Chat with Leon Harris - Brisbane Lions recruiter
A long-time club recruiter for the Brisbane Lions dropped in to say hi to some of his old workmates at MSA this week. Leon Harris was the first head coach of the AFL program here at MSA, and we spoke to him about the world of recruiting in the AFL today.
We started by asking him if he believes AFL clubs have changed what they are looking for in a footballer.
“Yes and no,” said Harris. “We are still looking for the most talented players we can possibly get. When I first started with the Lions, we were at the bottom of the ladder and had early picks and multiple picks. Things have really changed in that area for us—as it does with success. We now have later picks and fewer of them. What has really worked for us is the father-son rule in the AFL and our academy—being able to get the Ashcroft boys and Jaspa Fletcher. But back to your question: talented players will always get a look-in. We still need talented players with good football IQ.”
Harris also spoke about the U16 and U18 national competitions and the role they play in helping selectors find players.
“The national competitions are now back to where they were prior to COVID, which is great after losing their way a little bit. Back in the day when I was coaching the Vic Metro team, the tournament was all over and done within 10 days. Now, it’s spread over six weekends. This weekend is the first, with SA playing the Allies in Sydney. All the AFL recruiters will be getting their folders out and hopping onto the circuit for the next six weeks, following the national games.”
Leon’s advice to our group of AFL students is to do your best at every opportunity you get. “If you do your best, you give yourself a chance to stand out. There’s no doubt it’s not easy to get drafted, but MSA has had some great examples of players being drafted from here. Zak Butters and Touk Miller are just a couple of players who have been great for their clubs over a period. They are fantastic role models, and a few others are really starting to find their way.”
“We have Tom McGuane and Jackson Barber playing for Vic Metro Under-18s this year. Griffin Barker, Slayde Law, Ollie Castro, and Archie King are in the U16s, and Braith Lafaiali’i is in the Vic Metro U15s. There is great talent at the school now in both the boys’ and girls’ squads, and they all give themselves a chance to become draftable players.”
One player who has really worked hard and taken his opportunity is Buku Khamis from the Western Bulldogs. “Yeah, Buku has really kicked on this year. He’s been given an opportunity to play consistently, and he’s put 6 to 8 games together giving himself a chance to have a good career. That’s exactly what Buku is doing at the moment, which is great.”
Leon Harris played 186 with Fitzroy, before becoming one of the AFL’s leading authorities on junior players.
The life of a pro baseballer
Starting in your first year as a professional sports person can be very daunting. But when you must travel to a whole new country to train and play your sport and live in foreign conditions then things just get that little bit tricker.
For MSA Alumni Jayden Kim this has been his life for the past 12 months and will be again for season 2025. While Jayden has signed a contract with MLB team the Pittsburgh Pirates, he must go through the pathway and make his way through the different levels of the sport, and that means starting in Rookie ball and living in the Dominican Republic. “I am living my dream” says the 18-year-old infielder. “I have always wanted to play professional baseball since I was a young boy, and for the last 12 months I have had the chance to do it. It’s amazing.”
Jayden’s family moved from Korea, so he could be a part of the MSA Baseball program, which he was for two years before signing with the Pirates. Jayden admits things really step up a level when you become a part of a big-league team. “It’s a lot more intense. Everyone is training and playing at a high level. We wake up at six in the morning, have a shower and breakfast then we train until 11 am and go straight into a game until 2 in the afternoon, before heading to the gym or some free time in the afternoon.”
Jayden says that the techniques that he learnt in the gym as part of his HPP program in years 9 and 10 prepared him well for life as a professional athlete. “What we learn he at MSA and the environment here really does get you ready for the next stage of your career. When the S and C coaches at your professional club ask you to do an exercise or a weight session, you can do it straight away because you have already learnt it.”
Learning a new language has also been a challenge for Jayden. His Spanish has improved in the last 12 months and needed too, because nobody really speaks English. “I have one other Australian teammate at the camp, so we speak to each other a fair bit because everybody else speaks Spanish.”
