Defying the Enemy Within

by Joe Williams

  and decided to join in a game of touch footy. A man called Greg Fearnley saw Dad had potential and began to encourage and motivate him. Dad says that Greg was the one who started him on his rugby league journey. Someone believed in him.

  Brungle Public School footy team: Dad (middle back row) and Uncle Arthur (back left).

  From then on, Dad played football and always showed potential on the field. In 1984, when he was twenty-four, he was selected to play for the NSW Country Firsts team. The much-revered Indigenous league player and later coach, Arthur Beetson, recruited Dad to play for the Eastern Suburbs Roosters in Sydney in the Winfield Cup competition that was the forerunner to the National Rugby League competition. Dad stayed in Sydney for two years, going on to play for the Western Suburbs and then St George before returning to the bush.

  My mum, Lee, was one of four kids born to Nan Shirley, a Wiradjuri woman from Orange, and Pop Ron, a non-Indigenous man. From the stories I’ve been told, Nan Shirl was quite the larrikin and life of the party, while Pop Ron was an accomplished boxer and also a bit of a joker. I vividly remember visiting him during the final days of his life at the time I was playing NRL with the Rabbitohs. Despite being on his deathbed, Pop Ron looked across at me and said: ‘I’m still good for a few rounds [of boxing] so don’t think because I’m lying down in bed that you’ll beat me.’ So right until his final days on earth he was cracking jokes.

  Mum had two sisters, Tania and Lisa, and a brother, Craig. She never really speaks much about her upbringing — just says that her parents were strict on discipline, that they had some tough times financially, but they got by because of their love and support for each other.

  I am told Mum was quite the athlete when she was younger, holding athletic and a few swimming records that still stand to this day. She and her brother Craig (now deceased) had enormous talent as kids and were invited to train with Olympic gold medallist Dawn Fraser. Mum did so well at school swimming carnivals and inter-town district meets that one day, when she was to compete in the age group 50 metres or 100 metres freestyle, she was made to do butterfly to even out the race. What the organisers didn’t realise was that Mum was actually stronger and faster at butterfly than freestyle.

  Dad learning music.

  Sadly, when Nan Shirl died, Mum’s younger sister, Lisa, was only sixteen, so Mum took on the mother role to Lisa and they are still very close to this day.

  So you can see there are some strong people in my family, and I’m pretty sure some of that strength rubbed off on me.

  2

  GETTING BY ON FAMILY, SPORT, MUSIC AND LOVE

  When Mum and Dad first met in Cowra, Mum already had a son — my brother, Mike — and Dad already had a daughter — my sister, Jessie. Back then, Dad was playing rugby league. If his team won, he’d have enough cash to buy a feed of takeaway Chinese, have a few drinks after the game and buy two dollars’ worth of petrol for the car, so he’d try his guts out on the football field to get a decent match payment.

  Once Mum and Dad got together, they had me and then my younger sisters, Jasmine and Aleesha. When we kids were growing up in Cowra, things were often tough financially, with only Mum working at times. But while we didn’t always have much money, which was sometimes tough for us as kids, we learned to be grateful for what we did have. No matter how challenging the financial situations our family faced, we always seemed to get by. Looking back, I think the reason for this is that through every difficult time we not only loved and supported each other, but we were also respected within the Cowra community.

  Little Joe.

  Mum and Dad instilled strong values in us when we were growing up, and I still carry them with me as an adult. Even though there was never any money flashed around, we kids never went hungry or without the basics. Mum made sure we were well fed and well dressed. There were many occasions when Mum sat down to the dinner table with little or no food on her plate, which showed us the importance of thinking of other people before yourself.

  Once, during my primary school days, I was in the school choir and had to wear a particular style of shorts and T-shirt for a performance we were doing. I knew our family wasn’t doing great at the time, so I made up an excuse to the choir teacher about why I couldn’t turn up so Mum wouldn’t have to spend the money on the uniform. Little did I know that Mum had already gone out and bought the clothes that day. When I found out, I felt even worse because I knew Mum would have had to stretch our family budget to buy the clothes. I remember feeling so remorseful and sobbing to Mum about her having wasted money on clothes I wouldn’t use. But as she always did with us kids, Mum just gave me a cuddle and told me not to worry.

