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[Music] Alex pler welcome to my podcast yeah thanks for having me on it's great
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to be here um the the chief that's the nickname yep yeah there's a there's a
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bit of a story behind that one I've got um I've got several nicknames your wife
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Mom no one calls me Alex anymore I've got some sort of some sort of nickname
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going on yeah what is it there's the pledge Hammer I've heard that is that a
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is that a legit one or is that just something that um J and dunk at the rock yeah I don't know who came up with that
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one either um but yeah I've got that one when I played for Melbourne um pend
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became one um um at one of the what do you call it security at the airport someone said I
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look like a man tree so that so that one that one caught on for a little bit um so yeah there's a there's a few a few
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nicknames in the in the catalog what's yeah so someone at the airport calling
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you um a man tree I'm guessing that's in reference to your height um when I just met you at the door like
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10 minutes ago uh you are like overwhelmingly big you must um are you self-conscious about how how big you are
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you must get it every day someone commenting yeah uh not really now like I've I'm 36 and I've been this tall
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since I was 19 so um it's kind of I'm kind of used to it by now I kind of you know you sometimes you notice
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people staring or or whatever but but yeah it's it's never really something
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I've been self-conscious about or or anything like that I just have to make sure I don't scrape the top of my head
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on the door and and and I'm all good yeah well the the the the standard door
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frame in the house is uh how how how tall like 2 m just under two uh yeah I'd
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say I don't know exactly but I'd say probably around the 6 six six seven sort
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of Mark and you are 71 yeah so you legit have to duck to get under under doorways
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it's um it's it's actually quite quite interesting to watch yeah yeah you're a
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big dude so so you were you were a big baby uh I would assume so um yeah I in terms of weight or or anything like that
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but I was um I was always a big kid yeah there was no there was no kind of moment where I
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was kind of around the same as kids of my age and then just shot up one year um yeah I was always um yeah quite a bit
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taller than kids around the same age as me um and yeah and towards kind of like the middle of high school there was one
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year how old would I have been 14 15 maybe I went from about 6'4 6'5 is what
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I was at the start of the year and I was 6' 10 by the end of it so um so yeah
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there there was one year where I did shoot up quite a bit where I was taller than most people my age and then by the
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end of that year I was taller than almost everyone but um where does the height the height come
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from is there any obvious like a appearance to um I don't know to be honest it's a it's a bit of a lottery in
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our family on on both sides like my um my dad's about 5' 10 which is around
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average for a male I think and my mom's about the same so my mom's quite tall
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and my brother is 6 fo8 um but yeah there are some there are some short ones there are some tall ones
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there are some in the middle um yeah me and my brother definitely the when you're swimming through the Jean Pool we
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definitely took the Tall part of it yeah something something happened so so how how old were you when you when you um
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past your parents in height like 13 14 um I was 6' 3 when I started high school
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and I was 12 so um holy [ __ ] that's so I'm quite a tall guy I think I'm 6'2 so
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you were you were sort of my height are a little bit taller when you were 12 yeah yeah so I don't know how maybe 10
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or 11 when I when I was taller than my parents it's going to be a weird moment
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for a parent yeah yeah I I can't imagine but it's um but yeah I've I've always
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yeah I've been taller than Mom and Dad for as long as I can remember really and
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um and in terms of sport and stuff has it always been basketball or was there anything else um not really no like I I
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didn't really play basketball at all until I was um or not just basketball but any sport really up until um I was
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about 16 I started um yeah when I when I was a little kid you know when you know 5 to 10 you know
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you'd play your your rugby on Saturday like most kiwi kids do um but yeah between then
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and yeah 16 my sixth form year of high school I didn't really play any sport at
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all and um yeah and I got into it when um I don't know how much you know about
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New Zealand basketball history but um around 2002 um is when the the tall blacks they
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came fourth at the World Cup um which kind of kind of shocked the world a little
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bit it was the first time that the pretty sure it was the first time the tall blacks had ever um had ever caugh
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qualified for the World Cup and they ended up um uh coming fourth and they lost to the team then ended up winning
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the entire thing um in the semi-final and then not long after that was when the breakers first came into the
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Australian basketball league so at the time um basketball was kind of the you know Rugby's always it in New Zealand
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but you know basketball kind of had its little moment in the sun kind of in that
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early early 2000s and and um yeah I kind of kind of jumped on the bandwagon uh from there well that's a quite like
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Brook Bloomer then yeah yeah I um yeah I I don't know why I never got into it I cuz you know when you're a 61
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15year old walking around yeah you must get people all the time like teachers parents whoever um suggesting you become
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a lock yeah or a lock in a rugby team or a basketball player yeah the um the economics teacher Fraser High at the
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time was a South African guy and he was also the coach of the first 15 so every day I walk past his class he was you
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know begging me to join the the rugby team CU they couldn't win a line out to
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save themselves so um so yeah it was it was kind of funny how I got into it cuz um yeah I was I was just walking to
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school one morning and um a guy his name is Doug Courtney um probably not many people would know who he is he
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um uh he's he's just a basketball coach um in New Zealand he's coached various
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he coached the WTO team and the just the domestic competition for a year or two and he's coached various like age group
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teams and stuff like that and he um saw me walking to school one morning and he pulled over on the side of the road got
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out of the car and told me that the school's basketball try out was on that night and um kind of convinced me to go
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to it so I when I left the house that morning I wasn't planning on going and um and yeah he convinced me to
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to go along to it that night and um that's kind of how I got into it isn't
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it amazing so just almost changed the trajectory of your entire life kind of I mean were were you any were you any I
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mean just cuz you're tall it doesn't mean you're going to be good at
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basketball right no I was not good I was yeah I um yeah it took me about six months to
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remember the rule that you can't spend more than 3 seconds in the key at a time
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what 3 seconds in the KE what does that mean yeah well when your team has the ball and you're down you know at the
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offensive end you can't stand in the key for more than 3 seconds without jumping
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out and jumping back in took me it took me about six months to figure out that rule to remember that you can't do it um
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took me a while to figure out that you can't go endend um what what is that I'm
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sorry you you're going have to treat me like the but basically when a shot goes
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up it obviously goes up and then when it comes down so when it gets to the top and starts coming down you're not
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allowed to touch it so yeah quite often I would yeah at the school's trial I
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would just stand under the buset and every shot that went up I would just wait for it to almost hit the rim and
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then just whack it away and for some reason the coach didn't tell me you're
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all weren't allow to do that so um yeah so the entire trial you know when I was
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on the court the other team didn't score because I just basically just jumped and
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stuck my hand on top of the basket and whacked all of them away and then he told me um when we first started team
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practices that you weren't allowed to do that so yeah so so your your position
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now or the position that you've you've played in for most of your career has
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been centered what does that mean what's that role um well in these in these days
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basketball's evolved kind of to the point where there are no positions really these days um you have you know 7
