Can I everyone welcome to conversations now. Look, I played against my next guest and I was given a bath. She ran rings around me, and yes, I said, she mind you. I was fifty five and she was fifteen.
It's only a few years ago, wasn't it.
I was a few bother, isn't it?
It was good fun.
Aaron Phillips is my guest. Of course you recognized the voice, don't you. She's written a new book or a book, not a new one, a book called Inside and Out. Aaron Phillips spong to the.
Program, Thank you so much for having me. Graham, do you.
Remember playing against in that celebrity game?
But that laid over absolutely. I was allowed to play footy as a young kid after thirteen, so when I got the call up to the slowdowns, that was a highlight of my year to be able to play in Port Adelaide. Colors try to tackle you, I think I think you did. I was trying to really.
Are athlete mentality.
It was great. But what a fantastic event that was The money we raised awesome?
I did. I had to. I had to get to the last line in your book to understand the title Inside and Out? Can you explain it for us.
Yeah, So when I wanted to write a book, or actually when I first got an approach to write a book, I think my general reply was is my life that interesting? I mean, it's you know, I didn't ever think I would ever write a book. And then I sat down and considered it, and I thought, well, if I'm going to write a book, you have to be really honest. You've got to be open, and you've got to tell
all the story from the inside and out. And so that's a big part of whether where the story, where the title comes from, and obviously out being you know, being out and proud being who I am, being brave to be who I am. So that's kind of where the title came from.
As I said, it took me to the last line to sort that out. When you say you didn't think you're worthy of writing a book, I just read some of the career highlights. Three times AFL w Premiership player, two times AFL Premiership Co captain, twice Adelaide Club Champion, Adelaide Co Captain, Adelaide leading goalkicker, and then you went
to Port Adelaide. I could never forgive you, I know, three times all Australian twice AFL League Best in Fairest, twice AFL Players Most Valuable Player, two times afl W Grand Final Best on Ground, AFL Coaches Association afl W Champion, Player of the Year, Goal of the Year win the system was it?
Definitely? Yes, it was a big breeze from eighty out.
That was just a career. But in your basketball career, which happened before footy, twice WNBA Championship player, that's in America, the Big League, three times WNBO All Star, five twice WNBO Leader and assists, then all these other things. You went to euro leagues, You've got accolades there. You played
as if you won championships with American teams. Then Commonwealth Games gold medalist, World Champion, gold medal in Brazil, silver medal in the Beijing Olympics and twenty fourteen Turkey Fever World Championship, bronze medal, Australian vice captain, co captain, and you were at the Rio Dijonnaire Olympic Games. Now that all rattled off, so people need to go and look at it a bit more studiously than that. Can you say you're not worthy of a book?
I suppose when you're in your life, you're in your own shoes, you don't one of the worst, not the worst, I'd say, one of the biggest downfalls maybe that I had. But it was also a good asset. As a part of my personality is I never really along my journey stopped and reflected too much and what I've just done. I was very ambitious to go on to the next thing. I rarely gave myself too much praise. I was always
ready to do, Okay, what's next. So when I sat down and started writing this book, I actually had I actually come to realize, Wow, I've actually done quite a bit of stuff, and even apart from the sporting element of my life, and that's been a huge part of
who I am and what I've done. I think the most important thing about that book is there's so many other layers to my life and I wanted people to know that, Yes, my life and my career and two sports has been incredible, had an amazing upbringing with two
wonderful parents and two wonderful sisters. But there's been times in my life it's been bloody hard and difficult, and I want people to read a story of mindset and feel that there's no one that's immune to hard times and adversity and challenges, and so one of the most proudest part of the book is to open up and share those experiences.
We'll come to that. I mean, you do then the hard times of the injury, aren't they when you cop injuries? And maybe the odd time, maybe that you didn't have a good year, And then obviously your relationships, which sound complicated but we're simplified. I love the fact your dad wrote the forward because everybody loves your dad. Did you find that everybody loves Greeks?
