Jack Grimes is a former AFL player for the Melbourne Football Club.
He was taken with pick 14 at the 2007 draft and would go on to play 100 AFL games across a nine year season, including co-captaining the side from 2012 - 2014 in what was a pretty challenging time both on and off field for the club.
Jack was just 22 years old when he and Jack Trengrove (20) were thrust into the position of co-captain of a club that was going through a rebuild. The appointment made him one of the youngest AFL captains in the history of the game of a club that, at the time, attracted plenty of external noise for the wrong reasons because of their lack of on field success during his tenure. Jack won just 24 of 100 games throughout his AFL career to paint a better picture.
On top of the lack of on-field success, Jack was unfortunately regularly plagued by soft-tissue injuries throughout his career and only twice played more than 15 games in a season with his best season coming in 2012 when he was appointed co-captain. He would play a career-high 21 games that year and finished runner-up in Melbourne's best and fairest award.
He stood down as co-captain heading into the 2015 season as he wanted to get back to focussing on his own game as he felt his form had suffered to some degree during his leadership tenure, but would be plagued by more injuries in 2015 and despite outstanding VFL form with the Casey Scorpions (Melbourne’s reserves) in 2016, he managed just two senior games due to another rebuild and change of direction under new coach, Paul Roos, in what would ultimately be his last season at AFL level after being delisted at the end of that season.
At 27 years of age and with some other AFL interest circling, Jack decided against nominating for the draft and made himself unavailable to other clubs, subsequently putting an end to his career and exiting the AFL system. He instead chose to start the next phase of his life and transitioned into work running his PT studio JJ’s Health and Fitness which is thriving and brings him joy.
Throughout this episode, we discuss all things leadership, how he approached it when he was appointed, how he felt throughout his tenure including the emotional ups and downs, what he would have liked to have known at the time and what he learnt about himself upon reflection. He talks openly and honestly about hard work, the process of tackling multiple injuries and how he lost some passion for the game and where and how he rediscovered it through 2016 as a VFL player.
Jack is also a long time personal friend of mine, so it was really nice to catch up and be able to share this with others. You will not meet a more caring and humble human.
Please enjoy this engaging conversation with Jack Grimes.