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foot plus guys shooting threes and handling the ball like guards and but traditionally a center is a guy who
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plays close to the basket um you know a lot of a lot of stuff close to the basket um at the offensive end and the
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defensive end you know protecting the basket trying to block shots and get rebounds that sort of stuff so um
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traditionally that's um that's what a center would do but uh yeah the way the
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game has kind of evolved especially in recent times um yeah it took people a long time to figure out that three
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points is worth more than two so um so yeah kind of how the how the game has evolved where there's a lot more
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three-point shooting and you know bigger players that were taught back in the day
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you just run straight to the basket everything's close to the basket now it's kind of evolved to where kind of
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everyone was quite versatile can do can do a lot more things on the court but yeah typically that's or traditionally
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that's that's what a c would do and that's what I did for for the majority
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of my career yeah now now this this might be a really dumb there might be a lot of dumb questions and you have to
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forgive me um but it comes from a place of curiosity so by um New Zealand and Australian standards you're you're as
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good as what it [ __ ] gets right like it's been an incredible career nine Seasons with the break has four titles
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we we'll get into all that um did did you ever try and get in the NBA or like
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how do how do you how do you make step up to the NBA or how far away from the NBA would you um it's it's kind of hard
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to say like there was there were some years um earlier in my career where there were potential opportunities to
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maybe dabble in the summer league and see how that would go um unfortunately some like foot injuries
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and stuff kind of derailed that around the time when I was was kind of potentially looking at doing that um and
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you know when I played for Melbourne United we played preseason games against NBA
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teams um and I played pretty well in a couple of those games against um against some
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pretty good players so you know I'd like to think that when I was a little bit
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younger if um you know I was able to get over there and give it a crack that I not necessarily have made it because you
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know there's only 400 and something 450 or so roster spots in the NBA and there
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are thousands and thousands of people who want one of them so one of the one one of the most loved sports in the
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world yeah so um so yeah but um I would have liked to have think I could have given it a decent crack but um but at
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the same time I was pretty happy with with what I achieved and uh don't and I don't really look back and
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think what if what if I did that what if I did that different um yeah [ __ ] it must be must be frustrating though so
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you're swimming in the same Waters so you're you're there or thereabouts in
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terms of of um talent and ability and then um I I don't know what your net worth is but I'm guessing it's a lot
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less than Steven Adams oh soon as you're in the NBA it's insane money right oh
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yeah it's uh it's it's pretty crazy especially now you know kind of yeah the
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I think I think the like the league the league minimum like like the veterans minimum is like two and a half million
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do or something and if you're uh just remembering trying to remember numbers off the top of my head I think
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if you're like an undrafted rookie um it's about 900,000 so so yeah even if you're kind of like a a even if
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you're for NBA standards you know bottom of the barrel type thing um you know
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you're still making close to a million dollars a year oh my god do you know Steven Adams have you met him you played
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with him um i' I've met him a couple of times I I I don't know him that well I
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we the breakers played a preseason game um against kind of like a New Zealand select team it was like just
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players who play in the domestic competition and yeah yeah it was just like a and he played in that but he was
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like 16 or 17 at the time so this is before he went to to college in the US and like he was kind of at that time he
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was seen as kind of like the next big thing and like an like a future like NBA Prospect he he was he was a well-known
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figure at that point but um so I played against him then and yeah and because he he comes
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back to New Zealand during most offseasons to for like his his camps and uh and stuff like that and I've met him
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a few times but I um I don't know him super well but he's obviously uh uh you
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know in terms of the world stage a pretty pretty good Ambassador for kind of New Zealand Sport and just New
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Zealand in general yeah absolutely um you first made the toall blacks in 2008 um by the way um I asked you I sent you
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a message asking if you wanted a coffee on arrival and you said long black um it
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must have been very tempting to ask for a tall black yeah um yeah that's just the the one I normally
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go for I after having my bell reconstructed a couple of times I'm not an overly fun person to be around if it
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has too much milk in it oh is that right right so um so yeah I tried to I try to
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avoid that as much as I can okay oh that's an interesting interesting side effect yeah I want to get into that
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chapter because I feel like that's a whole chapter on its own the whole Bell
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cancer Journey which um you're doing doing research for this podcast [ __ ] what a a journey you've
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been through like like harrowing awful an awful patch of your life but you're
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through that which is amazing um but let's just um you focus on the basketball for a bit so you make the
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toall blacks in 2008 what what happens uh do you get a phone call from the coach are you on the radar you feel like
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you're going to be selected what happens um yeah well they well that particular year 2008 I
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had been in contact with the coach for several months leading up to the the trial um
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so yeah it's like like you have to be invited to the trial it's not like an
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open thing where anybody can just rock up and hey to see if we can make the tall blacks um yeah so just being
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invited is normally a pretty good indicator that the coach thinks you can either make it or you will you're kind
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of on the radar for it in the future cuz how old was I in 2008 um 21 21 yeah yeah
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so um so yeah I was pretty young at the time and yeah I went to the went to the trial um and um performed quite well and
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yeah when it comes to getting selected um just at the end of the camp um I think it was like four or five days
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maybe um of practicing two or three times a day and um at yeah at the end of it they at the hotel we're staying at
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just go to one of the meeting rooms and uh they they announced the squad from there and that's kind of how it went and
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um yeah I was pretty I was pretty stoked to because I didn't because it was the
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first time I'd ever um I'd ever gone to it so i' so you know some of the the
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legends of New Zealand basketball you know your pero Cameron and your Paul hanari Dylan boutcher all those sort of
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guys they were Kirk Penney you know they were um they were still kind of all there so kind of you know being being
00:18:01
around those guys and um they must have been so intimidating so there you are you're 21 you've only been playing
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basketball like four or five years were you like a shy kid around them what were
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you um yeah I was I like I'm not a just in my everyday life I'm not a super um like I'm not a real chatty
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person like I'm not a you know I'm not a um what's the word you do like I'm not a
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I'm not a peacock I'm not going to walk into the room and go hey look I'm here
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you know Stand Out stand out enough as it is anyone anyone that's listening to
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this i' probably get that impression about you already like you you know you're softly spoken you're just a quiet
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humble guy yeah yeah but yeah it was it was it was really cool to to kind of mix
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it up with those guys and that that trial for a couple of days and um yeah to to hear my name called out um the
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first time I ever tried out for the team um yeah it was a it was a great honor and I um you know can't remember how
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many years I played to the tall blacks probably 10 or 11 um and yeah so yeah being selected for that first time and
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you know getting to pull on the black singlet um yeah it was a great honor yeah was was
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um was the peak of your time in as a tall black in um the Commonwealth Games 2018 where you won a bronze or no would
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there be something else no I think the probably the biggest achievement that happened for my time for the tall blacks
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any anyway was um the second year I got selected was in 2009 and we and it was kind of like a bit of a transition time
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there was um you know like perro Cameron had just retired Dylan Boucher like when