Absolutely? And what's not to love about dad? Big Kutchie as they call him. He's obviously a huge part of my story, a huge part of why I grew up to be an athlete in the end, because I wanted to be like him, wanted to play footy. Wasn't able to do that after the age of thirteen, took on a new career. But Dad and my mum for that matter, have always been there for the journey. So to get Dad to put the forward in its really special. I think it wouldn't have made sense without him.
She fought over toys with her two sisters, But as she got older, the battles were all about she was a good winner and a terrible loser. There's a true you moment. I used to say. The sisters looked little win, Yes, just to keep some peace, little win.
Yes, yep, that is true, just to save the night from being a complete disaster. Because I mean, I was so competitive. I just love to compete. I love to win. And He's true, I was a terrible, terrible loser. I just I would stay up there as long as I
could to get the game back on my terms. But I think looking back, it was even though I was probably a hard kid and a difficult kid sometimes because I was so competitive and so, I don't know, pickheaded or strong willed, whatever you want to call it, that was also one of my superpowers going forward in my life. So I'm glad though even though we're there at times
my sisters did let me win. I really really appreciated the times they didn't let me win, because that just made me even more hungry and even more competitive.
Any champions that are good losers do you think about them? Is it a trait of a champion that they have to be a poor loser?
I don't know. Yeah, probably, I can't think of too many champions of sport that have liked losing. I think I come to understand what you can learn through losing, rather than it just being a complete disaster.
Well, you do learn a lot more from your disappointments in your triumphs. I think I love the story about Dad came home and your only night and you've pinched his motorbike.
In fairness, it was a smaller motorbike, probably more suited for me than Dad. But yeah, I was a very active kid. I loved being outside. I was climbing trees, stealing motorbikes, riding them up and down the street. I was a kid who was scraping their knees every night doing something. And I had a big imagination and yep,
one of the motorbikes. I had. The neighbor across the road, Bob, who was actually one of the trainers at Port Adelaide, lived across the road at the Magpies, and he made me a jump so I could jump up this ramp fly over things. I don't know how many times I come off this thing and managed to avoid breaking a bone, which was in itself a huge feat but yeah, I just loved, loved being an outside kid.
I still don't know how she got it started, he said. It's what Greg says, how her little body could even kick the motor over io.
I found a way. I figured out what a spark plug was. I knew if I changed that, I'd be a good chance of getting it started. So yeah, I figured it out.
Was footy. I mean basketball. You're very good tennis player, as dad writes, But was footy number one when you were a little kid? Yeah?
I loved footy? Well?
Were your heroes?
All the magpiles he had, Scott Hodges, Tim Jennifer five, do a great here, Adrian Setri.
Do not mention that name.
I thought that much. Struck an Her.
Nineteen ninety Grand Final. Scott Hodges goes down, Adrian Setri comes off the bench, never kicked a goal in his life, kicked three goals on Scott Suli three.
That mullet number ninety is flying around.
How good was he?
Struck her?
Yeah?
I played a lot of sports growing up. I did little athletics, loved competing. I put my hand up for all the school sports because it could get me out of class at different times, i'd swimming, you name it. So I just I just love sport.
Aaron Phillips is my guest, folks. Her book is called Inside and Out. We'll talk a bit more about that, but more about her career and her life when we get back back shortly. Welcome back, everybody. Aaron Phillips is in the studio here to talk about her book Inside and Out. I guess we talked about the early days, how competitive she was and how she loved footy. You're able to play footy until you were thirteen. Is it's true? You won the best and first in your last year smoke? Yeah, I lot.
My name's up on the board at Smash West Lakes, which is now the team or the club I still coach my daughter's under ten's team at. So it's special. It's special to be able to give back to a club that when I was growing up, when I was young, I was the only girl that they made me feel so welcome, so part of the Smash family. And it was the West Lakes Lakers back then when I played. But I just love being back there. There's so many great memories of running around there. But yeah, unfortunate at
the age of thirteen. That was the last time that I could do that.
Did you get much fleck from opposition players and a family who used to be standing on the sidelines and watch because you're a girl playing in a boys.
