Australian of the Year Adam Goodess hunger to uncover his Aboriginal heritage is fuelled by a tragic family event. Courtesy: SBS ONE
Finds out he is related to former teammate Michael O'Loughlin ... Adam Goodes with Aboriginal elder Quenten Agius on sacred land at Point Pearce, where his mother was born. Picture: SBS Source: SBS
TRACING his Aboriginal bloodlines has filled in a big hole in his life that he'd used football to fill before now, says Adam Goodes, who may well be playing his last AFL game in his home state when the Sydney Swans play Port at the Adelaide Oval tonight.
Goodes, who was born in Wallaroo on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula, appears in the SBS family tree series Who Do You Think You Are? on Tuesday night in an episode he says answered many things for him.
"I think the whole reason I wanted to go on this journey was I knew that my ancestry was Adnyamathanha but I had no idea how or what part of the family got us to that point," he said.
Going back ... Adam Goodes with Cliff Coulthard at the Malkawi cave painting site in The Flinders Rangers in South Australia. Picture: SBS Source: SBS
The episode culminates in Goodes travelling to the Flinders Ranges for the first time and meeting Cliff Coulthard, a renowned elder, who talks to him about his life after football.
"There's definitely a plan to go back to there at the end of this football season," Goodes said. "I think it's part of my role as an older member in my family to take all the boys back there and Uncle Clifford has already told us we all need to be back there and away from the cameras and film crew and to really experience being back home again."
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Discovering his ancestry ... Sydney Swans AFL footballer and Australian of the Year, Adam Goodes, at The Flinders Ranges in South Australia. Picture: SBS Source: SBS
"It's not with the football club, the medical department, it is all on my terms," he said.
At the start of the show Goodes describes the Swans as his culture, and with his missing ancestry now restored he may not feel the same impetus to keep playing. But he says he is still motivated.
"I love what I'm doing. I strive to get the absolute best out of myself and the people around me. And I want to keep winning premierships. I think my decision might be a bit easier to make if we were sitting in the bottom four."
No tears ... Adam Goodes with his mum Lisa Sansbury on Who Do You Think You Are? Picture: SBS Source: SBS
But Goodes also finds he's related to Walter Watson Hughes, a copper mining millionaire whose statue adorns Adelaide University.
What happened to that money? "Well that's another thing I can't wait to investigate once this show airs, they'll come knocking with the bags I think. See what happens there."
Hughes — later Sir Walter — was married but childless when he began a relationship with a full-blooded aboriginal woman who would give birth to Goodes' ancestor, who was raised by South Australian identity King Tommy.
Related to Adam Goodes ... Pastoralist and mine owner Sir Walter Watson Hughes (1803-1887). Source: Supplied
Yet to sign a new contract with Sydney Swans ... Australian of the Year Adam Goodes. Picture: SBS Source: SBS
"Once this airs next Tuesday I then get the rest of the 80 per cent that they've found, and I get to learn so much more about other bits of my family history and ancestry, and there's another part of my aboriginal ancestry that they didn't even go into that shows how I'm related to Michael O'Loughlin."
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A favourite of AFL crowds generally ... Adam Goodes at Sydney Swans training at the SCG. Picture: Phil Hillyard Source: News Corp Australia
Goodes, currently the Australian of the Year, says he is satisfied with what he's done in the role. "I'm definitely doing exactly what I want to do. I think the whole year for me was about raising more awareness around the three campaigns that I've supported over the years, and that's White Ribbon to eliminate domestic violence towards women, the Recognise campaign, to get constitutional recognition for aboriginal people, and the Racism It Stops With Me Campaign."
He concedes however racism will never be stamped out.
"Look, we're not robots, that's for sure. But I think like-minded people is what you want to be able to deal with, and when things happen that aren't right and are offensive and hurt people's feelings then I think it's up to all of us to support that person who's the victim."
But when it's put to him that the day might come that the AFL could ideally stop its indigenous Round, and indeed its Multicultural Round, that one day singling people out on the basis of race won't need to happen, Goodes is something close to indignant.
"Oh look I don't think that's really a question or answer that needs to be thought up of. I think we have it at the moment, I think it's really significant the timing of indigenous Round, I think it really gives us the opportunity at individual clubs what our indigenous people have contributed to the game in the past and the present."
You wouldn't see it in the A-league though …
"I think that's the difference in AFL," Goodes said. "It's so inclusive. It is about recognising the contributions of people to our great game, and to have these rounds where we showcase these contributions it makes the people feel very special about those rounds."
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