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I say retired I mean from playing internationally like they still played for the breakers and stuff but um you
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know pero retired Dylan bouer retired Paul henard had retired um Phil Jones had retired you know there
00:20:00
were um and you know there were a few and it was kind of like a time you know it was kind of like when I was coming up
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Tom abomi was coming up mea vona Cory Webster so it was kind of like a the the time you know when those guys
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were leaving and we were coming in um and yeah so we had a very young and and outside of Kirk Penney I think Kirk and
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maybe Lindsay tapate they were the only ones that had been around the tall blacks for you know more than a year or
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two um you know we had a very young and experienced team we had a very short trip to Europe um and I think we played
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like eight eight or nine games in 12 or 13 days it was it was pretty Whirlwind it was travel play travel play travel
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play um and the kind of the event that we were building up to was the 2010 World Cup
00:21:02
qualifying um which and we were playing against Australia and Australia uh I think they're like top three in the
00:21:13
world at the moment um and at the time they were probably in the top 10 and highly favored
00:21:21
to highly favored to beat us in the qualifying series because um just because we had so many new faces
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and we were inexperienced and had never played games at that level before um and
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it was it was a two game series and so in the event of a tie it would go to the points differential over the two games
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and we lost we lost the first game in Sydney by um seven and then we won the second
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game in Wellington by 22 so it was we we don't beat Australia like in individual
00:22:01
games it's not super uncommon for us to beat Australia but in a in a series like
00:22:07
that it was only the third time that we'd ever beaten them and I don't know
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if the record still stands but at the time that was the biggest in terms of just the amount of points we won by that
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was the biggest win um that we'd ever had against Australia so um for a team
00:22:25
full of young and in experien players to you know to to walk onto that court against um and to be fair the the
00:22:34
Boomers the that's what they we called the tall blacks they called the Boomers
00:22:38
they called the Boomers that's un name yeah especially especially yeah given
00:22:43
the circumstances taking on a team of um young dudes young dudes yeah so they they didn't they didn't have their
00:22:50
strongest possible team either but they were highly favored against us and um yeah to walk away from that series with
00:22:58
uh you know winning the the point differential by by 15 points that was a pretty um pretty significant moment for
00:23:08
all of us young players just knowing that we can that we can play on that kind of stage uh internationally and and
00:23:16
uh you know Come Away with some wins against some big some good teams yeah do do you think um you part of the um
00:23:22
enjoyment of that was that people people had low expectations of you and had sort
00:23:26
of written you off in a way um yeah maybe like I I wouldn't say people had written us off but they
00:23:34
just you know it's just the way it works really when you have a bunch of unproven young players playing on that
00:23:42
stage for the first time um you know that's just how it was we never we never
00:23:48
really paid too much attention to what people thought was going to happen you know we made that eight game trip that I
00:23:56
mentioned earlier um you know we we played really well on that trip we made a lot of improvements we played
00:24:05
against um you know some of the team in terms of like European Talent you know we weren't playing against the top top
00:24:13
tier you know we weren't playing Spain and Serbia and you know those kind of
00:24:20
upper echelon type teams we're playing kind of more midlevel teams you know we
00:24:25
played some really good ones like Finland and Italy teams that quite often qualify for the World Cup and and stuff
00:24:32
like that but then we played some more midlevel teams like Estonia Portugal that sort of thing um and we we had some
00:24:42
yeah we had some good wins against some good teams we played we played Belgium um on back-to-back games and um in
00:24:51
Belgium as well obviously and we lost the first one uh by quite 20ish like we yeah it
00:25:01
was out of those eight games it was probably the one where we played it was probably like the one where we didn't
00:25:07
play that well um and then we played them again two days later and they added an NBA player which you would which
00:25:15
would just increase their talent level and make them better and um and we and we beat them in that game so I think
00:25:22
that was kind of you know the and um yeah I'm not much of a bragger but I made the game winning shot in that game
00:25:28
as well like AZ like a buzz of yeah yeah so that was so that was pretty massive for
00:25:35
my personal confidence um having um yeah it wasn't a fade away one legged shot
00:25:42
with two Defenders on me it was uh lindsy Tate attacked the basket drew a couple of players and he just all
00:25:51
of a sudden I was standing under the basket and I just laid it in but um so yeah it wasn't the the hardest shot to
00:25:56
make but um but just just for just for the the overall confidence um yeah that was massive and I think it just showed
00:26:04
the the Improvement that we made in such a short time losing to that team by 22 days earlier then they add an NBA player
00:26:13
to their roster and we we turn around and beat them so so yeah we were feeling we were feeling pretty good about
00:26:19
ourselves um going into that two game series against Australia but um yeah I I definitely didn't didn't think that we'd
00:26:29
win a game by 20 but um but um but yeah it was just one of those games where everything goes right there was a little
00:26:37
patch in the third period where kind of you know you need a little bit of luck sometimes to go your way and a couple of
00:26:44
shots that we just threw up as the shot clock was about to to go off that go in off the backboard and you know someone
00:26:51
thr uh Mike fitchett I don't know if who who know who he is but he's um you know
00:26:57
Co a coach of the Nelson Giants in the domestic League he made a shot from about 12 feet behind the three-point
00:27:03
line as as the third quarter buzzer went off so yeah it was just one of those one
00:27:08
of those times where you know the the you know those lucky sort of things four or five of those happen in a row your
00:27:15
your recollection of these games and they're like 14 15 years ago it's remarkable is it is it like there were
00:27:21
um if I referenced like any sort of game you could like pick bits of it um I mean
00:27:26
the reason I ask is this so many there's over like 200 games for the breakers I
00:27:30
don't know how many games for the tall blacks but there's so many games but
00:27:33
yeah can you remember like particular moments or is it just memorable games or moments yeah it's more the importance of
00:27:39
the game you know like like the breakers playoff games through like the championship Brands I'd be able to you
00:27:45
know recall specific things about those games but you know the the Australian League game uh season is 28 games so
00:27:54
could I remember a random thir Thursday night game 17 of the season I probably probably wouldn't have too many memories
00:28:03
of kind of the the grind of the regular season but the you know the the semi-finals and the grand finals um you
00:28:10
know kind of the the important ones i' i' I'd have i' definitely be able to
00:28:15
recall the the big moments from those sort of games yeah well since you mentioned the breakers let's um let's
00:28:20
get into that cuz it's um an incredible career there nine Seasons with the breakers four titles were you were you
00:28:26
there from day one with with like when the break has launched uh were you a year one player no no well they they I'm
00:28:34
pretty sure their first year in the league was 2003 and I was still in high school and
00:28:42
just started playing basketball then so um definitely not from day one but I was
00:28:46
there um as a development player uh in the 2009 season so the season that because obviously the season starts in
00:28:59
one year and finishes and so the season that started 2009 finished in 2010 um that was my my first year there
00:29:06
and I was a development player um so yeah that's that's so how many years
00:29:13
they it was like their sixth or seventh year in the competition when I when I first joined cuz you you I mean you're
00:29:18
one of the breakers goats right like there's there's only a handful of players that have played more than 200
00:29:22
games I think it's like five players oh I wouldn't call myself that but if no
00:29:27
you if if other people want to if other people want to put that label on it um is that um is that is that a is that the
00:29:35
um is it just a kiwi modesty thing or is it just a personality type or I think probably a combination of those two
00:29:41
things but um you you can acknowledge that it's been a [ __ ] good career though oh yeah yeah I've
00:29:47
been I I would guess I'd be in the top five in games played I think for the breakers I
00:29:56
played yeah I remember would have been I think I think overall I played about 285 maybe something like that when when
00:30:06
you include the couple of Seasons I played for Melbourne at the end so yeah I'd say it would have been just over 200
00:30:14
for the breakers and 60 70 for for Melbourne but um but yeah I I assume that I'd be top five in most of the the
00:30:25
longevity kind of numbers like the games played and points and rebounds and uh all sorts of stuff
00:30:33
but um and four titles as well four titles yeah yeah I um yeah I was one of one of three guys to to be on all four
00:30:42
of those teams with um Tom abomi and MK vona being the the other two and um Dean
00:30:49
vickerman and Jud feville were the two they were either the head coach or the assistant coach on on all four of the
00:30:56
team so yeah being one of five one of five guys who was involved in in all four of those um yeah that's a a pretty
00:31:04
special thing that I I look back on um sounds like you're painting a very big
00:31:09
picture of you being one of the goats yeah I don't know maybe it is just uh you know you know what Americans are
00:31:16
like there say oh yeah but yeah I'm the go I I'll let other people decide if
00:31:21
they want to put me in that kind of class or not I like that I like that and and what does um what what do those
00:31:26
titles mean exactly like how big a deal is it how significant is it for some anyone that's listening to this that
00:31:31
doesn't sort of I don't know actively follow basketball or the NBL um well it
00:31:35
was it was significant for a lot of reasons you know the breakers had really you know they had a couple of
00:31:43
good years where they went on where they made the playoffs and had some kind of playoff runs but you know up until that
00:31:50
point the breakers had mostly struggled you know they hadn't they hadn't won a
00:31:55
lot before that so so to kind of um turn the corner and you know get over the hump as they say for the first time um
00:32:05
was obviously very significant but the the big thing was you know we're the one
00:32:11
New Zealand team in an Australian competition you know similar to The Warriors similar to how the Warriors are
00:32:17
the one New Zealand team and the Phoenix are the one New Zealand team and um it's
00:32:22
a little bit different with the netball because there's a bunch of New Zealand
00:32:24
teams mixed into it but you know no New Zealand team um that plays in an Australian competition had ever won
00:32:32
before um yeah so being being the first the first New Zealand team in an Australian
00:32:39
competition um with primarily uh New Zealand core of players obviously we have a couple of American players on the
00:32:47
team and there's always one or two Australians mixed in there but having um primarily like a New Zealand core of
00:32:55
players um and then you know kind of having a strangle hold over the competition for you know a five six year
00:33:03