  There were also times when the ice-cream truck would drive up our street, music playing loud, with a dozen kids running behind it, waiting for it to stop. One day, every kid in our street was in the

  Even when we were at fault, Mum still supported us.

  line, even us — but then Mum put her head out the door and waved us back inside with a look of ‘sorry kids, not today’. Those sorts of experiences taught us that we couldn’t always get things just because we wanted them.

  Mum was and is an extremely strong person and the rock of our family. To people who don’t know her, she seems a fairly quiet woman but she’s always good for a laugh and has a great sense of humour. She was amazing when it came to supporting us kids in any disagreements with others or when we needed help at school. Even when we were at fault, Mum still supported us, though sometimes when we got home she’d give us a kick up the backside for doing the wrong thing.

  Then there was my brother, Mike. When I was growing up, I idolised and was in awe of him. For one thing, he was an amazing league player, which I wanted to be, too. When he was a teenager, scouts from rugby league clubs would travel to the country to watch Mike play, but if he got wind of it he would tell Mum he wasn’t taking the field that day. He just had no interest in playing in the big league. Mike was a country boy and wasn’t going anywhere.

  Both being sports-mad, Mike and I were constantly battling for victory against each other, whether playing knee footie in the lounge room or cricket, rugby league or boxing outside. Sometimes when we were playing, Mike would wind me up to the point I’d end up running upstairs, my feet covered in dirt, crying out to Mum that Mike was cheating or being too rough. ‘Don’t go back down there if you can’t handle it and don’t come upstairs crying,’ was always Mum’s reply. Without fail, I’d go back for round two with Mike, often with the same result — me crying and running upstairs.

  As Mike got older, I was the annoying little brother wanting to hang around him and his mates and getting the odd clip around the ear for trying to sneak into his room. I still admired him, though, and was in awe of how good a league player he was.

  When Mike was eighteen, he was signed to play with the team Dad was coaching, Lake Cargelligo. Sadly, Mike only got to play one game because, after going into the sort of tackle he’d probably made a thousand times, he rolled with the opposing player, causing his forehead to be pressed close to his chest. After he jogged off the field, he walked over to our mother and said, ‘Mum, I think I just broke my neck.’

  Mike was right, he had broken his neck, and he was lucky not to end up a quadraplegic. The aftermath of Mike’s injury was a terrible time for the family, and for a while Mum didn’t want me to play league anymore. Her oldest son had just broken his neck, and she didn’t want something like that to happen to me as well, and rightly so. But with time, Mum came to accept that Mike’s injury was a freak accident, and she let me continue with my footy.

  I would have backed myself against most people on the rugby league field, but before his accident Mike was lengths in front of me in all aspects of rugby league, something he occasionally jokingly reminds me of. He still lives in Cowra and is married with two lovely young daughters, Taniesha and Abbie.

  Mount Austin Primary School, aged 11 — doing my best to burst through.

  My little siste
rs, Aleesha and Jasmine — or Leesh and Jaye, as they are known to the majority of people — had been born only a year apart. As kids, Leesh and I would sometimes gang up on Jaye to the point she would be running around the backyard chasing us while we laughed and ran away. We had a ball with it and still laugh about it. Despite Jaye being the youngest in the family, we joke about how she’s the bossiest. I still remember one day when Mike and I were arguing with a group of boys who lived in our street, and three-year-old Jasmine came to support us holding up a slug gun. The police were called but Mum managed to bluff them by saying it was a toy machine gun.