The Sandringham VBL player has been home for the past couple of months during the winter break and has been playing local summer ball for Royals with another MSA Alumni Robinson Smith, who will be joining Jayden for spring training at the Pirates Rookie Ball team camp after signing with the MLB team late last year.
In 2024 Jayden played his debut Rookie season with the Pirates rookie ball team for 34 games. He had 69 at bats and had 15 hits for an average of .217, but with that first year under his belt, Jayden now knows what to expect in 2025 and hopes to take his game to the next level.
We wish Jayden all the best as he continues to live his dream.
MSA Alumnus Johnny Furphy invited to Green Room for NBA draft
On Thursday 26 June 2024, Maribyrnong Sports Academy expects to have Alumnus Johnny Furphy (class of 2022) drafted as an NBA player, a first for the Academy. This week we spoke to two people that have been at the centre of Johnny’s growth as a basketballer - his parents Liza and Richard.
From the trips around the city to junior rep basketball, to the under 12 SSV team. And from his time at MSA to his final college destination in Kansas, Johnny’s mum and dad have watched him grow into a young man who is about to be handed over to the world. And to say they are excited about the future for him would be an understatement.
Johnny’s mum Liza says he was never really pushed as a child to focus on any one sport.
“Because Johnny was our third child, we just really went along with him and what he wanted, we drove him around to places and we never really forced anything onto him. We were always encouraged by his success but the drive for him to become a very capable player really came from him.”
That drive now has Johnny waiting for draft day and the possibility of being a first-round draft pick into the world’s number one basketball competition, the NBA. And his family can’t wait to get to the States and be a part of the big day.
“Johnny has been offered a table of seven in the Green Room which is backstage at the draft event” says his father, Richard.
“We will join him there with his brother and two of his past coaches. The exciting thing about him being invited into the Green Room is that it’s expected he will go in the first round as the clubs submit their draft selections to the NBA, and when aggregated the top 20 players are selected and given a seat in the Green Room, so a lot of the pre-draft nerves are eliminated. Now we just wait and see where he ends up”.
Johnny came to Maribyrnong Sports Academy as a basketball athlete and Year 7 student in 2017, a decision his parent initially had reservations about.
“To be honest when Johnny was in grade 5 he had decided that he wanted to go to Maribyrnong, because he had a friend who was going there and he could play Basketball all day long. We were a little sceptical because we didn’t know much about the school.” says Richard.
“We wanted Johnny to go to a high school where he would be encouraged to do well academically and when we spoke to MSA about that, we were told that students are told that you may or may not make it in your sport, so we need to make sure that you keep your grades up. That made a lot of sense to us”.
As parents, Liza and Richard have had to live with their youngest child living away from home - first when he went to Canberra at the AIS in 2022 then to College in Kansas in 2023. Liza says that is particularly tough for a mother.
“Johnny going to Canberra was tough for us because it was halfway through his VCE year and he was whipped away from us, stolen away, just pulled out of school halfway through his VCE year, and we weren’t expecting it, it just came out of the blue. We were expecting him to spend a year at home but then Kansas came and that also came out of the blue. He’s still my baby and I’ve hated not having him around. Every time we see him he has grown up that little bit more, and while you want that for your kids not being a part of it is hard.”
Richard says he is excited to see where sport and being selected into the NBA can take his son over the next few years.
“Sport to myself and the family has always been informative and about why you play and what you can get out of it, whether it be who you meet or the things you get out of it along the way. The education at college, it’s always been about what sport can provide for our kids. So having this NBA experience is incredible and getting to the top has never really been what it’s about. It more what it can do for you and what sort of platform it can give you to do things down the track.”
With a son about to be picked in the NBA, a daughter who is also at college as a star soccer player and another son who is a category B rookie at Geelong in the AFL, Liza and Richard are very much looking forward to the future for their kids and seeing how far sport takes them in life.
But for now, Wednesday 25 July 2024 (New York time), will hold a special place in history of the Furphy family.