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onehundredandten-percent · 8 years ago

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Luke Beveridge opens up on life, family, football and the wisdom of Willy Wonka

Mark Robinson, Herald Sun

February 23, 2017

WESTERN Bulldogs premiership coach Luke Beveridge sits down with Mark Robinson to talk life, family, footy and the wisdom of Willy Wonka.

Mark Robinson: I’m going to try discover the mystique of Luke Beveridge. Will I find what I’m looking for?

Luke Beveridge: I don’t think so. What you see is what you get with me.

MR : Do you laugh when people say “there’s something about Luke Beveridge”?

LB: I don’t know if I laugh, but I feel very fortunate because the reason why people ask that question is, as a coach, I’ve been fortunate to have success. I do wonder at times, with all the sliding doors along the way, why I’m so blessed. When those doors slide, a lot of times as a coach they have slid in my favour and our favour wherever I’ve been. Maybe I’m in the right place at the right time all the time.

MR: It’s got to be more than fortunate to be in the right place, right time as many times as you have been.

LB: People talk a lot about leadership. As a coach, we are a manager of people as much as a coach and I do that with a pretty strong conscience. Whether you’re a manager or a worker at the bottom of the hierarchy, if you do everything with a strong conscience and you influence other people, I think that becomes contagious and I think it reaches critical mass at a point where you can be a successful outfit. And I think that’s happened. I’ve been fortunate to work with people who have already got that base level of conscientiousness and we’ve worked together well. That’s the root of it all. How you implement that working environment is a challenge.

MR: Everyone asks about the influence your dad John (long-time St Kilda recruiter) had on your life. But what influence did your mum, Rosa, have on you?

LB: More than anyone else in my life. She taught me unconditional love. That it doesn’t matter what other people do who are close to you, as long as you love them. And if you want to nurture that, then you’ve got to think before you speak and think before you act. You know, growing up, we didn’t have a lot but what we did have was her love and guidance. She’s a strong lady, she was the rock.

MR: How many in the family?

LB: Four kids. I’m third in line. Yeah, Dad was interesting. I always think, for him, he had two kids too many. He could cope with two, three was too many and four tipped him over the edge. There was a real discipline in the way he fathered and that was important for me, but he had low tolerance.

MR: Are you intolerant?

LB: No. I’m the opposite. I probably got it from Mum.

MR: How much has that helped with your ability to be patient with people, find time for people and clearly have an ability to get in contact with a person’s soul, if that’s the right word?

LB: I have a genuine care and love for people. When I meet someone, I like them before anything. The only reason I would dislike someone is if they do something to me or against me unsolicited, where I haven’t deserved it and they had no right to do it. Then I’m probably like an elephant with a thorn in its foot, I remember it for a long time. But I start from a base level that I like you and you have to do something pretty wrong not to.

MR: You had a rage in you as a young bloke, an aggressive streak and it led to street fights. Did part of your character push you to defend those who couldn’t defend themselves?

LB: At the time it was that, but to put it simply, I try to stand up for what’s right. There was a time when I had to be physical a few times, actually quite a few times growing up. Normally it’s verbally these days and I hope that I never had to do that again. We grew up in what you consider a pretty docile suburb in East Bentleigh, but at the time there was a lot going on in the streets. There was even a drug culture around the place. There was a great rivalry amongst kids at different schools, different junior clubs and at times that manifested into some physical confrontation.

MR: Do you look back and think, ‘Gee I’m a role model now, that was not good’. Or do you look back and think you were a role model for sticking up for people who couldn’t stick up for themselves?

LB: I don’t regret it. Part of the time was sticking up for other people, but quite a few times it was just sticking up for me. I didn’t instigate things. There was tension, some friction and I’m not sure what it was borne out of. But there were confrontations where I had to stand my ground.

MR: Marcus Bontemeplli said recently you were a funny man. He said the coach thought he was funny, but that you were actually “awkward funny’. True?