  To this day, Jasmine and Aleesha struggle when they haven’t seen each other for a few days, and I only have to locate one sister to know the other isn’t too far away. They have kids of their own now and, like me, they are applying the lessons from our upbringing in the way they parent. I am very proud of the way both of them have found ways in their life to improve their education and lifestyles. Jaye is a trained nurse who has worked within the mental health system as well with Dad in the area of juvenile justice. She gets on great with all the youth she deals with who have encountered obstacles in their lives that have led them into detention. She is raising two beautiful kids, Xavier and Xanthe.

  Leesh was in a difficult relationship before she had her first two kids, Deminika and Elijah. I am very proud of her decision to go back to university to study teaching, despite the anxiety she feels at being away from home and her kids.

  Young and innocent — Leesh, me and JJ.

  JJ, me, Leesh — my face a little busted, after a fight the night before.

  Despite always being very much part of our family, my older sister Jessie grew up living with her mother up at Erambie, the Aboriginal Mission community near Cowra. No matter how long it has been since we last saw each other, Jess and I always stay in touch and are still very close.

  I’ve always had a brotherly relationship with my cousin Jason, who’s the son of Mum’s brother, Craig. We’re still close and have plenty of laughs when we talk about things we did when we were growing up. When we were kids, we played footy on different teams, and when one of us was streaking away to score a try and saw the other in pursuit, we’d burst out laughing and almost drop the ball, which never went down well with the coach. Later, when we’d grown up and were both professional boxers, we found it hard to fight each other in training because we were always joking.

  As you may know, many Aboriginal people have a huge extended family, both related and non-related, and we like to mix and mingle with each other. For as long as I can remember, we always had a close association with our extended family. When we lived in Cowra, we’d often catch up at barbecues that would go on from the brightness of a sunny afternoon into the darkness of night, playing and listening to music and chatting away. Sometimes when we got together we’d play rounders (like softball), but most of the time we’d play games of touch footy, which often lasted for hours with both laughing and arguments, due to people’s competitive nature. Although I went on to play in the National Rugby League competition, I still remember the amount of skill my many cousins and friends showed back then.

  As well as the barbecues, Mum and Dad sometimes went to or held house parties with family members and friends, where people would pass the guitar around the circle and take turns at singing a song. Growing up in a family where music was always present, I took to playing the guitar, and Dad would sometimes call on me to sing a song for the mob. Normally kids weren’t allowed around the adults at house parties, but being able to belt out a few tunes was the one reason why I was allowed to stay and listen to the yarns of Dad and his friends. I found that singing in front of people at those parties helped me get over my shyness and gain more confidence. It also gave me a love of music from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s and bands and singers such as The Eagles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sam Cooke and Otis Redding.

  So, in those early years, we might not have had much, but we had each other, we had our extended family and we all shared a love of sport and music. These foundations gave me the strength I needed to get through some tough situations later in life.

  JJ, Dad, Nan Ollie, Me, Leesh, Jessie and Mum.

  3

  GROWING UP FAST

  When I was ten, Mum and Dad decided to move from Cowra to Wagga Wagga so Dad could take up a country football coaching job. Wagga was bigger than Cowra, and they thought it might also provide more opportunities for us. Before we left Cowra, Mum agreed that Mike could stay there and live with his father in order to continue working towards his apprenticeship. Jessie also remained with her mother at Erambie.

  Located in southern inland New South Wales, Wagga was a great place to grow up. It had a decent population of Aboriginal people (who are called Kooris in New South Wales), and seemed to be a little more accepting of Indigenous folk than other places. Through his football and other things, Dad knew lots of different Koori families in Wagga so we were introduced to heaps of Koori kids when we arrived, which was great.

  I enjoyed living in Wagga from the get-go. Our family was happy, I liked going to Mount Austin Primary School and there were lots of sports opportunities for me. It was in Wagga that I was introduced to representative sport for the first time, playing for the school in many different sports, which provided me with the chance to make even more new friends.

  Even though I liked pretty much all sports, even as a primary-school kid I showed particular promise at rugby league. I’d grown up following the game, watching it on TV for hours and idolising players — my two favourites being David Peachey and Andrew Walker. The house we lived in when we moved to Wagga was across the road from the high school, and I would spend any spare moment I could running around and kicking a footy, trying to emulate NRL players, and even commentating on my own moves.