period um yeah it was it was a pretty significant kind of time for basketball in New Zealand and it kind of Rose you
00:33:12
know basketball is like one of the fastest growing Sports in the country at the moment in terms of like the
00:33:18
Grassroots and like high school and school type level um and yeah it kind of row things
00:33:26
back similar to level where it was when I first started playing in 2002 from that tall blacks team that did really
00:33:32
well and you know when you yeah when you combine the success that the breakers had over that period um and with Steven
00:33:41
Adams making the NBA um you know it was you know I I think those two things combined were a pretty significant
00:33:49
contributor to why basketball has increased in its popularity so much over the last decade or so oh it's it's it's
00:33:56
it's massive it feels like it's as big now as what it was like when the Chicago
00:34:00
blls were the peak when was that like late '90s yeah yeah yeah it's incredible
00:34:04
so so those those Breakers wins those four titles what what years were they that you won
00:34:09
um 201 11 12 and 13 we won three in a row and then we had a year where we weren't
00:34:20
great and then we kind of regrouped and and won it again so there was a six-year
00:34:25
period um where we made the Grand Final yeah there was a six-year period where we won the Grand Final for we made
00:34:35
it to the Grand final five times and we won it four times so yeah it was a pretty a pretty good run of um of
00:34:43
success yeah from a team perspective it's it's you you'd call it a dynasty
00:34:46
wouldn't you it was massive yeah that was that was a word that we started throwing around you know that's kind of
00:34:53
um you know if you look like I my history hisory of the Australian NBL before the breakers joined in 2003 isn't
00:35:01
very good but um yeah I think it'd struggle to find a team that kind of had that level of sustained success over a
00:35:11
long period of time you know you quite often have a you know flash in the pan type moments where a team has a guy with
00:35:20
lots of money and they sign lots of good players and then they win and all those
00:35:24
players go on and they they so they might have a year or two where they're really really good and then after that
00:35:30
they kind of fall off a little bit I think kind of having a a sustained period of time where we kept like no
00:35:38
team is ever going to be exactly the same year after year after year but we you know kept most of the same coaching
00:35:46
stuff and kind of like that same core of players that the squad was built around
00:35:52
um and you know the turnover of players wasn't overly massive like it is with
00:35:58
teams that um you know perhaps aren't so good if you have that winning environment no one wants to leave oh
00:36:04
yeah everyone wants in rather than that yeah that kind of 2010 to 2015 um yeah it was a it was a pretty
00:36:12
good time to be what a to be a member of the breakers was a absolutely and then so you left the breakers in 2018 I think
00:36:18
your your final contract before that was like a threeyear threeyear deal is is the is the money in the NBL okay is the
00:36:24
money good um yeah it's pretty good it's not it's not what it is in the
00:36:29
NBA but I think you I mean it's um it's a professional environment and you have
00:36:34
to put all you guys have to put your whole professional sort of careers or or life on hold I guess in a way but um you
00:36:42
want to make sure you feeling compensated for it is it okay yeah it's it's really good especially you know
00:36:46
when you're um you know when you're part of kind of like a championship core um you know
00:36:55
they I I won't go into amounts but they they look after you pretty well yeah I like that I'm really I'm reading
00:37:04
a book at I'm curious about this because I'm reading a book at the moment called
00:37:06
Relentless it's by a guy called Tim Grover who's like the mental skills coach for sh Jordan Kobe uh Lebron
00:37:14
Dwayne Wade um so I'm I'm curious after reading this book because this book it
00:37:18
paints a picture of um all those guys I mentioned as being [ __ ] [ __ ] to play with like just intimidating and
00:37:25
scary and just focused on on winning what would your teammates say about you like what's your sort of demeanor in the
00:37:31
changing room or that environment yeah I I was always more of a I was I was never a super vocal yell and scream kind
00:37:43
of guy I was always more of a you know do it by my actions kind of person you know I'd always um I'd always
00:37:52
try to be as professional as possible I'd always try to show up on time and do all the things that you need to
00:38:00
do to be ready to play ready for practice ready for games and just being consistent with what I do um so I think
00:38:11
you know I was I always tried to be you know an uplifting member of the team if I'd see you know players with their head
00:38:20
down or that because that's something that I struggled with early in my career
00:38:24
especially when I was younger um you know when you'd miss a couple of shots or a few things wouldn't go your way and
00:38:30
I think that's something that I got better with over time you know I left the um the yelling and the screaming to
00:38:38
Paul H Paul henard and M aona CJ bruten let let those guys do do most of the talking and I'd kind of be more of a
00:38:48
more of an actions person um and kind of um you know try to be as professional as
00:38:53
I could um in that way so um um yeah if you asked the guys I played with hopefully hopefully that's what they'd
00:39:01
say because that's at least what I tried to do yeah I'm intrigued about it from
00:39:05
reading this book because you know a lot of people are probably confidence players and it's like if you if you [ __ ]
00:39:10
up you know you're [ __ ] up the last thing you need is someone else yelling
00:39:12
at you especially a senior team member yelling at you telling you you're [ __ ]
00:39:16
up um but it's it's it's a just a fascinating insight into that sort of
00:39:20
high performance environment yeah I I guess it's just you know different you know different
00:39:27
Styles different leadership styles work for different people you know like the yeah I don't know if you you know during
00:39:33
the lockdown period I don't know if you watched that last dance documentary about about the last season in Chicago
00:39:39
withal times but you know he was you know he was kind of a dick you know he was he'd he'd ride his teammates
00:39:48
he'd get on them he'd and um you know you hear stories about like guys like
00:39:54
Kobe Bryant they're the same but then you know you have your um you know someone like Tim Duncan who played for
00:40:02
the San Antonio Spirits he was never one of those guys or at least outwardly what
00:40:06
you'd see you know in the public he was never that way he was always a you know
00:40:11
a lead by example uh you know he would let his actions do the talking more than just being one of those sort of guys and
00:40:19
it's the same with LeBron you know some guys you know yell and scream and get on
00:40:25
their teammates it's like you know if I'm doing like you know if you're
00:40:28
Michael Jordan it's like I'm the best player on the team I'm doing all this
00:40:30
stuff there's no reason why you can't do it whereas LeBron's kind of more of a
00:40:35
put put his shoulder around you you know if he you know Kobe and Michael Jordan were kind
00:40:43
of you know I put in the most work I'm taking the shot give me the ball I've earn this sort of thing
00:40:51
whereas LeBron's more of a you know he puts his arm around around you you know
00:40:57
you know if you miss a you know if you miss if he passes you the ball and you miss a shot next possession down if
00:41:03
you're wide open again he's going to give it to you again so you know there
00:41:06
are lots of different leadership styles there I don't think there's one particular way that works better than
00:41:12
the other I think it just kind of depends on the individual and depends on the other individuals on the team yeah
00:41:17
you got to do what's right for your personality type a um in this book one example they give us uh like Shaquille
00:41:23
O'Neal and how he could have had more Rings um potentially but he was just you
00:41:28
he will go down as being you remembered as a great teammate and people enjoyed playing with him whereas Kobe more
00:41:34
successful more rings but um yeah just like difficult to be around yeah like there was when I played for Melbourne
00:41:41
there was a um uh a guy who's the assistant coach with the Los Angeles Lakers right now
00:41:48
he's um his name is Phil handy I don't he's probably not a household name to
00:41:52
most New Zealand basketball fans but he he's kind of world renown is kind of one
00:41:57
of the best like he's really like individual development like skill development and he's worked with Kobe
00:42:06
LeBron kawh Leonard you know like the best of the best and he and I was I was watching this this podcast episode he
00:42:16
was on coming board was caught and he asked he asked Kobe Bryant one day who said like cuz he'd yell and scream at
00:42:25
teammates he'd do this he' do that then he' and he asked him one day he was just
00:42:29
like Kobe why are you such an [ __ ] he was like why like why are you this way and then he explained that you
00:42:37
know just the the amount of work and the attention to detail that Kobe would put
00:42:42
into the game you know he'd show up to practice 5 hours early and he'd get a
00:42:51
individual like skills workout in and then he'd take a nap at the stadium then
00:42:55
he'd have another one and then the actual practice would start and then when practice was finished he' and you
00:43:00
know he there were times where he' just the exact same spot on the floor the
00:43:05
same footwork the same shot he' just do it Time After Time After Time for like
00:43:10
an hour straight and I don't know like just the same footwork same shot everything for an hour and you know and
00:43:20
he'd get frustrated when he was doing all of this but then there were other guys on the team that would show up up
00:43:27
10 minutes before practice started and then they'd leave 10 minutes after practice finished so they'd kind of do
00:43:33
you know the bare minimum so so his kind of mentality is you know why am I going
00:43:39
to pass them the ball when they don't put in the same amount of work that I put in and you know that's that's kind
00:43:46
of the style that the leadership style and his kind of mindset towards things that's that's kind of how he worked and
00:43:53
it was obviously pretty successful for for him and um but you know there are guys who kind of do it the opposite way
00:44:00
and have just as much success as well yeah I suppose the one big takeaway or the one common link with um all these
00:44:06
high performances is just that there's um um like natural Talent is is is it's
00:44:12
it's a thing but it's a myth to a degree because um the one superpower all these
00:44:15
guys have is hard [ __ ] work yeah they work harder than anyone else yeah it kind of yeah like people ask me all the
00:44:22
time you know what does it take to become a professional sports person and um just saying oh you just have to
00:44:32
work hard that kind of seems like the cop out answer just because it's easy yeah but but at the end of the
00:44:38
day that that kind of what it is you know there are lots of players who are talented and they you know the the
00:44:47
younger levels but eventually you know just being talented isn't enough you know Talent just having a natural Talent
00:44:55
will get you to a certain level um without hard work you're going to be caught out eventually aren you yeah so
00:45:01
it kind yeah it's kind of it seems like the easy answer just to just because but
00:45:09
it's also probably the most correct answer like it's it's not some you know
00:45:14
there's not some secret club that tells certain people the secret and doesn't
00:45:18
tell other people you know it's it's it's it it really is that simple yeah
00:45:23
yeah so you you ended your care you you ended on your own terms which I think is
00:45:27
um like if you're in this high performance sort of domain I think there's there's only two ways to go out
00:45:32
right unceremoniously dumped or getting to leave on your own tombs and you you were lucky enough to leave on your own
00:45:38
tombs so you finished with um the Southland sharks um and they retired your number uh number 35 um for anyone
00:45:46
that's not into basketball or doesn't really understand the significance of
00:45:48
that can you explain it yeah well um well it's basically I I don't it's kind
00:45:56
of f kind of hard to find a comparison in other sports really but you know they retiring your number essentially what
00:46:03
that means is they they typically do some type of ceremony like they'll get like
00:46:09