LB: (Laughs). Am I funny? I’ve got a strong sense of humour. I love a gag. Actually we’ve got comedian Luke Heggie coming to a function shortly. I recently saw Luke on Foxtel and I thought he was really funny. And Peter Gordon asked me the other day have I got any recommendations and I said why don’t you try Luke Heggie, I reckon he would sensational. We have an unofficial season launch at the Gordons and Luke will be there and it’s all on me.

MR: From watching a late-night show on Foxtel.

LB: Yep. I ran out of jokes about the first six weeks of my tenure at the Dogs, so I have to rely on the boys to tell a gag here and there. Now I’ve become a joke critic and then that becomes funny at times. That’s maybe the awkwardness.

MR: You tell jokes to the players minutes before they leave the rooms to play don’t you?

LB: I lighten the mood at times. We all function in different ways and this new generation seems to function better with the edge off a little bit and you have to find a way to do that. I spend about 15 minutes with the players icing what our plans are for the day and we might start off with a lighter moment. Not always, but pretty regularly.

MR: And you once watched Will Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on a Friday night and incorporated it into your speech to the players the next day?

LB: You find yourself up late watching late-night movies. I don’t go to bed early, I rarely go to bed before midnight. What I’ll do at times is work and I might have the telly on.

MR: You like watching movies?

LB: I love watching movies.

MR: And you watched Willy Wonka and used it in the pre-match the next day?

LB: I did … it was about honesty.

MR: When Charlie gave back the gobstopper and no one knew?

LB: No, Slugworth knew.

MR: So, you asked who was going to be honest that day?

LB: It wasn’t a question, more validation. We had honesty in the room. Depending on how emotional you are and your range, that little scene in the movie is one of the most heart-wrenching moments I’ve ever seen on TV. It was such fantasy, such a fiction and I remember as a kid that it had an affect on me. When I think of our players and how honest they’ve been and are — and I don’t talk about myself as a storyteller — but when you start to tell the story, you’ve got to relate it to what you’re doing and your own group. Ultimately, the premise of that story was that we have a core of honesty and that’s why we’re on the right track.

MR: Clearly you’re an arm around a player far more than you are putting a player in a headlock to get your message across.

LB: I think it relates to the choices you make as a coach and as a decision-maker around players’ futures. Ultimately, they’re going to finish up in the game or not get a game and we make a choice whether or not we’re prepared to get close to them, because at some point we’re going to have to have a hard conversation. Will it be easier to have a hard conversation if you’ve distanced yourself from them? In many ways yes because you don’t feel like you’ve got that connection. I made the choice very early on, and it’s the way I am and it started at St Bede’s, that I would be close to my players. It’s up to them about how close they want to feel to me, but I feel close to them.

MR: How do you find time for so many individuals in your life?

LB: A big part of it is just staying out of their hair. A big part is not doing anything. They don’t want - I don’t believe - an overbearing personality. I’m not taking them out for coffee and having lunch with them every second day. I don’t do that. It’s just the connection when you see each other and the consistency in the your behaviour, that’s all you need. So, it doesn’t really have to be time consuming.

MR: An hour after you were on stage on Grand Final night singing “Western Bulldogs … at the weekend” with your great mates, I walked out with you and despite the Bulldogs winning their first flag since ‘54, all you wanted to talk about was our good mate Bruno Conti, who was the VAFA pres when St Bede’s won the three flags. I thought that was an example of you finding time for a person, which you are known for.

LB: I don’t see myself as any different to anyone else. People have asked have I refocused on this year, is there going to be a premiership hangover? But there’s internal and external. Internally, we’re working for the footy club and we’re on a new journey again. But when you and I were walking down Southbank that night, I was external. We were talking about life and who we knew and six degrees of separation and I love that sort of stuff. The only time it gets hard for me is if there’s a lot of people who need your time and I just haven’t got the time. But I love catching up with people talking about people, in this case Bruno.

MR: Do you remember Grand Final day vividly from the moment you woke up to the moment you hit the sack?

LB: I wouldn’t say vividly. My memory of most days isn’t that vivid. I’ve spoken to others and they don’t agree in their own world, but the game went fast. It was like time never stood still. It ticked by so quickly. That last seven minutes when we started to get a gap was the only time - and there was no respite - but it was the only time you could start to process what was actually happening.