  In 1995, when I was twelve, I was the first person from the Riverina to captain the New South Wales primary schools rugby league team. Not long after, I came to the attention of rugby league immortal and Indigenous legend Arthur Beetson, who made our family an offer for me on behalf of the Roosters.

  Captain of the NSW Primary Schools Sports Association rugby league team — 12 years old, practising my signature.

  Funnily enough, Arthur had also invited Dad to play with the Roosters. Dad had been stuck in a bit of a cycle of alcohol and mischief at the time. If Beetso hadn’t given him a chance to improve his life by playing in Sydney, who knows what the future would have been like for Mum and Dad? There’s every chance Dad would have stayed in familiar surroundings and not challenged himself. As it was, Mum and Dad moved to Sydney and lived with Arthur for some time, and while Dad didn’t play out his entire career with the Roosters, it was through Beetso that he learned the mental and physical toughness it takes to play at the top level.

  Even after moving on to two other clubs in Sydney, Dad maintained a great relationship with Arthur, and would still hear from him when he was on his trips around rural and regional New South Wales and Queensland, scouting for the next schoolboy prodigy. Artie was remarkably successful at recruiting players, with many guys he’d picked going on to play top-grade NRL, State of Origin and even for Australia.

  Some other league clubs had contacted Mum and Dad about me playing for them before Arthur approached us. But Mum was adamant that getting an education was far more important than throwing a football around and believed I had the potential to be more than just a footballer. ‘I don’t care about how much money a club promises my son,’ she said to Arthur. ‘The club that’s prepared to give Joe the best education will get his signature.’

  After that, the focus of the negotiations changed. It wasn’t so much about the money anymore, but about providing me with a scholarship to a good school. Ultimately, when the offer was put on the table, it included covering any private school fees. So at the age of thirteen I signed my first NRL contract.

  There is no way my parents would have been able to afford a private school education, so thanks
to Mum I was lucky enough to go to St Michael’s Regional Boys High School in Wagga from Year 7 to Year 10.

  Arthur Beetson, an amazing man, travelled the country looking for young Aboriginal talent.

  In my first year at St Mick’s, I was invited to play with the older students in representative teams and was named player of the final in a state-wide competition for two years in a row.

  Outside of school, the next year I was due to go into the Under 14s, but my parents decided to let me play in the under 18s competition with the Wagga Magpies. Despite being so much younger than my teammates, I managed to play well all season, and our team made it to the grand final against the Gundagai Tigers. The Tigers had beaten us twice that year, and we were not expected to win the game. With two minutes on the clock, we were behind by four points, and the game was all but lost when we spoiled a chance. The Tigers were given the scrum feed, but it turned out that fate wasn’t on their side that day. We won the scrum against the feed, the ball was passed out to me and I managed to step through a couple of defenders to score the winning try next to the posts.

  By Year 9, around the age of fifteen, I was selected for the New South Wales combined Catholic Colleges’ rugby league team, and was named captain. We were runners-up in the national competition, but I played well enough to be selected for the Australian Under 15 merit team, and I still have the playing strip I was given.

  Over the next few years I moved into the senior age groups and was selected to play halfback in the Australian schoolboys’ representative team with players such as Greg Bird, Michael Weyman and many others who went on to play in the NRL system.

  Having played high-level league in both the country and Sydney, then coached country teams, Dad was my toughest but smartest critic with footy because he knew what I was capable of achieving on the field. And when it came to trekking up and down the Hume Highway between Wagga and Sydney almost every weekend for representative games and practice during high school, it would be Mum driving me. As well as being extremely thankful for all the time she spent taking me backwards and forwards to Sydney, I also appreciated all the money Mum and Dad spent on me during this part of my football journey. To this day, I think of the things my brother, sisters and parents went without in order for me to chase my dreams.