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Thread: That Crows training camp in full

  1. #1
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    That Crows training camp in full

    I confess, I hoped that someone would reveal all regarding the infamous Crows training camp and Eddie is the man to do so.

    A knife, a harness and the ‘power stance’: Eddie Betts reveals ‘cult-like’ training camp

    It reads like a plot from a bad movie. Many of the events were already public (the power stance, the use of the Tigers song), but there are new details around the inappropriate use of cultural practice, and using personal information that players thought was given in confidence.

    And wouldn't this ring some alarm bells?

    After the Crows lost successive games in the 2017 season, Betts says the training group reviewed game videos and claimed they had identified where the playing squad had lost these games.

    At fault was the way players had run through the supporters’ banner onto the ground, they said.
    Yet the club clings to the line "sorry if some were offended" rather than just admitting that they got it very wrong. Reading this, I completely understand why Eddie went back to Carlton.
    Last edited by neilfws; 3rd August 2022 at 12:34 PM.

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by neilfws View Post
    I confess, I hoped that someone would reveal all regarding the infamous Crows training camp and Eddie is the man to do so.

    A knife, a harness and the ‘power stance’: Eddie Betts reveals ‘cult-like’ training camp

    It reads like a plot from a bad movie. Many of the events were already public (the power stance, the use of the Tigers song), but there are new details around the inappropriate use of cultural practice, and using personal information that players thought was given in confidence.

    And wouldn't this ring some alarm bells?



    Yet the club clings to the line "sorry if some were offended" rather than just admitting that they got it very wrong. Reading this, I completely understand why Eddie went back to Carlton.
    I looked at that report to see if Don Pyke's name was mentioned, but I didn't see it. I worry about what he had to do with it.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bloods05 View Post
    I looked at that report to see if Don Pyke's name was mentioned, but I didn't see it. I worry about what he had to do with it.
    There is a small mention in media that he and others were off field directors at the time, but all have left now except Ricuttio.

    Does it matter if Pyke was involved? We all make mistakes. He may have learned from this particular mistake.

    Pyke is not to our knowledge, defending what happened or minimising the impact on Eddie or other players, so until I see that happening, I don’t see a problem.

    We don’t know what Pyke has said to the players since that time, and now he is at another club, any public statement in the absence of an AFL sanctioned forum/discussion on the matter would unfortunately be seen as sour grapes or sticking his nose into a former club’s matters.

  4. #4
    Senior Player monopoly19's Avatar
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    I would love to hear Pyke’s reflections on the whole episode now (though I know we won’t). Reports at the time were that he brought the Collective Minds crew back to the club months after the camp, after he knew there was discontent amongst the playing group and specifically after he’d had that feedback from the leadership group.

    (I may be slightly biased by my disgust with the bull@@@@ that CM and the like peddle. It’s embarrassing.)

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by neilfws View Post
    I confess, I hoped that someone would reveal all regarding the infamous Crows training camp and Eddie is the man to do so.

    A knife, a harness and the ‘power stance’: Eddie Betts reveals ‘cult-like’ training camp

    It reads like a plot from a bad movie. Many of the events were already public (the power stance, the use of the Tigers song), but there are new details around the inappropriate use of cultural practice, and using personal information that players thought was given in confidence.

    And wouldn't this ring some alarm bells?



    Yet the club clings to the line "sorry if some were offended" rather than just admitting that they got it very wrong. Reading this, I completely understand why Eddie went back to Carlton.
    Interesting article. When stories about the notorious camp started to come out, I did a bit of research on the company that ran it. Even though they claimed to be experts in mind training, none of the people listed as running the company had any psychological qualifications. Although it's possible that one of the main people involved, may have done a psych module or two, as part of a business degree? So with that lack of actual training, it appeared to me that their camp was an idiotic conglomeration of dodgy ideas stitched together from self help books, dodgy reality TV shows and inappropriate military training.

    Essentially, what the main idea seemed to be, was that if you treat people like @@@@, then you will promptly fashion them into tougher individuals. Unfortunately, what is much more likely to happen, is that people resent being treated like @@@@, and then they start to wonder if they want to be part of an organisation that condones that behaviour, and do they really want to be team mates, with people who seem to be getting into it. So it seemed that the main result of the training camp, was to make the team a whole lot less cohesive.