a like a banner type thing with like a basketball singlet drawn on it and the number and your last name they'll raise
00:46:16
it up into the rafters of the stadium and it's basically just you know it's a
00:46:22
an honor to that they bestow on people that have contributed significantly to the club's history
00:46:32
whether it's being through multiple championships or playing playing there for a very long time or just being you
00:46:42
know a a significant member of that Organization for a long period of time and contributing to its success and um
00:46:51
yeah I was I was pretty I was pretty honored and surprised as well when when they well you're surprised yeah cuz you
00:46:57
they have to sest you can't suggest it oh no no oh yeah yeah you don't walk you
00:47:02
don't walk into the office and go you're retiring my number so so they they say hey we're
00:47:10
going to do this for you and it's a thing well well I I had no idea cuz we at the um you know the last on like the
00:47:19
last home game that we played that season when CU I told them that I was um you know going to High two three weeks
00:47:27
before that and so you know they made this big push for the last the last home game and there was a pretty big crowd
00:47:34
there and then you know there were some speeches and stuff at the end of the game and and then all of a sudden I turn
00:47:41
around and this thing's being lifted up and I was like yeah I yeah it's keep
00:47:45
keeping things from my wife is a pretty hard thing to do and she had no idea either so um so yeah being being deemed
00:47:53
uh worthy of that that honor there's only um you know there's only two well I was
00:48:00
the second player for the sharks um to to have their number retired the other one was um Kevin brazwell who played uh
00:48:09
who was a member of the first Breakers championship team um so you to be one of only two players um the you know to have
00:48:19
their number retired for that club it's um it's a pretty big honor and um and
00:48:24
something that I'm very thankful yeah and you made um you made a hell of a speech um lovely tribute to your wife
00:48:30
Bailey as well [ __ ] how did you how did you hold it together are you an emotional guy like I like I was watching
00:48:36
it on YouTube and I had tears streaming down my face it was such a such a powerful moment um I'm normally I'm
00:48:43
normally pretty stoic I'm not uh yeah I'm not I I I have found since the the
00:48:51
since the the the cancer diagnosis and getting over it you know things that wouldn't have caused that sort of
00:48:59
reaction from me would even things like um you know like in you know like a TV show or a movie or something um you know
00:49:09
like if you know someone having cancer is a significant part of like the story of the movie or the show it would have
00:49:16
been before Oh that's quite sad isn't it um but now but now it's kind of like
00:49:22
actually know like you know you know that um that that that Ricky ju afterlife yeah incredible Netflix show
00:49:29
yeah at the end of that I don't yeah I don't think I've ever cried so much at
00:49:34
the end of a TV show um so yeah it's kind of um yeah but yeah she you know what what she's done for me and the two
00:49:43
of us um throughout that entire period of Our Lives um you know because in the middle of Co and
00:49:54
everything we were over in Australia and we came back and we were down in Southland when the diagnosis happened
00:50:00
and we moved back up to Hamilton and she planned our wedding and it was just on on top of watching me going through what
00:50:09
I was going through um yeah it takes a a pretty special person to be able to hold
00:50:15
it together and just kind of carry the two of us through a time like that yeah she sounds actually I was going to say
00:50:23
she sounds incredible but you seem like an incredible cap together like a Rob power couple so let's um focus on her a
00:50:28
little bit and then we can um get into the cancer stuff as much or as little as you want so how did you and Bailey meet
00:50:34
um such a good we actually um because we're both from Hamilton we actually went to high school together but we we
00:50:42
actually same same age same year uh she she was the year below me but we we didn't re like we were aware that we
00:50:50
existed but we weren't like friends or we didn't really know each other in high
00:50:53
school at all um but because she's tiny right oh yeah she's like two feet
00:50:58
shorter than me yeah she she is not she is not tall at all um but yeah so we after the breakers won for the first
00:51:07
time um in 200 whatever it was we we were out celebrating um we were out at a bar
00:51:18
somewhere in Oakland and the same night was the night of the um um what are their names
00:51:27
the the William and Kate wedding like The Royal Wedding um so of the two things that were happening at that time
00:51:34
it's pretty obvious what one she was celebrating or what one she was more interested in so I so we so I we ran
00:51:42
into each other in this in this bar and we just started talking he like Oho what
00:51:49
are you guys all doing out here like oh we just won the championship it's like
00:51:52
oh that's cool I just watched the Royal WI so so yeah so yeah she had no idea that
00:52:00
um The Breakers had just won the championship I don't even know if she knew who the breakers even were but um
00:52:05
but yeah we just started talking from there we met up a couple of times it kind of yeah wasn't like a we met that
00:52:14
night then we were just a thing it kind of evolved over a little bit of time but
00:52:19
um but yeah we've we've been married for two and a bit years yeah yeah two and a
00:52:26
half years but we've been together for you know over 10 we've been yeah I think
00:52:31
um to time stamp it I think Will and Kate's wedding was 2011 would that be right 2011 yeah around about April April
00:52:36
May 2011 um so you yeah so you so you got together in 2011 so you knew each other at school but didn't really know
00:52:42
each other yeah yeah we we we just went to the same school no school ball or childhood sweethearts or anything like
00:52:48
that oh no definitely um you proposed on a furus wheel did did a lot of thought go into this or was it an tuna six um a
00:52:56
little bit of thought went into it in the um in Melbourne there's um I actually think it's shut down now I
00:53:04
don't I think it was a a CO casualty unfortunately but um yeah there's this
00:53:08
big uh feris wheel in Melbourne um in docklands I think the area is and um and yeah it's it's not like a Fest wheel we
00:53:19
you just sit on the chair and they bring down a barrier like an arm thing it's
00:53:23
like you it's like you're you're in this big like cubicle type thing okay yeah oh
00:53:27
like the sort of um like the London Eye yeah yeah it's yeah it's basically yeah
00:53:31
and um and we got there and we went in line there weren't a lot of people waiting but I wanted to I wanted to have
00:53:41
um have like one of those cubicle things to ourselves I didn't want I didn't want
00:53:45
other people other people in there yeah I didn't want other people in there obviously so she was wondering what I
00:53:52
was doing cuz um she didn't know that I was having the Ring made and she didn't
00:53:57
know that she had no idea that that was this because I just got back from the World Cup um in
00:54:05
2019 and so we hadn't been so we hadn't seen each other for like six weeks so
00:54:10
she thought it was just like a date night or something and um so we we went there and every time I'd get to the
00:54:18
front of the line or every time we were the only two people in the line thinking
00:54:22
okay we're going to have our little cubicle thing to ourselves someone else would join the line and I'd always be
00:54:27
like oh no no you guys can go ahead and she was getting kind of annoyed at me wondering like what on Earth are you
00:54:34
doing um yes but we eventually I I had to tell cuz it had been close to an hour and we've we we've been waiting and L
00:54:43
letting people go so I told like the conductor person what I was doing so they moved us over to this other area
00:54:51
and um yeah so they let us get one by themselves and um I waited until it got to the very top
00:54:59
and I told her just to like look out the window and I pretended to be take I was
00:55:04
like oh take I'll take some pictures of you while you're looking out the window
00:55:07
and then um when she turned around I was fumbling around trying to get the ring box out of my pocket and um and that's
00:55:16
that's kind of how that happened so yeah so she kind of turned around and kind of
00:55:20
had no idea what was going on so that was quite good oh how good was a special moment and um yeah did you have to say
00:55:26
the words or did she just say yes immediately um well yeah I rehearsed what I was going to say several times
00:55:34
before we went and then my mind just went blank so I was just like I actually can't remember what
00:55:40
I said yeah I actually I actually don't remember her saying yes either but I
00:55:46
don't know she she she snatched the ring out of the box and chucked it on um so
00:55:52
she my action Lou than words sometimes I guess so that was um when was that that
00:55:56
was uh uh 2019 2019 and then you got married um June 2021 in Central otago gibston Valley um and Sh then the
00:56:05
wedding invites that they they were sent out the same day you got the cancer diagnosis yep that morning yeah we oh we
00:56:12
sent them I don't know would have been early afternoon maybe and then yeah midnight that night I was a cancer
00:56:21
patient so yeah yeah it was uh yeah it was yeah even earlier that day we had cuz the cuz it was like a month
00:56:30
away from the Southland sharks season starting and so you know the co the coach um and our American players were
00:56:40
in um like the 14-day like I like the miq thing and um but all of our local players and our
00:56:48
assistant coach with there so we'd be doing you know three on three four on four type things and um I was you you
00:56:54
know it was going really well I was like [ __ ] like we have a chance to be a really good team and then we sent those
00:57:00
out and then yeah it was kind of the yeah the day turned on its head in a pretty massive way yeah well um we'll
00:57:11
get back to that but these these two sort of significant life events sort of intertwine the the wedding and the the
00:57:16
cancer so yeah so you get married in June 2021 and you you were sick at that point were you're in the middle of
00:57:22
treatment yeah yeah it it hadj just one part of the treatment had just finished I I was diagnosed 4 days before
00:57:31
my 34th birthday in 23rd of March um and I finished I had five weeks of um radiation treatment and chemotherapy in
00:57:46
dened so that was um for five weeks it was every weekday on the the radiation machine and then
00:57:58
there were these chemo the like there were pills they weren't like an IV type
00:58:02
thing they were um they were pills and I took seven of them in the morning and seven of them at night um and they were
00:58:09
like just like your typical Panadol sized pills which was a low and apparently it was a low dosage but what
00:58:18
are they dirty do they they they knock for six yeah yeah well the it was even though 14 pills a day sounds like a lot
00:58:27
um it was it was the radiation was the most important part and um from what they were telling me the the point the
00:58:37
point of those pills was to make the cancer more susceptible to the um to the radiation so so yeah it was 5 weeks of
00:58:46
that and those 14 pills every day um and I I finished that it was about three weeks before before the wedding day when
00:58:55
I finished and there was some real cuz I you know 3 4 days away I was still feeling quite sick um it took the first
00:59:03
two weeks afterwards I could hardly eat and could hardly get out of bed um and yeah kind of the week leading into it I
00:59:12
was like [ __ ] I don't know what I'm going to be able to I might be able to
00:59:17
walk myself down say I do then go back to bed that's kind of what that's kind
00:59:21
of what it was looking like for a little while guess but um but yeah luckily it um I kind of
00:59:29
did that kind of final week leading into it I did um you know I after that initial period of recovering where I
00:59:37
felt like utter garbage um yeah I did bounce back quite well and was able to partake in the wedding uh the way I was
00:59:46
hoping to so when you look back on um you know on video footage of that day or photos of that day like how how do you
00:59:53
feel is it just a day overwhelming happiness or from the perspective of where you are now is that a sort of mix
00:59:58
day because you're sick you're not sure if you're going to live or die really I
01:00:01
guess yeah and you marrying the love of your life yeah it was It was obviously a
01:00:05
day of of happiness but looking back you know we like like we were in America a couple of weeks ago and we reshot our