Team, Yeah I did. I There were not every game, but there were some games certainly that I mostly came from opposition parents that would have something to say about a girl playing against their sons and you know, don't get beaten by a girl or get her or you know, you could just tell there was a different tone of when I was out there, and ninety nine percent of
the time it really didn't affect me. I write in my book that one time I had an opposition runner have a bit of a go at me, and it was the first time I let something on the football field, a place where I was just having so much fun. I was just who I was. First time that someone really got to me, and I teared up. My coach and players rallied around me. But then I got home
from that game, I threw my bag down. I just hated the fact that I let someone get to me on the field because it was a Usually I don't let it get to me, but yeah, it was. It was ninety nine percent of the time I was. I was fine. That one percent that got me. I was dirty and I never ever let anything get to me like that again. And actually, funny enough, it was only
last year that I saw this runner in Foodland. Really yeah, first time I've ever made eye contact with him, and he was so uncomfortable, and I knew at that moment he knew that. I still remember that moment on the field, and I knew that he knew what he said.
And how did you recognize him?
I would never forget him.
Do you know his name?
I think so, but I know his face. I will never forget. But I just wanted to say to him, did it make you feel good?
Like?
Is that something that you wish you could that moment take back in time and go do I feel good about saying that? Should I have said it?
Do?
I wish I did, But I just knew from how uncomfortable he was that Hopefully the answer is I wish I never said it.
I love the story. You delve into your family's background a little bit. Your mum's parents come from England.
Yep, mom came over with her. She got was six siblings in her family at the time they came over, I believe it was four of them. Mum was seven years old and lived out on I think it was Grand Junction Road. There were some tin sheds that they put out there for people that that came over lived
there hostels. Yes, And then very quickly through my book, through my Annie Val who was a big Port Adelaide person, that's became port Adelaide became a really quickly we became just a part of the port Adelaide family, my mum's side of the family.
Why hell, because they're English? They how do they well? I guess it was the Finns me my migrant hospital hostel. Was it Grand Junction.
Right would have been? Yeah, yep, but there.
Was grace food.
You and you just love port Adelaide. Your grandfather, my grandfather, he loved his soccer, so he was not interested in a sport like football. But my grandma, Grandma Joan, she loved footy is obviously my dad Pauline dad's mum loved footy and but my mum's mum, which is just a great story. They would sleep outside of the old footy
park Grand Final Eve. You know when you go to McDonald's, the morning of when before the gates open, have their breakfast, get back in line, and then it was a race straight down to the front of the where the Port Adelaide Magpies would run out save those first two rows of seats. Then get out there knitting, get out there Bickie's and tea and make a day of it. And
it was Yeah, it was wonderful. And then myself, obviously my two older sisters Mum, we would come a bit later with getting ready for the Great Grand Finals and a lot of them you were, you were in not too many smiling at the end of it.
But uh, the finals, yeah, I prefer then you're.
Not going to hang your hat on pre Limb finals Cola Adelaide. But they were just it were great. You remember those just footy park days. It was just it was there was no occupational health and safety. There was people jam packed in like sardines. But it was just so so good. It was just the best times.
And Greg's mom and dad came from Minnapa on the on their peninsula. Yep. But your grandfather still still ye d.
Yep, still still in Minnapa and.
They moved to Adelaide at one station.
Yeah, so when when Dad was started, he came across I think you said about a sixteen year old, started playing with Port Adelaide and he went from basically woodener To to Port Lincoln, went to school there and then went to Adelaide and then my nana Pauline went to Adelaide with him, and then Pop moved over and had some really difficult times at the farm, had a lot of drought ears and it was getting really hard to keep it, so they sold the farm, moved to Adelaide.
Will eventually moved to Adelaide in Semaphore and followed dad's career and obviously, yeah, it was a pretty good one. But Pop Pop always missed the farm. That's why he's there back there now. When Nan passed away, it was a big part of him that wanted to go back because that's that's what he is. He's a farm guy. He's a country boy.
I always imagine your dad to be a quiet, shy country boy. And how on earth did he clack up the courage to ask your mom out on a date? Can you tell us that story? Yeah?