MR: You told the players in the pre-game on Grand Final day to “bring their instruments”. What was the messaging there?

LB: It was two things. I related a story from when I worked for an auctioneer years ago, a receivership-liquidation house, which wasn’t always nice. When they knocked down the Southern Cross Hotel, the auction house I was working at pulled out a lot of the furniture they were going to sell. And the hotel still had the stars and the names on the doors from when the Beatles stayed (in 1964). All of them, John, Paul, Ringo and George. I remember thinking, I should buy one of these doors. And, to the players, I was talking about the Grand Final parade and there were so many people and they were there to see us. And as they walked up the race on Grand Final day, I said there’s going to be 100,000 people there ready to see them. And the only way they were going to perform and be creative is if they thought about their strengths, which is their instruments, and they needed to being them.

MR: And the players were the Beatles?

LB: The Beatles did go on some sort of parade down Melbourne’s streets and because it was foreign territory for me - I had never been on a Grand Final parade - I have to say I felt special. I was blown away. Because the Swans colours blended into ours, it was like everyone there was a Western Bulldogs sorority and fraternity. When we saw the masses down Wellington Parade to the MCG it was incredible. I told the players I imagined they probably felt like the Beatles. We virtually felt, in a sense, like rock stars because of all the support. What was there, 200,000 people? Amazing.

IN part two of Mark Robinson’s wide-ranging chat with Luke Beveridge, the Bulldogs’ premiership coach talks Brendan McCartney, season 2017, Donald Trump and alien life.

Mark Robinson: Does your ability to coach the technical side of football get underplayed because of your ability to get in the heads of players collectively and individually?

Luke Beveridge: I’m not sure if it gets underplayed. I read some commentary where people are quite complimentary about how we play. The 18-man defence and the 18-man offence and a total change in stoppage structure is your base point there. That’s the core of what we do. The emotional hooks have to complement that, but it’s only a small percentage. But I believe it’s important. It’s a hard part of coaching the game because it’s a challenge to stay original.

MR: Because those “hooks” can be accused of being gimmicks sometimes.

LB: Absolutely. You can tip it over the edge and maybe the gobstopper (story) was. I try not to take too big a risk in that regard. But you can’t under sell what held us in good stead last year. Even as lower scoring as we were, and I’m not a big quantitative guy, I’m all about the subjective side, but black and white we were second in inside 50 differential in the competition, which is a great indicator you’ve got method.

MR: But 15th on differential for scoring once inside 50.

LB: I know we had problems, but it’s too simple to say the Bulldogs can’t score. We used to scratch our heads, the players did too, and we tried not to show too much of it because it was frustrating. Just opportunity after opportunity missed when they should’ve been a soda goal. Getting back to your original question, the core of what we do we have a really firm hold of and the underpinning or overlaying of emotion is only small part, but a critical part. I think you’ve got to find a way to find inspiration from within and if you can’t, you’re going to find it hard to be a successful outfit. And we’ve found a way to do that pretty quickly.

Some of those internal inspirations came through wins, like the Sydney win in 2015, because that instils belief and it’s part of the storyline. And our camps have been quite crucial in our process, some of our team building has been a real catalyst for our momentum. Our players were able to establish things that are quite powerful that are unique to us which will go beyond 2017.

MR: You trust people until the trust is broken, yeah?

LB: I give people chances. There’s trust and there’s honesty. You can still make mistakes, we all do, but it’s when they are intentionally going against the greater good, you start to question.

MR: That’s a segue. Did the Michael Talia situation, where there was investigation into passing on of information from brother to brother, did that hurt your trust in a) Michael Talia and b) the AFL?

LB: (Pause) … I’d rather not go there. I don’t want to drum that part up again.

MR : By your answer, we got the answer anyway.

LB: Yeah. It was a significant learning curve for me. New to my role, new to my …

MR: Dealings with the AFL?

LB: Yep.

MR: Are you able to park that because if you don’t it will eat away at you?

LB: Yeah. I understand the landscape. I don’t agree with it sometimes. City Hall is an enormously powerful regulator and I understand that.

