AFL players, Jordan Roughead (Collingwood Football Club) and Tom Campbell (North Melbourne Football Club) have joined forces to give Ladder’s program participants an insight into their lives outside of football and their own education, training and employment goals.

More commonly known for their on-field achievements, AFL players are looking beyond the football boots and white lines and giving back to Ladder by sharing the paths they have gone down as they explore life beyond AFL football. A crucial part of this is identifying what steps they need to take to ensure they are prepared when the time comes to leave the AFL system. Jordan and Tom share with Ladder young people their experiences with this, along with the challenges they have faced, in the hope that Ladder young people will feel better equipped to explore their own employment, education and training pathways. 

Having previously volunteered as a Ladder mentor, Jordan discusses the challenges he had remaining engaged in high school and finding the education pathway and course that suited him. It was important that he followed his passions and learnt how to filter the different advice he was getting about how to manage both education and football.

“I applied for an exercise science degree and I spent my first 12 months studying that before I realised it wasn’t really for me, so I dropped out of that and the next two years of my football career I spent not really knowing what I wanted to do or what I should do.”
- Jordan Roughead

Tom shares a different experience, having undertaken a Bachelor of Business where he was able to develop key teamwork skills. Tom completed the course over seven years while he balanced study with AFL football commitments. He explains the perseverance that was required in order to reach his goals in both AFL football and University. 

“It allowed me to develop a number of skills, including teamwork through a number of group assessments. It’s difficult to sometimes work with people who don’t necessarily have the same ideas… and I think because of that, university really helped me to develop a number of skills.” 

Each player demonstrates a unique education, employment and training journey, over-coming their own set of challenges to reach the next stage in their journey.

Hear from Jordan and Tom below and gain insight in to overcoming challenges that may be faced as you navigate your education, employment and training pathway.