryan and his family for
Speaker 3: sharing their story. Please remember if this chat was triggering
Speaker 3: for you, or there is someone you know who may
Speaker 3: need help. Beyond Blue dot org, dot AU, Lifeline one three, double, one,
Speaker 3: one four or one eight hundred respect are just a
Speaker 3: few places you can go. If you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 3: you may also be interested in the chat with former
Speaker 3: Wildcats champion Greg Hire from season two and if you
Speaker 3: want to get in touch at Narrowly Underscore Meadows on
Speaker 3: Twitter or at ordinarily Underscore Speaking on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: A new episode of Ordinarily Speaking will drop on Wednesday,