So there's My mum was working as a she was working for a lawyer's firm and dad came in this it depends who you ask, but this is this is the story I'm going with that I've gone in with my book. My dad had to come in and I'm not sure if he was in trouble for something or if he was just signing some legal documents for something for the pub. Anyway, he got he met mum who was working there, and somehow eventually my mum said, yeah, I'll go out with you. But this was a few
attempts from dat. It wasn't straight away, but my mum's sisters got wind of who was asking her out because they're made Port mum couldn't care about Port Adelaide, and then I think there was probably maybe a bit of peer pressure from her sisters to go You're going to go out with Greg Phillips, Like, go out with Greg Phillips. So she did and the rest is history.
It's intriguing. At the start of your book, you posit yourself, had you been born and bought your name was Lachlan Phillips, how much different you would have been perceived on that sporting journey. What were you trying to achieve by that?
So the chapter is if she was he? And it just puts my career, my life in perspective of, Okay, well, if I was a boy, where would my life have Where would my life be now? Where it would have ended up? I would have continued of playing footy, I would have wouldn't have had to have gone and played basketball. Even if I was a boy playing basketball, if I had won two NBA titles, how much money that would have made me? And I'm not by any means saying
how I just I wish I was a boy. This is so unfair because every part of my life and my journey I'm grateful for and it's I am who I am because of the experiences and the journey that I've been on. But when you do put it into perspective of if I was a boy, I would have been certainly paid a lot different, My pathway would have been pretty pretty clear, would have kept playing football beyond the age of thirteen, and so just more.
Two brownne metals, MVP YEAP, three Premierships.
Yep, and all the things that come with being a male and being getting those accolades compared to being female and getting those accolades. Whilst again I don't ever want to undersell it, or appreciate what I've what I've got and what I've done. It is a huge difference.
There might have been different though your footy would have been the dominant sport would have maybe they wouldn't have been basketball.
Oh I know, if if I had football to continue on as a pathway, I would have absolutely have followed.
Football knee injury. May not have the knee injuries. You can't say it was an interesting way of positing it, but I thought, oh, yeah, well true, but it's a sliding door. You you just.
Don't know it is. Yep, it is definitely.
Aaron Phillips is my guest. Much more to come. Welcome back everybody. If you just tuned in, we're chatting with Aaron Phillips and it's just as much fun when the microphones turned off, it's turned on because we can reminisce, mainly about a dad I guess tried to get investiately to play for the Crozy trained with us, laid off magpies, off any more money to stay in the sand for.
He told me a story that you made him do this crazy bike ride to the snake pits and had to do so many laps and you'd come off your bike and then Dad rode by you. I saw you on the side of the road. Did a you turn to check on the other instead rode over your bike, over your tires. You told you to get up.
He told you that, which I don't. I think you might have exaggerated that.
That's unlike my dad to an exaggerated story.
Your basketball career is amazing. How did it start, how did it develop? And when did you know you were a chance to play for Australia.
Yeah, I so I was introduced to Rachel Spawn at the age of thirteen when I was finishing up my footy career and she became just another idol. So I knew no longer I could be a football player and had to find a new new sport. And so I was so appreciative of Rachel's just five minutes of her time just talking to me as a young kid, and I thought, wouldn't it be amazing if I ever got the opportunity to play with her? And fast forward down the track. A couple of years later, I was in
the Lightning squad training with Rachel. Playing with Rachel just one of those incredible moments. And then at the age of nineteen, got my first call up to play for the Opals. The same year I was sorry. At the same year, I was also drafted to the Connecticut son in the DUBNBA. So it was a big year for me.
But it wasn't smooth. I mean my first few games as a basketball as a junior, I was fouling out because I was this little football kid trying to play basketball and wasn't used to the contact and all the lack of contact, I should say, and kind of had to finesse my skill out. Some great people around me at West adelaide to harness my skills and just to bring it back a little bit but still be athletic and still be aggressive. So yeah, that's my basketball journey.
Probably I didn't really take too much notice of what else could there be outside of the lightning, probably until about eighteen when had some WNBA scouts come over and have a look at some games, and then when I was drafted. That was when it was a real big moment of Wow, I actually can be a professional basketball player.
Did you know where Connecticut was? No?