MR: Are you a politically curious person?

LB: No. I’d rather attach myself to leaders than political parties and out of great leaders come good policies. But I understand the politics of administration because I’ve worked for government agencies. I’ve seen it right in my face.

MR: That the brand is more important that everything?

LB: Yeah, there’s a bit of that. It’s also the power. The hierarchy of an organisation and whether or not there are controls in place in decision-making is always interesting to me. Where do they actually get made? You don’t understand at times the drivers behind certain change.

MR: You’re biting your tongue here aren’t you?

LB: Yeah. There’s too many others things that happened that are not related to what happened at the end of 2015 with us. Look at the rule changes. The third-up change. The only valid reason for change is it’s easier for the umpires to umpire the game. So many of us are still scratching our heads. But we find new ways to evolve.

MR: Tim Watson said you are potentially the greatest coach the game has produced. Did you hear that? How do you respond to that?

LB: Tim Watson said that? He’s put the mozz on me hasn’t he.

MR: You’ve coached for two years.

LB: I like to include my amateur days. It’s 10 years I’ve been coaching.

MR: And how many premierships again?

LB: Three at St Bede’s, one at Collingwood, two at Hawthorn and now one at the Dogs. Seven out of nine years … 2011, I was with amateur rep teams. As I said, I’ve been fortunate.

MR: Do you know Brendan McCartney very well?

LB: No. But I’ve met Brendan.

MR: Do you like it, agree with it, when it is said McCartney instilled a brand of football which helped the Dogs win the flag. Do you give him any credit?

LB: It’s interesting isn’t it that everyone wants to assign credit … as long as we don’t dilute the credit Joel Corey and Rohan Smith and Daniel Giansiracusa and all of our other people should get. There’s only 18 players left from 2014, but I think if you ask the players, Brendan would’ve had some positive influence. How you quantify that, I don’t know.

MR: Are you annoyed I asked that question?

LB: Not at all. I have great respect for Brendan, especially his Geelong days. A lot of Geelong players have been quite vocal about his impact on them. But there’s been so much change at our club, but ultimately you can’t be the best team in the competition if you’re not good at contested footy.

MR: Which was a strength of McCartney’s. And his stoppage beliefs.

LB: Were different to mine. The numbers game, very different.

MR : The outnumber?

LB: I’d rather not go into detail but you can safely say our whole stoppage structure changed at the end of 2014. That doesn’t mean your intent around the footy changes and it doesn’t mean at times you don’t put numbers through various mechanisms. But I think one of the critical choices coaches make is how many forwards they want forward of the stoppage and that’s a significant thing we changed with us.

MR: This might be simplistic, but more an offensive system.

LB: It gave us more a chance to score, yes.

MR: You won the flag, you went to America with the family — Dana and the two boys Kye, 18, and Noah, 16. Were you able to shut out footy?

LB: Yes. We went to New York. We were very fortunate to go there the year before, but there just wasn’t enough time to get around the Big Apple. We walked everywhere. The boys love NBA so we saw a bit of basketball, saw the Jets play the Bills on New Year’s Day, saw the Rangers - which is my team - beat the Ottawa Senators on the ice and the Rangers are Bulldogs colours. And we saw a couple of plays on Broadway.

MR: Recognised?

LB: It was funny. You’d have your beanie on and you’d get a tap on the shoulder and they say, ‘G’day, go Doggies’. It would’ve happened three or four times, say, walking down Seventh Ave. It was amazing. I loved it. And you’d stop for a chat and most often they weren’t Bulldogs supporters, they just loved the fact the Dogs won.

MR: On to football. What changes? How much does Cloke and Crameri change it up? Bob’s back. What have you changed, if anything?

LB: Initially you do your own SWAT analysis. What are your strengths, where can we improve, where are the opportunities, what are the threats and the opportunities is a big one for us. With the change in personnel, with Stu and Clokey and everyone being a year older.

MR: It might fix up that inside 50 differential.

