Adelaide Crows wonderboy Patrick Dangerfield mucks about during a pre-season training session. Source: News Limited
JAI BEDNALL investigates the phenomenon that is Patrick Dangerfield, a young manwith the footy world at his feet.
Every now and then a footballer comes along who is the complete package.
A player who earns universal admiration from teammates, rivals, corporates, fans and the media.
Patrick Dangerfield fits this bill.
A bloke you'd love to have alongside you in the heat of battle and also a man you'd want your daughter to marry, the 22-year-old enters this AFL season with the football world at his feet.
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On the field, Dangerfield is making the Crows' decision to take him with pick 10 in the 2007 draft look like a masterstroke.
He was a runner-up for the club best-and-fairest award last year, All-Australian and seventh in the Brownlow Medal. His style of game based on speed and aggression is as fan-friendly as you can get.
Off-field, Dangerfield presents extremely well. He has a nice mix of humility and confidence and isn't afraid to show he has a sense of humour. If they did Q scores for AFL footballers, his would be off the charts.
Behind the scenes, the story just gets better.
Dig a little deeper and you'll discover a man who paid for a two-week family holiday to New Zealand in the off-season.
Who flew his 14-year-old cousin Jack to Adelaide a couple of weeks ago and let him hang out at Crows headquarters because a knee reconstruction had ruined his summer.
Who volunteers his time coaching junior footballers at SANFL club West Adelaide every Wednesday.
You might as well call him Patrick Perfect.
"He's a sponsor's dream and a club's dream," says Dangerfield's manager Paul Connors, who compares the young Crow to one of his other clients, Chris Judd.
"They're similar characters. It's how they conduct themselves and how they carry themselves. You can't fake that."
Dangerfield will probably cringe if he reads this story.
Receiving too much praise is frowned upon in the jock-dominated football world and he's no different to any other player when it comes to his desire to maintain team harmony.
"You don't want to be over-exposed as a player," Dangerfield says.
But he's smart enough to recognise the benefits of standing out from the crowd and given his ambition for a post-football career in the media, is beginning to dip his toes in those waters.
After a successful entry to the airwaves on 5AA radio last year, Dangerfield has joined The Advertiser as a columnist this season.
You're also likely to see him on television more often, including more appearances like his recent showing on The Footy Show.
"He's not afraid of the media and he's pretty funny, as you've seen on The Footy Show," Connors says.
"And he can talk footy, so I don't have a problem if he goes on On The Couch or he goes on Game Day ... he can handle himself in all circumstances."
Dangerfield said: "I think it's good to show people you do have a sense of humour. You've got to be able to laugh at yourself and if you don't life can be pretty boring. You've got to make sure you don't come across as an idiot, so it's a bit of a fine line."
The boy from the small town of Moggs Creek on the Great Ocean Road has never lacked confidence.
As a seven-year-old, while on holiday in north Queensland, he convinced his father, John, to let him take the boat out by himself.
"That was bad parenting," John admits. "It was only a little boat but it was a powerboat. He's always been a really adventurous kid, even from when he was two. He never showed any fear of anything."
It was the same on the football field - he was hospitalised for two days as a 12-year-old after a particularly nasty knock to his spleen - and in the public arena.
Elected captain of Oberon High School in Geelong, Dangerfield was required to give weekly speeches to the 1500-strong student body.
"The more you do it, the more comfortable you become," he says. "It's a pretty similar story now with the media.
"In your first couple of years you find it incredibly daunting, not knowing what questions journalists might ask, the answers you give, whether the club will be happy with them, that you've said the right things. But once you get used to it you can direct the questions they're asking to you in your favour and answer them the way you want to answer them."
John and wife Janette can't help but smile when they see what their son has become.
"To think where he's come from a little town with 80 people and no shops," John says. "It is quite astonishing."
Dangerfield is one of a handful of Crows making good use of social media.
He has more than 16,500 followers on Twitter, closely trailing team-mates Taylor Walker (22,200) and Bernie Vince (18,600).
And while his posts are a little more tame than those of Walker ("No one else can get away with saying what he does, it's just Tex," Dangerfield says), he's genuinely interesting.
"There wasn't really a (plan) behind it (to begin with), it was about social interaction with other players," Dangerfield says.
"But it is amazing the reach you have and the people who take interest in what you're saying."
Not many people have watched more of Dangerfield's games in person than his grandfather, Bob Utber.
Utber was there when Dangerfield travelled to South Africa with the AIS Academy as a 16-year-old, in Ireland when he played for Australia and has missed "only about seven" of Dangerfield's 89-game AFL career.
Patrick Dangerfield's grandfather Bob Utber at West Lakes. Source: The Advertiser
He does it because Dangerfield reminds him of the 20-year-old son he lost in 1996.
Timothy Utber was a talented footballer in his own right, once trialling with Geelong's reserves, but had his life cut short in a car crash.
"He plays very much like Tim played," says Utber, who drives from Mildura for every Crows home game. "Always has his head down because, as his father told him as a 12-year-old, 'you've got to get your own ball'.
"But the thing I love most about Pat is the way he is as a person.
"You'll notice he always calls people by their first names never mate and he'll often surprise opponents by offering to shake their hand before a game."
The complete package? Yeah, Utber thinks so too.
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