I actually it was like three o'clock in the morning or some ridiculous hour. I was on dial up internet listening to the draft. I thought I might have been a chance to get drafted, but not. You never know. And then my coach from Connecticut called me because I was on like eleven minute delay with my computer, told me I was drafted at pick twenty one. I was so excited. And then in the middle of the night called I was at my sister's house, called up mom
and Dad said, I've got drafted. I got drafted to Connecticut.
And then I.
Realized where is Connecticut? And so I went to what they I told my young teammates. I went to what is a paper form of Google Maps, It's called an atlas, and I had to look up where exactly where Connecticut was. I knew it was somewhere in the east, but I didn't actually know where I was going.
So when did you get there? And what was it like?
I was picked up in a hummer with a big Connecticut Sun logo on it. It was eleven pm at night. I'd landed in Connecticut and it was such a massive journey to get there. I was, you know, jet lagged, exhausted, and they drove me through a Dunkin Donuts to get a coffee and a donut, which at eleven point thirty pm at night was probably not the one thing that I felt like at the time, but I was really appreciative to be there Connecticut. I just it was driving
in the night. It was a lot of trees. I just thought, gosh, this place has a lot of trees. Knew that we were playing out of a casino, so we were owned by the Mahigan Sun tribe. We played out of the Mahigan Sun casino. So I'm driving with Bill who picked me up, who's one of the team managers, picked me up, drove to the casino. That's where I had to stay in training camp until my accommodation was ready.
Once you make the roster, and just saw out of the blue, out of all these trees, this humongous building out of nowhere as a casino, and that's where I was about to live for the next two weeks.
Well, you you still had an Australia basketball career, didn't you. But eventually you commit, you moved to you played with so many different teams.
Yeah, So how the basketball circuit works is you're in the WNBA from May through till September and then you go off and play in a European team from September October right back through till May, so you don't get a lot of time to come back to Australia. You don't get much time to be in Australia if you do, so you're on this circuit and you have to stay in it because if you kind of pull yourself out of it, you can your money can can go backwards,
your opportunities can be taken away. You kind of want to just stay involved and in the rhythm of it. So there was a lot of years away from home.
You played at Connecticut, you played in Israel, you played in Poland, you played for two teams in Poland, you played in Slovakia, and then five teams in America. But I guess the big the big moment come when you were with Indiana or Phoenix. Is.
Yeah, Indiana and Phoenix are the two teams in the WNBA when we won the championships, two completely different teams. And if you know the name Caitlin Clark, you know she plays now for the Indiana Fever, which was my team, and in twenty twelve we were the underdogs. It was it was just one of those stories where we had no business to win. We just we kept facing elimination in every round. We got through. We got through, and
then come up against in the finals Minnesota. Minnesota had five Team USA starters on their team and we beat them three to one. It was just an unbelievable story of just incredible you know, team chemistry, connection, resilience, playing against arguably the best team that ever played.
So do do you get the accolades like it? If it was like the men's like a Michael Jordan, you know they win their championships. Did do you get the accolades that you're worthy of?
I mean, you get your championship ring, you get the you get the jewelry, you get the parade, you know, all the all the things in the city. You definitely, And definitely in Indiana, which was a big basketball town, they just they were people are just mad basketball, even crazy now with Caitlyn Clark there. But you see how much it means to people, and you don't realize until you win or you lose big games that people just support you and just love being a part of your
team's journey. And same with Phoenix. I mean we played I played with Diana Trozzi. He's probably the greatest basketballer ever. Five time Olympian might have been six now, but she's just you know, to win a championship with her, Britney Griner, who played Penny Taylor and the team at this at the time, my mind's still blown because I look back and go, these are the best players ever to play and won a championship with them, and think we're connected for life, Like it's unbelievable.
Do you establish those connections? Do they have reunions?
Yes, I'm glad you asked. Last year, I got flown They put me in a business class seat all the way to Phoenix, like talk about being treated like a star. That was amazing because usually I'm in like eighty seven j with four kids on the way back to America, And this time I got a business class ticket and flew over there for four nights and we were just celebrated. It was just it was like we'd never left each other.
It sounded like it didn't end on a happy night.
Though.
You said your time at Los Angeles Sparks wasn't the happiest time.