LB: Who knows. I said a long time ago it will be the last piece of the puzzle. Strangely, in that last month we were able to be more efficient. This year, we see what the opportunities are. We’ve trained a certain way to be able to play the way that we do and we feel we’ve done some good work there. If you ask about our core method or core style, we feel we haven’t taken that to where it can go. And with Bob back, Matty Suckling back in the fold, it gives us options, gives us even more versatility.

MR: How important is versatility?

LB: Critical. We started last year with all those high defenders and at one point we didn’t have JJ, Suckers, Bob, so we had to change what we did. The low tide mark last year was probably that game against Geelong where they beat us down there. We played pretty good footy. Jack Macrae and Tom Liberatore had the responsibility of the main two Cats players and were sensational before they got injured. When we dropped that game, having lost Mitch Wallis and Jack Redpath the week before, and then losing Macrae and Libba that day, and knowing we were playing the Kangaroos the next week with our midfield so depleted and knowing they were going to go after Marcus Bontempelli … how we stood up for ourselves remained to be seen. That win against the Kangaroos was probably the high tide mark of the year to get us back on track.

MR: And the rest became history.

MR : Favourite movie?

LB: The Outsiders. Have you read the book? Susan Hinton, a 17-year-old wrote that book. Just a great story. It probably relates to the question you asked me about when I was young and confrontation. Just that socio-economic side of it. The Greasers and Socs.

MR : Favourite animated movie?

LB: Toy Story.

MR: Do you believe aliens exist?

LB: Alien life (yes). I don’t know in what form. All you need is water.

MR: Donald Trump?

LB: I’m concerned.

MR: Dinner with five people?

LB: Mark Occhilupo, my favourite surfer as a kid. Nelson Mandela.

MR: I would’ve thought being a leader you’d opt for leaders.

LB: Mine’s more heroes. Ben Roberts-Smith VC, Cathy Freeman … and my mum.

MR: Scared of dying?

LB: Not scared, but a long, long way from being ready.

MR: Skate-boarding or surfing?

LB: Surfing.

MR: Favourite animal?

LB: Lion.

MR: Smack children, yes or no.

LB: Preferably no.

MR: If you were reborn would do anything different.

LB: I’m happy, but there’s definitely things I would do differently. I wasn’t a great player, but as much as I survived, there are things I could’ve done to be a better player.

MR: If you died tomorrow, what would you regret not doing?

LB: There’s worldly things I want to do. I want to see the world. And I want to be a bit more charitable. In many ways it can be difficult because you’re seen as someone who can help with different causes, but you’re time poor, so you can’t do a lot. I think I’d like to do more.

MR: What makes you smile other than your bad jokes?

LB: Lots of things. I’m generally a happy person. Kids make me smile. My family. Mates who I grew up make me smile.

MR: If you had a year to live, what would you do?

LB: Spend as much time as I could with Dana, Kye and Noah. I would stop coaching.

MR: If you won $20 million tonight on Tattslotto, would you stop coaching?

LB: No. Because I’d let too many people down. I love the job and I love the connection I now have with the club that I didn’t have previously. And all the people who follow it and who work in the club. I have too much responsibility to walk away from that.

MR: What scares you?

LB: I’m not big on — and it’s ironic and sad right now — but light aircraft. Just those high-risk situations where you’ve got no control of and which can result in death. Sometimes if I’m sitting on the Westgate and it’s full of cars and trucks and it’s all banked up, I’m paranoid the bridge is going to fall down because of the weight. I’ve got no control over that. I lose faith in the bridge.

MR: Do you drink milk out of the carton?

LB: No.

MR: Happiest childhood memory?

LB: Holidays in Cronulla. Every year we’d stay three weeks and that’s where I first started surfing.

MR: What movie did you last cry watching.

LB: I cry all the time in movies. Just the other night … it was Balboa, which was Rocky 6 or 7. Don’t you love that monologue in that movie _ “Sometimes it’s not how hard you’re hit, it’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.’’ It’s an amazing monologue.

MR: Have you used it?

LB: No, you can’t use it. It’s Rocky’s. And it’s one of the best ever.

#luke beveridge #be more bevo #western bulldogs

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