    And there's an interesting contrast between that and what their grand final opponent, Richmond, were doing at the time. If I remember rightly, they employed a couple of genuinely qualified and experienced psychologists, who spent plenty of time working individually with both players and staff. Hmm, right now I'm in danger of writing an essay, so I'll just restrict it to discussion of a couple of key cogs in the Richmond premiership winning sides.

    Firstly, Damien Hardwick, was largely driving everyone crazy, by his micromanaging and his anger when that micromanaging went wrong. So, Hardwick was taught how to delegate more; which involved learning to trust players and staff to do their jobs, which in turn relied on creating better communication channels. With less anger and more communication, Richmond started to work much more effectively together.

    Perhaps the other person that the psychologists put the most time into, was their troubled young star, Dustin Martin. It appears that they turned Dusty from a big, angry kid, into a big, happy kid. One of them spent plenty of one on one time with him, discussing what made him happy and what troubled him. I think some sort of deal was worked out, that if he wanted to spend much of his free time playing computer games, then that was fine, but perhaps he'd like to do a fair bit of that with the psychologist's kids, at her house, and then later discuss things like, why the pressure was getting to him and how his father's behaviour was playing on his mind. Anyway, whatever they did, it did seem to work.

    And there was certainly a huge difference between the approaches of Adelaide and Richmond.

  6. #6
    In no workplace in the 21st century is this acceptable. I’m often whining that people are a bit soft these days and that resilience is so important in navigating life’s difficulties…. but any club or organisation with 40+ members will have so many different personalities and people with past traumas that it is grossly reprehensible to allow this.

    Any competent leader (or parent) knows that to get the best out of someone you need a tailored approach that suits their individual character. For some, having insults yelled will be helpful in building resilience (it features in the new Adam Sandler basketball film as part of a great training montage). Most of us probably don’t react well to it though.

  7. #7
    "Essentially, what the main idea seemed to be, was that if you treat people like @@@@, then you will promptly fashion them into tougher individuals. Unfortunately, what is much more likely to happen, is that people resent being treated like @@@@, and then they start to wonder if they want to be part of an organisation that condones that behaviour, and do they really want to be team mates, with people who seem to be getting into it. So it seemed that the main result of the training camp, was to make the team a whole lot less cohesive."

    I tend to agree with this perspective. What he was subject to was an extreme form of bullying and intimidation. Presumably this was designed to develop resilience and toughness in the players but it can also leave resentment and deep emotional scars. Certainly that appears to be the case with Eddie.

    According to SEN this morning, he was verbally abused while trying to reach a knife to cut himself free. One of these so-called leadership consultants stood on his back while he tried to reach the knife and told him that he could not possibly make a good father as he was brought up by his mother and had no father in his upbringing. This is disgraceful and made even worse when this fact was revealed by Eddie in confidence.

  8. #8
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    If there is any proof in the fact these leadership 'gurus' are largely just ignorant, self-inflated kooks; this is a group of footballers who'd endured and persisted after the sad murder of their coach just two years before being told they were mentally soft and brittle. Like FFS.
    'Delicious' is a fun word to say

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    If that is what actually happened, I'm surprised this so-called "leadership consultant" is still in one piece. Sport is full of people and teams
    who want an "edge" over the competition. It's why there was the supplements saga at Essendon, it's why Novak Djokovic spends time
    every year in the "healing waters" of a hot spring in the Serbian mountains, it's why Sports Psychologists exist etc etc.
    And predictably enough there will be a long line of others willing to monetise providing this "edge".

  10. #10
    Did no-one check the qualifications of these consultants??? Or were they mates of mates???

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    Quote Originally Posted by cherub View Post
    Did no-one check the qualifications of these consultants??? Or were they mates of mates???
    Like how friends of a former commissioner may or may not have received the lucrative catering contract for a particular sporting venue?

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    Quote Originally Posted by KTigers View Post
    If that is what actually happened, I'm surprised this so-called "leadership consultant" is still in one piece. Sport is full of people and teams
    who want an "edge" over the competition. It's why there was the supplements saga at Essendon, it's why Novak Djokovic spends time
    every year in the "healing waters" of a hot spring in the Serbian mountains, it's why Sports Psychologists exist etc etc.
    And predictably enough there will be a long line of others willing to monetise providing this "edge".
    And if you read the comments from Eddie about his conversations with the AFL today, it is why Mike Fitzpatrick and Gil should have both been sent to Siberia to shovel dung after their mishandling of the Goodes saga to ensure they could never inflict their idiocy and insensitivity on someone else again.
    'Delicious' is a fun word to say

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