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a really tough tough year. We were we were predicted to do great things. That team. We had a whole bunch of injuries to star players we were. It was a really hard city to play in because you know, you live We lived in Marina del Rey, playing out of Staples Center, and you don't know what traffic's like in La. So you're better off getting to a game four hours before the game rather than being right there on time just for tip off,
because you never know. And it was, Yeah, it was. It was a tough year. I was, honestly, and I was really at a point where I would love to be around family members. Dallas had just got a team moved from Tulsa to Dallas, which is where my wife, Tracy's family's from. And when the potential to get a trade was there, I took it because it was It was a really, really tough.
Time and Dallas was your last team. Yeah, you mentioned Tracy. We'll talk about Tracy. Will introduce her to them to the narrative when we come back after the rate. Just before you go, you're right that you've got tattooed Elton John's Tiny Dance lyrics on your body somewhere. Ye, Why so.
It's the music notes hold me closer to Tiny Dancer that's the song that Mum and I. That's our song, and music is a big part of my life and love music. My mom's a big music head Bowie Fan Elton, all those Eagles, Elvis, so we're connected through music, Mum and I, and so I wanted to the whole song.
I'll just do a couple of lines, just.
Hold me closer to tiny dancer in a musical piece, so all the notes, no, not actually the words, and if anyone's music right there and wants to have a look, and if it's wrong, all bad lucks. Too late now. But it was just something that I wanted to to have because I love the song.
It.
You know, songs just make you feel good, make you feel like you're at home, make you feel connected. That's one that mum and I share.
Well, particularly when it's your song and your mum's song that'll stay with you forever.
She was meant to get it but never did, so that's the other part of the bargain. She's still got to live up to. I don't think I'm any charts.
Aaron Phillips is my guest folks Actionately, Aaron Phillips is in the studio with me it's a great chat, to be quite honest, and it's really interesting to connect when the microphones are off as well. There was a line that I highlighted in your book, I believe in aliens and ghosts. I do you believe in aliens and ghosts?
Yeah? Why not?
UFOs and aliens? Yep?
I have to. I have to believe.
You know.
One of the things I love to do at night when I'm taking the dogs out for a week is I like looking up at the stars, and I just got to believe that there's things, something else out there. I usually see the lights go back and forth, but I just it would be too narrow minded to think that they were the only ones out there. And then spiritually,
I just feel there's a connection. There's many times that I've I've felt when I've fed my kids and I've been you know, Miller and I feeding them with a bottle. I can I just feel like a presence there of one of my grandparents, usually my Grandma Joan or Grandma Pauline, just somewhere and they just pop into my head. And it's not like I don't want to sound crazy, but it's it's just like I haven't been thinking about them.
Three o'clock in the morning, I'm feeding a kid who won't go to sleep, and then all of a sudden, I feel this calming presence, it's going to be okay, and then they come into my mind. So I've had many. There was a story when my grandma Joan, who she passed away from ovarian cancer, and she was in hospital. Mom and day got a call to say, come up to the hospital as quickly as you can. She's not
doing well. They're driving up Port Road and my dad, who doesn't believe in aliens pole opposite doesn't believe in ghosts. I said to my mum, what's that smell? You know? It smells like someone has literally dropped a whole bottle of eucalyptus in the car and could not find it. She used to put on my Nana Joan would put it on a hanky because she did not like the smell of hospitals. And then it went away like there is. And my dad, who like I said, does not believe
in anything, cannot explain this to me. Whereas my mum has smelled eucalyptus on various occasions. But to have my dad in the car at this point when my mum was with him, and it was pretty much at the moment my nana did pass away. It's just one of those things where they just has to be.
You've mentioned Tracy, your wife in the earliest segments there, but you're so open about it in how you meet and the journey that you had that you sounded like I was love at first sight for you, not so much for her.
Well, I hope it wasn't too far after that she liked me. I know it was. It was a very much. I was Tracy's first ever female love.
And who was she then?
So this was back in she would have been around twenty six, twenty.
Seven, So she don't ever have boyfriend?