01:00:15
wedding photos and you know not legally because we were married already but you know got married again um you know we
01:00:23
just found the photos to look at just because um like when the radiation treatment
01:00:31
finished I weighed 125 kgs when it was finished 5 weeks later I was 102 so I lost 23 yeah almost 25 kgs in a very
01:00:42
short amount of time and you know that I don't know what you call it but like that that cancer look you know that
01:00:49
gaunt kind of cheek sunken in really thin looking like you just like you just know that
01:00:56
look the people that are going through chemotherapy and even the eyes eyes look darker right yeah and that's and and
01:01:05
obviously it was a fan a fantastic day with family we only had like 40 people there it wasn't a ginormous wedding um
01:01:12
but so you know only the you know closest family and friends were the people that we had there um so it was
01:01:19
obviously a fantastic day but just kind of yeah looking looking back at the photos and stuff it does they they are
01:01:27
kind of hard for us to look at just because it reminds us of such a a shitty time yeah yeah is that why it was
01:01:35
important to do the second wedding in Vegas um like a redemption or something yeah well it was It was kind well we
01:01:42
planned on taking the photos um photos by the way are amazing incredible yeah we we planned on doing the photos again
01:01:49
but doing like a pretend ceremony that was we were looking at maybe doing it but it was it was like a spare of the
01:01:57
moment type thing but cuz Bailey was working over there there's a um you know like Bravo the TV channel
01:02:04
um there was a like a like a convention thing over there called bravoo con and um Bailey
01:02:13
was doing The Styling and makeup Artistry suppose that's what you call it for um you know that TV show below deck
01:02:23
um yeah there's a couple kiwi girls ktie and as yeah that um that feature on
01:02:28
those shows quite prominently so she did so um they hired Bailey to basically do
01:02:36
all the Glam stuff um and yeah the with the night that that had finished we were all all
01:02:44
out um just at the various places up and down the strip and cuz we were planning
01:02:50
on doing it maybe if it was like a free afternoon we could sneak off to to the the chapel and have a little pretend one
01:02:56
but you know Bailey was busy on her feet all day and by the time she was finished
01:03:00
she was just like no let's just go back to the room I'm too tired room service
01:03:05
and sleep yeah and um yeah on that last night um Katie asked Bailey like did you
01:03:12
guys ever end up going to the chapel or not and then so yeah we were on this um on this party bus and um she was like
01:03:21
why don't we just do it now so we yeah so I wasn't dressed wedding appropriate
01:03:25
at all I was just basically what I'm wearing now JS and Jord um I think I had jeans
01:03:34
on but basically it might have been this exact outfit actually if the if these shorts were a little bit longer I
01:03:40
appreciate you wearing your wedding suit to the podcast today but um but yeah so
01:03:45
it was kind of a you know kind of one of those well you know one of the we're in
01:03:51
Vegas we might as well do it so um so was this a little white chaper where I think there's been Kardashian weddings
01:03:57
Britney Spears yeah it was obviously um not an official one cuz we're married
01:04:03
already but um but we did that and then um he then the next day there's this
01:04:10
maybe 20 minutes half an hour out of Vegas there's this um it's like an art
01:04:16
installation thing called seven magic mountains and they're just these I think they're made out of
01:04:22
fiberglass I don't know what they made of but the these tall kind of stonehinge
01:04:27
looking formation things and they just painted a whole bunch of different colors and um asa's partner um his name
01:04:36
scottt he's he he's a really good photographer cuz he's um he's like
01:04:41
hardcore into like per like hand gliding but like doing it I don't but doing it really
01:04:49
fast and he has all the GoPro camera stuff and he records himself while he's
01:04:53
doing it and we were like do you want to take the photos and he was like yep so we pulled out all this fancy camera
01:04:59
equipment and yeah so and he he took some really uh phenomenal photos it was a um it's a public place and there were
01:05:07
lots of people there so we couldn't tell people to bug her off bug her off before
01:05:12
we take our photos um so yeah we we photoshopped the people that were in the background out of the oh actually
01:05:19
actually I don't tell people that that ruins the illusion yeah so the real pictures but there were people in the
01:05:27
background that aren't there in the actual pictures but um that's awesome
01:05:31
yeah but at the same time it was a really windy day um so in the background that if you look at the pictures there's
01:05:39
a it's like there's a sandstorm in the background like sand twirling around all
01:05:43
over the place like that wasn't camera trickery either that was that was all
01:05:48
there so we got there and we walked out of the car and it was just like we were like is this even going to to be doable
01:05:55
but we CU it was it wasn't just a little bit of wind it was really really windy
01:05:59
but um yeah we took we just waited for brief little moments when the wind kind of calmed down a little bit and yeah in
01:06:07
the desert with the the cactus or CAC D and um the sand a little Sandstorm in the background with uh um yeah just that
01:06:19
kind of desert kind of Vegas backdrop yeah they were they were the the photos turned out really good and yeah just
01:06:28
having having those ones you know if you compare what I look like in those ones to what I compared to what I look like
01:06:35
in the in the other ones it's yeah it's a pretty significant difference in terms
01:06:40
of just physical appearance yeah and I suppose like from a like a mental perspective like in the first ones
01:06:45
you're um you're just of like I suppose walking through the through the forest
01:06:49
and then the second one's in Vegas like you're out of the woods yeah oh well I
01:06:53
never thought thought of putting it that way but but metaphorically I guess that's that's actually a pretty good way
01:06:58
of looking at it now um I so yeah you're over there for this Bravo con thing and
01:07:02
um you guys had to sign you were parting with the below deck people so you had to
01:07:05
sign NDA so you weren't allowed to talk about anything that went not on I read
01:07:09
that somewhere is that right basically yeah we we yeah I don't know I don't
01:07:15
understand TV people legality type you don't seem like a gossip anyway so you're yeah I'm not going to tell any
01:07:24
but um but yeah that's and that's why so yeah there were yeah there were a bunch
01:07:28
of people there and um so yeah what originally just started off as a oh let's just go get a few go to a few bars
01:07:36
in Vegas and see what it's like um yeah kind of turned into this pretty pretty
01:07:42
wild type of type of thing because I I messaged um ASA for some Goss because I been going backwards and forwards with
01:07:49
her getting her on the podcast and she replied um hello oh man I wish I had something juicier for you but I only had
01:07:54
one night with them and I was too busy dancing with my cooch out on the stripper stripper pole party bus so it
01:08:01
sound familiar um y that sounds that sounds like something she would say uh with my cooch out on the stripper pole
01:08:08
party bus to notice what anyone else was doing um Alex is always very well behaved hahaa please say hi from me um
01:08:16
and thank you I'm so scared of proud of Scott for his photos have fun today because I I mentioned how good the
01:08:21
photos look yeah yeah so that's cool that must been special um so so you're
01:08:26
married now into settling into married life this might be too much of a personal question I don't know but um as
01:08:32
a result of the cancer are there any fertility issues that you know of like do you want to have a family no there
01:08:38
there aren't there were there's as far as I'm aware like we haven't tried but you know we we would
01:08:46
like to do that but you know we've you know the first year and a half of our
01:08:51
marriage really was kind of that wasn't your typical married life so we'd um so
01:08:58
you that's something that we talk about often but we just for the time being um
01:09:02
just have a break and enjoy each other kind of just we like a little bit of time where it's just us before we kind
01:09:08
of before we kind of add to it so you know that's that's definitely a thing
01:09:13
that we want to do down the track but um but yeah we kind of just while we getting our lives back on track and kind
01:09:23
of putting that chapter behind us um yeah we're kind of kind of enjoying it just being the two of us at the moment
01:09:30
yeah jeez I I Petty here eventually giving birth to your kids they're going to be big
01:09:34
babies yeah that's yeah we're going to have a 5 fo three 5 fo three boy or a
01:09:41
610 girl there's what one it'll be one of those two I think God yeah imagine
01:09:46
the doctor pulling the baby out like a magician's hand key or something um okay so yeah that we we the
01:09:53
okay the Bell cancer J we'll get into that now and um is this hard for you to
01:09:56
talk about or can you sort of do it on autopilot now or you quite relaxed talking about it I I have no problem
01:10:02
talking about it at all I guess you know the the the details especially in the early part of it um you know it's it's
01:10:14
Blake yeah yeah it's not something that you'd want to be talking about around
01:10:18
the dinner table but um but yeah I've heard you I've heard you talk about on a couple of
01:10:24
different podcasts and a couple of different chats and um I mean the good thing about a podcast is it's the the
01:10:29
platform that allows for it but BC is such a big thing but it's it isn't
01:10:33
talked about because it's not a sexy chat um but I think someone like you and
01:10:37
also Dean Barker who I've had on the podcast talking about it I think it's
01:10:40
really good for awareness and stuff I think it's really powerful yeah it's um
01:10:46
yeah it's it's the second deadliest cancer in New Zealand and statistically somebody body dies from it
01:10:55
every 8 hours you know it's you shocking it's and unfortunately you know that
01:11:01
number is trending in the wrong direction unfortunately um and yeah I I guess it's because especially for men
01:11:08
it's it involves an area of the body that they don't feel overly comfortable
01:11:14
talking about and probably don't want doctors and other people prodding around
01:11:20
and and having a look um so yeah it's unfortunately one of those ones where you know the Bell cancer
01:11:28
symptoms it's not always immediately obvious that that's what it is you know
01:11:32
the Bell cancer symptoms are also the symptoms for several other less serious things and a lot of the time people and
01:11:41
unfortunately doctors and GPS as well especially if you're a younger person um
01:11:47
you know they assume that it's one of those other things especially if you're
01:11:52
a young and healthy person um you know I saw multiple cuz I I I hadn't been feeling well for months leading up to my
01:12:00
my diagnosis yeah so so go so go right back to the beginning so um like how did it start um appearing for you how did it
01:12:08
start manifesting like what what did it look like in the early days um well the main thing
01:12:13
was um like abdominal pain um sometimes it was quite severe other times it was pretty
01:12:20
mild um a little a little bleeding but not much and you st yeah yeah um but the biggest thing
01:12:30
was constantly feeling like I needed to go and then I'd go to the bathroom and
01:12:35
nothing would happen that was the well the majority of the time nothing would happen um and some days it would be you
01:12:44
know every couple of hours that would happen and then there were other days where it was like it felt like it was
01:12:50
every 20 minutes it's like like I feel urgently like I need to go go to the bathroom nothing would happen 20 minutes
01:12:57
later same thing half an hour later same thing and it was just um yeah so I I saw multiple multiple GPS
01:13:07
who kind of you know it was it was a stressful time in everyone's lives really cuz you know we
01:13:14
just moved back from Australia and there was a pandemic and you know it was kind
01:13:21
of a stressful time cuz you you know some symptoms can present themselves when you're going through difficult
01:13:27
periods and everyone pretty much everyone in the world was at that time so um you know they kind of put it down
01:13:34
to that and I got like stress yeah stress and um but yeah there was it was uh the the the night everything was
