When Jason Williams was 17, he believed his AFL career was a given. Less than three years later, he would find any excuse to avoid football. But, from the lowest of lows, Williams, now 22, has fallen back in love with Aussie Rules. He spoke to Liam Twomey
The 2010 premiership-winning Calder Cannons team was loaded with talent.
With the likes of Cam Guthrie, Tom Liberatore and Mitch Wallis running around, it was arguably one of the most exciting TAC Cup outfits of all time.
It was also home to a bottom-age rising star who was making a name for himself after moving to Sunbury from Perth a few years earlier.
Jason Williams could play anywhere on the ground, use the ball well and had a knack for reading the play.
Those talents led to him being selected in the Vic Metro squad, where he was constantly watched and spoken to by AFL recruiters.
All indications were it was a matter of when, not if, Williams would be drafted.
“It was in that 2010 season I started becoming fully aware of all the possibilities with football and everything I could achieve,” Williams said.
“While all that was happening I kind of forgot I had to take care of the rest of my life.
“I blocked everything, like school, out in my everyday life and took all that sort of stuff for granted.
“I thought footy was going so well I didn’t need that stuff any more.”
But, by his own admission, Williams made one of the biggest mistakes of his life in his season as a top-age player at the Cannons.
He went into the year thinking he had shown the AFL talent scouts enough of what he could do and his name being read out on draft night would be a formality.
It wasn’t, and while a number of his teammates began their careers at the next level, he was left behind.
Far from ready to give up on his AFL dream, he was quickly snapped up by VFL club Port Melbourne and again, success followed.
Tragedy strikes
Williams and his Borough teammates reached the VFL grand final.
But that’s when his journey took a sad turn.
“I was 18 or 19 and playing in a VFL finals series; everything was pretty good,” Williams said. “A couple of weeks before the grand final my dad was murdered.
“His funeral was in Perth, the day before the grand final. I had to fly over on the Thursday night after training, spend the Friday with my family, bury my dad on the Saturday and then fly back the Saturday night to play on the Sunday.”
So desperate was Williams to play in a premiership that he never took the time to fully grieve the loss of his father.
Port Melbourne went on to lose the grand final and Williams’ state of mind quickly deteriorated.
“I just thought things were going to happen for me and then it reached a point where everything I had planned for didn’t happen,” he said. “Mostly it was my own fault. In that off-season, I fell into a pretty bad place.”
Coping with depression
Although he didn’t know it at the time, Williams was suffering from depression. As all the aspects of his life started to get tougher, his love of playing football nosedived.
He quit playing at Port Melbourne the following year and signed with an Essendon District-based club to try to reignite his passion for the game.
But that didn’t work either. Williams would sometimes fail to turn up to training and often didn’t want to pull on the jumper on a Saturday afternoon.
“Back then, depression in sport wasn’t even spoken about,” Williams said. “For me, I didn’t understand what was happening, I didn’t understand why I was feeling this way so I just kept sweeping it under the rug.
“I went to work and came home and that was all I could think about. Through that I made a few bad decisions with my life that I am not proud of.”
JASON WILLIAMS TAKES A HANGAR PLAYING FOR DIGGERS REST. PICTURE: SHAWN SMITS
Finally, the turning point arrived for Williams in the form of persistent Diggers Rest Football Club coach Shaun Sims.
Sims had been chasing Williams to come and play at his club for two years and leading into the 2014 season he finally got his man.
Playing alongside some of his childhood friends and for a supportive committee and coaching staff, the fire started to burn again for Williams.
After finding his feet in his first season at the club, Williams spent most of his off-season working with a children’s charity in Mexico.
It was there he realised how lucky he was to be in a position where he could still chase his dreams.
He returned to pre-season training with the Burras and took on an assistant coaching role at the club.
He also told Sims of his goal to lead the club to a premiership and win the best and fairest award. He came within a whisker of delivering, with Diggers Rest finishing runner-up with Williams named the club’s best player for the season.
“When I got to Diggers, the love of football was back,” he said. “It is such an amazing feeling to walk into a place where you aren’t just there to play for yourself any more. You’re there to play for the people who make the club what it is.
“Shaun is an amazing person and I owe him so much. As soon as I met him I just felt like me going to Diggers was always meant to happen.”
With his passion for the game recaptured, so too has Williams’ hunger to join his former teammates in the AFL.
Finding a balance
The 22-year-old has already contacted Port Melbourne coach Gary Ayres and has been told he is welcome back at the club next season.
“Now I’m at a stage in my life where I understand the balance between life and footy and I understand the steps that need to happen for me to take that next step.
“When I was younger, I assumed it was just going to be given to me. Now I fully understand that I have to earn it and that’s what I’m going to do.”