Yeah, yep, and probably only She had been with a guy before me for about seven years that didn't end well, and then met me not too much longer after that, and we really just reconnected so well. She was my best friend. We spent a lot of time together and ended up falling in love with each other. And for her, if you had a bastard prior to that, whether she would have ever married a woman, she would have absolutely not. You know, that's not interest so but we just were
so connected to each other. You know, we've been married eleven years now, we have four kids together, and I honestly really do believe that I married my soulmate. That's what I write in the book. And some people you meet and some people you just if you're lucky enough. I always tell my kids, if you ever get the opportunity marry your best friend.
It didn't happen overnight. I mean, you're on again, off again, so there must have been a special bond there to help you maintain that connection.
We were really we were really battling with a lot of we I was living playing overseas. She's from America, She's from Dallas, would spend half the year apart. I'd travel to European clubs. So we were both professional athletes. She's a basketballer as well, so it was just really hard to navigate. And back then you don't have the FaceTime or the you know, phone calls you can just pick up cost you one hundred dollars a minute. And there were also certain challenges of how would we make this.
She's American, I'm Australian. It's not legal to get married either in the United States at the time. It wasn't illegal to get married here in Australia. Do we want kids? Is? How are we ever going to have kids? So it was we had a lot of challenges.
I don't want it to sound like a prurian interest, but the things that we're sort of passing through my mind as I'm reading this, And how did she introduce you to her parents? How did she explain to her parents when you know, they'd only know her to have boyfriends? And was that awkward or complicated?
Yeah, it was. We had a lot of challenges with Tracy's Tracy's mum thought it was a phase for Tracy because she only known Tracy to have, you know, male boyfriends, and so I think in the end, well, people were just concerned and it was more so, how is this actually going to work? Because there's a lot of people when they look at same sex couples, they think, well, they won't be able to get married, they won't be able to have kids together. What's what? You know? Almost
what's the point? But we could also still have those things. We weren't so scary. I suppose, I don't know, like it's well.
It seems it seems natural these days. Yeah, although some people resisted, but it was pioneering stuff. You talk about you couldn't get married in America. Yeah, but finally Hawaii relates their laws. Went to Hawaii. You describe it on the beach and I could see it. You talked about a sea turtle emerging emerging from the It was from the water as you're as you're saying, you've owed.
Yeah, it was like something out of a story book. I mean, we were we were lucky. Obama was in power. He changed the laws to legalize same sex marriage in the States. We went to Hawaii. We didn't want a big wedding. We didn't want family to have to fork out a lot of money to get there, so we eloped on our own. The only people that went with was Tracy's brother and sister in law, just to be witnesses.
And it was just a magical night. We were on sunset, a little bit of sprinkling rain on a warm night passed through, and then a sea turtle. Can you believe it? Out of you know, everything, which is just crazy. It was spiritual. Maybe you know, maybe.
They make you go in the water, jump in the water with you.
Yeah, we dress well, we wreck the dress, but don't worry my dress. My dress was ninety dollars online and I was that annoyed because I had to get altered because it was too big when I did get it, and it was one hundred and thirty dollars to older it, which was more than the bloody dress. So it was a fun night.
It was.
Yeah, look back, we had we had a great night. I think the one of the only regrets Tracy has now and didn't know at the time because her dad, he's an ex Navy seal. He's a really quiet guy. We get along very very well. That's impressive, Yeah, very impressive. He never speaks, you know, emotionally ever about anything. And he told Tracy's mum that one of his biggest regrets, or not even regrets, but what he wishes that he could walk Tracy down the aisle. And we didn't know at the time.
You've got four kids. Now put me in my place if I'm going too far here. But is it an exercise in genetic selection? I mean, you obviously choose the diner. Did you choose the donor with a view to your kids being elite at sport?
That's a good question because and that's not a funny question because we actually get asked a lot about how do you choose the donor? It is such a huge process to do. There is so much information on donors. You go through all their application, you can hear them speak,
you can get their medical background history. So for Tracy and I am out of and you're talking about it's like car shopping, and I say that respectfully in terms of you pick your if you want a certain high eye color, all these different things that you can filter towards. And for Tracy and I, what was important obviously was health background, all those things before we get to the
you know, how tall are they? You know? Because also the we found, which was kind of weird, the taller the donor was the more expensive they are, and then more likely they're on a waiting list because they're in high demand.