01:13:47
discovered like the the day you know where we had that really good training and handed out the winning invitations
01:13:54
that day um that night before I went to A&E um the little bit of blood that would come out every so often turned
01:14:04
into a you know a listers send their regards type blood bath type thing for sorry to
01:14:14
gross anyone list but um no you lost you lost leers of blood didn't you yeah and
01:14:20
so was it like a it was almost like you were hemorrhaging from the from yeah yeah it wasn't it wasn't like a tap like
01:14:26
it wasn't like I was just standing there and it was just but just like a constant
01:14:30
drip something yeah like I mentioned where I'd feel you know I feel like I need to go nothing would happen 20
01:14:37
minutes later nothing would happen half an hour later like that it was kind of like I'd feel like I'd need to go and it
01:14:43
would and it would just be straight blood and then it would stop and then half an hour the same thing half an hour
01:14:50
the same thing so I was like okay well something that's definitely not supposed to be
01:14:56
happening um so yeah we we went to A&E that night um they were obviously quite
01:15:02
concerned um so I they took me out back and they measured the amount of blood that I was
01:15:13
losing um and once they started measuring they gave me something I can't remember what it
01:15:19
was called but some sort of drip thing um that causes like your blood to clot a little bit just to to stop it um and
01:15:30
once that stuff had kicked in and it had and it had stopped um you know when they started
01:15:36
measuring and when it stopped I'd lost 2 and A2 liters and that doesn't include the stuff that was at home and
01:15:46
when I was in the waiting room waiting to be seen um you know obviously they weren't counting that because I wasn't
01:15:54
in there yet but so it probably would have been around four liters and you have and you have just over double that
01:16:02
I think the the average person has about 10 liters you're almost bleeding to
01:16:06
death yeah so it was yeah it was yeah it wasn't just a little bit of blood it was
01:16:11
a very significant amount I had to have multiple um blood transfusions and um either like whole blood or like the
01:16:24
you know particular like white blood cells red blood like they they because I'd be getting blood tests a couple of
01:16:29
times a day just to test the levels and so yeah I was um yeah I had lost so much
01:16:37
that they yeah they they basically just had to give me more so fact you must have been just be you and Bailey must
01:16:48
have been just like bewildered petrified scared yeah you must and you so the cancer wasn't diagnosed then obviously
01:16:55
there's testing and stuff that needs to go but you must you you knew deep down
01:16:59
yeah well when the bleeding had stopped um one of the surgeons came to check me out and he you
01:17:09
know did the old finger up the backside test and he literally he said that he felt it with the tip of his finger
01:17:18
that's why I I couldn't see his face at the time but Bailey said cuz this the St
01:17:23
was a young uh a younger guy he would have been probably not much older than me um and Bailey was telling me you know it
01:17:34
was like the like the the moment he knew what it was you know his face was you know when you're a doctor you sometimes
01:17:45
have to give people bad news and yeah just yeah he he he really struggled like like he he was obviously he didn't know
01:17:55
for sure but just based on his experience he told us he basically didn't sugarcoat things and I think
01:18:04
because he was a younger doctor it was perhaps the first time he'd have to get
01:18:08
he'd given someone news like that because you know his voice was trembling a little bit and he was as he was as
01:18:16
white as a ghost cuz he' kind of I think he realized what he'd stumbled upon yeah maybe dur he thought
01:18:24
he was okay with blood and then he saw that amount of blood and was like this isn't the occupation and then yeah when
01:18:29
he did that and it's like oh God I have to tell this guy who's you know mid
01:18:35
early 30s that he's highly likely got cancer and obviously that was confirmed
01:18:41
over the next couple of days with all the uh all the tests and stuff so yeah it was a pretty yeah the the the look on
01:18:51
Bailey's face will kind of be forever ingrained in my brain I think I don't
01:18:57
think I've seen like a just worry like a look of kind of Terror and just worry on
01:19:03
I don't think I've ever seen that on somebody's face before so um what does
01:19:08
she say about the look on your face similar sort of thing or you it it was it was quite similar you know I I
01:19:14
put on especially for her and my and my mom I put on kind of like a a bra like a
01:19:21
like a yeah I'm going to be all right right I'm going to get through this kind
01:19:24
of outwardly that's what I put out but on the inside I was I was like [ __ ] me
01:19:30
like it's like the the it took probably two or three days for the between you
01:19:37
know when the doctor made that Discovery before they done all the tests and got the results and they knew what the
01:19:43
entire they knew exactly what we were dealing with um and yeah that that was a very long 48 is kind of hours just you
01:19:55
know you're you know people you know say you know I you just got to remain positive but you know when you're kind
01:20:02
of staring death in the face a little bit it's kind of it's pretty hard not to
01:20:07
go to some kind of dark kind of places did it did it feel like you were steering steering death in the face
01:20:14
potentially um what what did they what did they say to you when me I mean it's
01:20:17
all it's all speculative isn't it but did they did they say like the chance of
01:20:21
survival or the chance of well they they said they cuz I I went after I got like the
01:20:29
MRI and the CT scan done we and they got all the results back we went into this room and the
01:20:36
doctor um I guess they kind of just have to be as emotionless as possible um but she
01:20:45
was just like oh yep it's curable and it's this and it's and I was like
01:20:48
because the biggest question I had I was the thing that was freaking me out the most most was like had it spread
01:20:54
anywhere was it just there or was it in a bunch of other places as well cuz I hadn't been feeling well I mean I don't
01:21:01
know a whole lot about cancer growth rates and how quickly it spreads around it probably varies from person to person
01:21:09
but I was like I I so yeah I don't know how quickly cancer develops and I and
01:21:15
I'd been feeling well unwell for you know quite a while but not it wasn't
01:21:21
like it had been years or anything like that but yeah so I was just like so is so yeah like she showed me the
01:21:30
picture there was like this black dot on it and I was like is that it and I was like is that the only black dot that's
01:21:35
on this picture and she was like yep so yeah it's all it's all contained in one
01:21:41
area it's in an operable area and we think it's um you know it's definitely
01:21:49
curable which was um which I was very kind of kind of Lucky but unlucky but lucky at the same time in a way yeah yes
01:22:01
just going right back to the beginning of this like and and hind like what could you
01:22:06
have done differently because it seems like you did everything right like you you you know what I mean like so you you
01:22:11
when you had blood in your store you you talked to Bailey about it yeah yeah yeah
01:22:14
yeah and and did she make you go to the doctor or you just want to go to the doctor on your own yeah well I I'd
01:22:19
spoken to my mom as well cuz my mom works in the medical field um she's not a doctor but
01:22:26
she does she works for the W District Health Board um thought you did all the right things yeah so she she was pushing
01:22:34
me cuz and you know there's a not insignificant family history okay on my mother's side as well so she was
01:22:43
really pushing me to go and like when you'd go see a doctor push that you know
01:22:49
there's been family history um but yeah I kind of just got I wouldn't say I just got dismissed but
01:22:58
kind of I I I I did get the too young you're too you're too young you know
01:23:03
being a sports person like you're you know young healthy people this doesn't happen to them so um
01:23:13
yeah so it's kind of it is scary to think if that um you know that mass I don't know that that
01:23:21
massive bleeding that happened I don't know what caused it um but I'm pretty
01:23:29
lucky that it happened because if it didn't um you may not have got the action I I
01:23:36
I I'm not going to say I definitely would have died or something like that but you know I it definitely would have
01:23:44
been discovered at a much later stage um and God knows what would have happened it's kind of not a thing that I like
01:23:56
thinking about too much but you you don't seem like a like a a a guy that holds on to anger or a grudge holder but
01:24:03
are you annoyed at those doctors um I would be I'd be [ __ ] yeah yeah it's kind of you
01:24:12
you yeah but also at the same time it's kind of like you know they they don't have X-ray
01:24:19
vision they can't just go oh and and you know they probably see lots of people
01:24:26
who present with similar things and you probably just can't automatically assume
01:24:32
that everybody has cancer um so yeah it's kind of it's kind of a thing that I go back and forth on
01:24:42
it's like you probably could have been more thorough and you know the the young
01:24:46
person assumption is probably something that people should stop assuming but at the same time you
01:24:57
know it's yeah it's kind of hard to say it's kind of you do you feel frustrated
01:25:02
and a little bit dismissed but at the same time I don't think you can just assume
01:25:09
like I don't think you can expect people to just assume that everybody who presents with a sore stomach and has
01:25:15
trouble going to the bathroom yeah I don't think oh yeah you have cancer I don't think that's the first thing that
01:25:21
you can always assume but it's kind of it is just one of those tricky kind of
01:25:26
things yeah maybe they need to they need to start like taking more care with that
01:25:30
stuff as well I mean there's um there's there's big pushes now with bant and New
01:25:33
Zealand and uh you know the likes of you and Dean Barker talking about this I think that's fantastic it creates
01:25:38
awareness and hopefully the this um these deaths every eight hours in New Zealand from Bale cancer that number can
01:25:45
be reduced um but definitely a little bit of help from doctors as well you know taking these symptoms seriously
01:25:50
when they're presented um maybe go a long way as well like I said so you're
01:25:54
diagnosed with um the cancer and then I suppose the the real hard work starts what's what's that like the treatment um
01:26:01
it was pretty brutal to be honest it was you scared going into it yeah it it was
01:26:07
kind of it it was it was just cuz I'd never been through anything like it before and it
01:26:14
was yeah it was so I I started with the cuz the thing that made mine tricky was cuz it was it was it was stage three
01:26:29
a so for people who don't know like there's you know like stage one 2 3 and
01:26:33
four but there's there's stages within the stages as well you know there's
01:26:38
stage one ABC 2 ABC blah blah blah blah blah and so on and so I was stage three but I was closer to stage two than I was
01:26:46
to stage four if that makes sense so stage four means there's no more treatment they can do and no no stage
01:26:51
four doesn't mean terminal that means that it's spread to other places so so
01:26:56
it's a lot again it's not um simplifying it probably oversimplifying it quite a bit
01:27:04
but um any on colist be like what's he all about yeah but um but yeah so having
01:27:10
you know I over the course of the last couple of years I've come across several
01:27:13
people who have had stage four diagnosis and have survived it's just depends on
01:27:20
where it spreads to and how much it has and but the but the thing so mine I was stage 3 a so I was closer to stage two
01:27:29
than I was to stage 4 but so it definitely wasn't great but it could have been a lot worse but the thing that
01:27:37
made mine complicated is where it where it was um like where in the bow it was because um you know a
01:27:49
lot of the time you know it kind of starts here it goes up and then across a little bit and then up across and then
01:27:56
it starts down here so if it's kind of look say it's in across the the part
01:28:01
across the top they can quite often just you know find you know pick a a a margin of how much on each side they
01:28:13
want to go and again very oversimplified diff um kind of explanation of what they do
01:28:22
