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In 2022, the North Melbourne Kangaroos wooed four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson out of hiatus to lead their revival.
North Melbourne, a proud-yet-spluttering club, were keen to end their long premiership drought and believed Clarkson — a former Kangaroos player — was the right man for the job.
In his first address to the first-to-fourth year players, it became immediately clear that the standard he was looking for was at an all-new level.
Introducing a concept he calls ‘The Dash’, Clarkson drew a human lifetime on the board, shading in a block between ages 20 and 30.
Below is a transcription of Clarkson’s presentation:
This is you guys. That patch right there. I won’t bore you with it now, but there’s a poem called The Dash — it’s about making the most of the opportunity you’ve got.
Now, the dash is really eighty years out of hundreds and hundreds of years of civilization, but in terms of the eighty years you’ve got, what are you going to do with those? And in terms of the (maybe) ten years you’ve got playing footy, what are you going to do with those? Because this doesn’t go forever.
What you guys have the opportunity to do, right now, is really special.
But you’ll quickly find out that we’re not here just to find players who can play AFL footy. No we’re not. We’re searching for players that can play in an AFL premiership team.
So there will be some players who come and go from here and people will say ‘Aw, he’s capable of playing AFL footy’. Yeah, there’s lots of blokes capable of playing league footy! And there’s a lot who will get that opportunity. They can play, but can they play at the highest level on the last Saturday in September? That’s what we’re searching for.
Now, whether it’s about the things you do in the high-performance space, in the mental health space, in your lifestyle away from the club, it’s all to do with The Dash. It’s about giving yourself the best opportunity while you’re here. And we’re going to put resources in place to help you maximize your opportunity to be the best you can be, and, more importantly, the best we can be.
We’re doing this together, and if we do, you look how quickly it can happen!
A couple of things stand out to me about the craft in Clarkson’s messaging:
Your athletic career is short (and important), but it pales compared to the scale of your entire life.
The vision is to build a premiership team, not just field a team.
The accountability is on the players to make the most of their time at the club, however it’s our role to support them in as many ways as possible.
In an individualistic society, the only way this works is if we make it about us as a collective.