Hi, I’m Matthew Pavlich, captain of the Fremantle Dockers, and I’m going Back to School with
Student Edge.
You have been synonymous with the Freo Dockers since around the year 2000
but of course you actually grew up in Adelaide.
So can you tell us a little bit about what you were like as a student in South Australia?
You’re going to have to ask my teachers for the exact answer to that, but I’d like
to think I was a relatively model student who tried their absolute best in their classroom
and always had a bigger picture of wanting to go to university to study and have that
tertiary education. But I had to work really hard in the classroom.
It probably didn’t come overly naturally to me. There were some subjects I quite enjoyed. English.
PE, probably not surprisingly. I enjoyed Legal Studies and Biology, which, Biology, I ended up going on
to university to study things like that. But as I said, it wasn’t my natural bent,
so my true expression of myself was probably on the sporting field.
So that’s really interesting that you say your true expression was on the sporting field.
Because PE is just one hour a day. Now for someone like myself, that was a mercy.
But for someone like you, that could have been limiting.
It was never difficult to stay interested because I knew how important school was and
the connect to the tertiary education and then full-time employment.
Mum and Dad, while I think they saw my full expression out on the sporting field and saw my ability, my talent
that they gave me, that God gave me, I think their bent was to make sure that, yeah,
“You’re gonna have to study, you’re gonna have to work hard, because this football thing may not last long.”
Now history shows it’s lasted a little bit longer than probably we all thought.
But it was really important for me to make sure I tried as hard as I could in the classroom
and get a really good score; as best a score as I could, particularly in Year 12 with my TER
And then as I said, to gain that entrance to university. I needed that back-up plan.
While I was hoping to be drafted towards the end of my schooling years, there were no guarantees.
As we all know, injuries and form and a lot of other things can influence a player’s career,
so there was always a fall-back position and that was my school.
You and your parents really valued school and they really instilled that in you.
However, there was a chance however you weren’t going to go into Year 12,
because of a fluke in when you were born which meant
you were actually eligible for the AFL draft at the age of 16.
I did nominate for the draft at the end of that year, with the feeling, or with the hope of
being drafted by one of the two Adelaide clubs. That would be the perfect world scenario,
where I’d be able to go onto an AFL list, live out my AFL dream, but finish my schooling
at Sacred Heart where I went to college in Adelaide. There were a lot of conversations
about what that actually meant. If I was taken by an interstate club – there were 14 other
clubs at that time that were domiciled interstate – so what would that actually mean about
my Year 12? We had some discussions about that and realistically it would have been
an interesting scenario if it played itself out, but I would have stayed in Adelaide and
finished my Year 12 year. That was a commitment we made at the time and that’s the messaging
we sent out to the interstate clubs. One, it was truthful, but two, it was a little
bit strategic, hoping they would get off the scent a little bit of drafting me,
and I’d stay in Adelaide. But as things turned out, that didn’t happen
neither Adelaide club decided to pick me up and I went through to Year 12 – played football
but finished my schooling years in Adelaide.
Excellent, well that’s good for us because you ended up going to Freo.
You’ve since studied science at UWA. Can you tell us a little bit about, why science? Why that field?
Well, it was more sports science or sports psychology really. I did a mixture of things throughout
my early years in UWA like most Australians just out of school and thinking about university.
You sort of dip your toe in the water and are not entirely sure how it may play itself out.
I was very much one of those people. I ending up starting with a double degree in commerce and science.
Because I was doing it part time it was just going to take so long, it was ridiculous to
even think that was achievable really. So I ended up going down more the sport science and
psychology slant, given what I was doing on a daily basis as a fulltime professional athlete.
It was always important for me to have a really good balance in my life. If I was full-time
100% focused on football, which is clearly what I’ve done with my professional life,
but if I didn’t have something else to think about or focus my attention upon, to release
that pressure valve of intense focus on my professional career, I would have found it
very challenging if I didn’t have that release. So uni was as much a release from my professional
life as it was further education to make sure I had that fallback plan.
Do you feel a need to impart this to the rest of your teammates, especially
the younger guys, by telling them, "Look, I'm studying at the moment and I think you can get a lot out of."
I think the first point is that the AFL is just an absolute cross section of the community, so firstly
what we say is, study isn’t for everyone, and while that has been my bent or my slant towards
my life outside of the game, uni is not for everyone. There’s a lot of other courses out there;
guys are doing apprenticeships and other bits and pieces. So that’s the first point
find a passion and go towards that. And the second point is, from my experiences, having something
meaningful outside of the game that you can focus attention on absolutely helps you play well.
It distracts you from some of the noise that can happen in such a highly analytical and ruthless industry.
So it’s only been of huge benefit to me and that’s something we definitely
try to instill in our player group.
When you look back on your career so far, are you grateful that you picked Aussie Rules
over soccer?
I had no soccer ability. I played as a Year 1 and 2 student, because there was no Auskick,
that’s how old I am. There was no Auskick back then. We couldn’t play football until you were in Year 3
so I played soccer for a little while but my passion was always football, Aussie Rules football.
Just to wrap up, is there one piece of advice that you want to pass along to students today?
Don’t pigeonhole yourself, be open to experiences and be ready to take any opportunity that
comes your way.
Fantastic. Matt, thanks so much for your time.
Pleasure, thanks Simon.
Hey guys, if you enjoyed that video, click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Or, find more of our stuff at StudentEdge.com.au.