So do you meet them, get the chance to make that.
Is the only thing you don't get to do if they have ticked in when once they sign up for the program, can you be contacted when the kids are eighteen?
Either donor can tick yes, or you can as if you sign up for it, say no, we don't want any connection to them, So our donor didn't have wanted to be contacted once the kids were eighteen, and a lot of we found that a lot of these donors were young medical kids going you know, adults or so kids, but there were adults going through college, needed to pay their way through universities and this was just a way
that they could support themselves. Others had just wanted to help people have a family, but didn't really want to have any connection after that. But I know by seeing, because I've seen a baby photo of the donor, I've seen an adult photo of the donor. And you're talking in America with three hundred million people, So what is the chances of walking by him and saying, oh, that's him? But I could honestly say if I did walk by him, I would recognize him. And I just have this feeling
that I'm going to walk by him someday. I don't know how.
To just go to He's going to be a yeah, yeah, you think you're recognizing Yeah.
I honestly I feel like I because you don't get to keep the photos, but they're so entrenched in your brain that you can just I would know.
You know, Aaron, guess what what's that? It's the end that way. We haven't that quick. You haven't even got you haven't got to the Crows yet. Can you wrap up a footy career in I mean it's such as such a still a footy career. Can you wrap You're a pioneer of the women's game. You know you had to deal with a dinosaurs like myself who just couldn't see that women should be, you know, elevated to this status of publicity. But you're there and you've you've seen
it fifty three thousand people at Adelaide Oval. Can you can you wrap up briefly with the Crows and Port Adelaide.
You do that, I'll give it a go.
People can buy the book of course.
Yes. I'm so grateful for how my football journey went and ended because I never in a million years thought I would be playing football or played football for the Adelaide Football Club, but looking back it was I'm so grateful it was the Adelaid Crows where I got to start my journey. It was wonderful. Phil Harper gave me a call wanting wanting me to come across when Port didn't get the license. Made Tracy and I feel so
welcome with our young family, great man. We had just so much fun and the players, the culture, it was just incredible. Was everything that I thought footy would be. Fun wise and just joy.
And then Alaide and those kids of yours. Because the photos of your kids with Crows jumpers on.
I've still got Crows kids. They still go for the Crows, some of them do they yeah, And that's okay. I don't. I don't discourage that.
And then you gotta put I guess you had to go to Port Adlaide's were tough years, weren't they.
Yeah, they were, and I knew it was going to be tough. It was. It was starting from zero again, bringing new a new team in young players. I knew that I was going to jump off the train that was going because of how old I was. I was thirty seven, which is highly not ideal to start a team at Port Adelaide with. But it was the perfect way to end my career. I was having these dreams. I wrote in the book that when I was contemplating going back to port and it was it was really
a tough decision. And when you wrote that article about making a lot of Crows people mad than they should be, You're right, it was, and that played a big role in my decision of do I go, should I shouldn't. I and I'd have these dreams standing at Alberton Oval, right and I'm standing in the in front of the Foss Williams Stand and it's just empty, but I can
hear the noise, I can see players. And then something grabbed my hand and it was me, at the age of whatever, I was six seven, saying we're home.
So there's all the spiritual star Yeah.
And from that moment I thought, if I don't again, if I don't, if I don't go, I'm gonna regret it all. So I appreciate your article when you said yes, Crows fans be mad, because they did have a right to be mad. There was an element of yes, I owed the Crows so much and I'll always be grateful. An end debt. But I hope you know, like I've sold you before, I hope you know how much I
gave back and how I'll continue to give back. If my kids ever say to me I want to play for the Crows, I'll say that's bloody great.
Thanks so much for coming in, Aeron. It is always great to catch up. You've just got a charisma about you which is just so attractive. There's no doubt about that. The book is called Inside and Out Aaron Phillips with Samantha Lane. Obviously she helped you put it together. A HARDI grant publication. Yep, good luck with it.
Thank you so much, Graham.
Great to be here, Aaron Phillips with my guests. Folks, thanks for joining us,