essentially they cut it and cut it out and then Stitch the two ends back together um and that's kind of what they
01:28:33
do but the for me the thing that was made it so complicated is mine cuz obviously the doctor as I mentioned
01:28:40
before he felt it so it was close to the exit for lack of a bit term so obviously
01:28:49
when they cut it they they they remove it um and they attach the two ends together there has to be another end to
01:29:02
attach it to so um and mine was so close to the anus basically close to the exit
01:29:09
right that they were afraid that so I that that's why I went through that intensive radiation treatment because
01:29:18
they wanted to shrink it so that they had a little more tissue to work with when they removed it
01:29:25
and reattached it um and and the and the CU it was right on the borderline of that actually not being possible like
01:29:36
they they you know they they going into the surgery they thought after I'd done the initial
01:29:45
you know that 5 weeks of radiation treatment they thought the surgeon believed there was
01:29:51
enough healthy tissue there to make a reection or reattachment a viable option but they weren't going to know for sure
01:30:01
until they actually got in there um so you know it was you know it was it was on the board that they might not be able
01:30:12
to do that so they might just have to you know they'd cut the top and I'd have
01:30:20
like a a sto pouch permanently um and you know they'd basically from there down they' remove
01:30:29
it and Stitch the old backside up and so this patch like a colostomy bag yeah they well I I knew that I was going to
01:30:38
have one of those right from the get-go so knowing um they they were pretty honest just because of where it was
01:30:45
located they they told me right from the get-go that you you are having one of these no matter what but the the only
01:30:55
question they couldn't ask answer was is it going to be temporary or is it going
01:31:00
to be permanent and they're not they're not going to know the answer to that
01:31:05
until they actually do the operation and how effective that initial round of treatment was so so in your mind I mean
01:31:13
this is a this is a huge like life up upheaval isn't it but in your mind are
01:31:17
you thinking are you telling yourself this is going to be temporary or are you just saying okay you need to accept this
01:31:22
might be your new normal yeah I I came to terms with the fact that that's just
01:31:29
that might just be how it is pretty early on that's a lot to deal with yeah um so yeah basically the the temporary
01:31:37
because what they wanted to do what what what their plan for the operation was was to you know above the tumor cut
01:31:46
below cut and obviously below there was a very small amount of tissue that they'd be able to attach to they and so
01:31:52
they wanted to reattach it and I'd have a temporary sto over here um while and I'd have it
01:32:02
for like a year or so while that healed and then they'd reverse it and theoretically everything would kind of
01:32:11
work not exactly the way it used to but about as close to the way it used to but
01:32:16
if they got into the operation and decided that that wasn't viable or or what they saw on the MRI wasn't exactly
01:32:25
how it was when they got in there um yeah so I going into the operation I didn't know what I was going to be
01:32:34
waking up to um I guess you could say that about any operation really but but you know a
01:32:40
truly life or death like life altering type one you know basically if I woke up if I felt the bag on the side it was
01:32:48
temporary if I felt it on the side that's how was going to be and that was basically the first thought that entered
01:32:55
my mind when I woke up after the operation I just went like this and I felt it here and I was like okay so I'm
01:33:03
going to have this this is how it is for about a year um and then we'll see see
01:33:08
how it all all functions when it gets reversed so yeah it was a bit of a it took obviously when you spend 34 years
01:33:19
of your life going the normal way then all of a sudden you have this thing attached to your front and uh that's
01:33:26
kind of where it goes um but I actually got used to it quite quickly I think obviously being told right from the
01:33:34
get-go whether it's temporary or permanent we can't tell you but you're
01:33:39
having it no matter what so basically wrap your head around it now so um yes so kind of I did I read quite a
01:33:48
bit about what it's like and I was kind of kind of a CO coincidentally um one of
01:33:55
the Sharks assistant well he wasn't the assistant coach at that time but he had
01:33:59
been in previous years um he had ulcerative colitis which is like another inflammatory like bowel
01:34:07
condition so he had one of he had what I had for um about a year a little earlier
01:34:14
on in his life so he told me a little bit about what to expect and what it's
01:34:18
like and the process of changing it and how they function and stuff like that so
01:34:24
I kind of um felt a little bit like I knew what was going to happen obviously you know
01:34:33
the just the weirdness of it um yeah what what is it like like like what would you just say to some if you having
01:34:40
the same conversation to someone else that was about to go through it what is it like and what is the process of
01:34:44
changing ad well the well obviously the biggest that you have to have the pouch on all all day every day
01:34:53
because you know unlike you know like if you're sitting in the car and rush hour
01:34:58
traffic and you need to go you can obviously squeeze and you can hold it till you get home with this you can't do
01:35:04
that so when it's go time it's go time and there's nothing that you can do to
01:35:09
stop it so can can you feel yourself going or oh yeah you you can feel it yeah like you can kind of it's kind of a
01:35:15
strange feeling that you get used to every so often but you can kind of feel it moving around and then you know when
01:35:21
it's about to happen like it doesn't like it doesn't like it's like a
01:35:26
discreet type thing it doesn't make any loud noises or or or or or anything like
01:35:31
that and and you didn't need to worry about Panic buying toilet paper during
01:35:34
the pandemic that's that was that was one bonus um but yeah so yeah so yeah that that's the biggest thing you have
01:35:43
no you have no control over when it you know when it decides to work basically um so that's why you have to have the
01:35:51
pouch on it all the time and cuz what I had was called an an IL ostomy or an ostomy so it was the part that was it
01:35:59
wasn't the main like your large Bell that they bought out to the surface it was the end of the small one um so that
01:36:09
part is obviously a lot more active so I'd probably have to go to the bathroom
01:36:13
just to empty the pouch five or six times a day wow um so you constantly you never sort of um forget that it's there
01:36:21
like con no you're yeah you're always aware that it's there and then yeah so
01:36:30
um yeah so i' I'd have to change have to change it every couple of days there was
01:36:35
the stuff that you put on around the outside of outside of it just to protect your skin a little bit just because you
01:36:41
have this adhesive thing stuck to it all the time um and yeah so I got pretty used to
01:36:50
the process of putting that stuff on then cutting the hole in the back of the because you have
01:36:55
to cuz you have you you don't just cut a hole and put it on because you know you
01:37:02
don't want that stuff touching any Exposed Skin So you kind of had to make the shape of it so that it can
01:37:11
forms around it as perfectly as you can so that you have as little Exposed Skin as possible and um so yeah it took a
01:37:18
little bit of time to figure out that process and um and just figuring out how to do
01:37:26
it because it does have a mind of its own like I said before you can't stop it from working so
01:37:33
there were times where I I Chuck a towel on the floor and I'd kind of just sit
01:37:38
there and I'd be cleaning around the outside of it and just making sure it was ready for the next thing and then
01:37:44
all of a sudden it decided it was Go Time so I'd have to go through that whole process again so there were so
01:37:52
yeah took there were a little it took a little bit of time to figure out you know
01:37:56
eventually once you know the swelling and inflammation and stuff had kind of settled down you know you get in I kind
01:38:03
of got into a routine of eating at the same time each day and so you'd kind of get some kind of
01:38:11
consistency when knowing when stuff was going to when it was going to work yeah just controlling the controllables yeah
01:38:18
so um but again it had a mind of its own so of it decided okay well it's go time um
01:38:28
nothing you could do there was nothing I could do to stop it and I'm sure um I'm
01:38:31
sure Bailey was um fine with it but what about you did you find it embarrassing or did you get over that pretty quickly
01:38:37
or n there was like I mean I didn't walk around going hey look what I've got but um so
01:38:45
yeah so yeah there was no there was no kind of yeah there was there was no embar
01:38:52
like no embarrassing things kind of happened and I wasn't um you know and if there were
01:39:00
times cuz I cuz I could like swim and do stuff with it on and I'd just like tuck
01:39:07
it into my shorts and a little bit of it was showing at the top but um so yeah it
01:39:12
was never something that I was embarrassed like embarrassed about there was one oh that's good there was one
01:39:17
time in public where the seal broke so I kind of had to hold it down and I quickly had to go home so I could change
01:39:27
it but outside of um stuff like that I never yeah there was never any kind of yeah yeah I'd wear kind of loose fitting
01:39:36
clothing so that you couldn't see like the imprint of it so yeah it's kind of
01:39:43
yeah if you didn't know who I was um you know you probably wouldn't have known
01:39:48
that um that anything was even wrong so if if that um if things had been different and that ended up being just
01:39:55
your reality for the rest of your life that you still would have been sort of okay with that oh yeah it would have
01:40:00
been fine like like it kind of cuz I had it I had the main operation that I had was
01:40:10
in SE yeah September 2021 and I Got It reversed in November last year so I had it for just 14 months
01:40:21
yeah so just over a year and it kind of It kind of just became like my new normal like I got used to it
01:40:29
and yeah after the initial adjustment period um that's kind of just how it was
01:40:37
um humans are adaptable we're very adaptable so so the the the treatment was done in denan so you traveling from
01:40:44
um Southland den and and this is um during covid times so this is like social distancing this is masks this is
01:40:52
only get treatment if it's absolutely necessary so when you're lying in that
01:40:56
bed are you are you thinking of basketball or your career at all or is that the furtherest thing from your mind
01:41:01
you're just thinking about survival yeah yeah that was yeah basketball was I was put was very low on the list
01:41:10
of things that I was worrying about it was um yeah I I basically I had very minimal energy to
01:41:21
put towards anything except just making sure that I did everything possible treatment wise and healthwise overall
01:41:30
and just making sure mentally I was in a good space and um yeah it was that that
01:41:38
was really all that I had energy for just because it was it was a pretty draining a pretty draining kind of time
01:41:46
yeah mentally were yeah were you in a good space at that time how was your mental health
01:41:51
um well as I mentioned earlier that two days between the initial this is what it
01:41:56
is and then we know what the full story is um that that was pretty dark but um but yeah after obviously my longterm
01:42:08
prognosis was obviously quite good you know it wasn't you know a doom and gloom
01:42:13
you know Lance arm strong type thing where have 5% chance of survival or whatever it was for him um you know my
01:42:22
longterm like it was I was in for a pretty rough year and a half through all the through all the treatment and
01:42:28
surgeries and stuff but you know longterm things were looking pretty good so I had a lot to feel good about um and
01:42:37
you know some people you know I I started making jokes about it and like making like butt jokes
01:42:44
and stuff like that um like those kind of things just to just to try and disarm the people around you or just as like a
01:42:52
like a coping mechanism type thing like like during the meeting CU you know you lie in your bed and the doctors come
01:43:00
around and visit everybody tell them what's happening and they were basically
01:43:04
going over the you know the what the plan was and what they want to do and you know what a sto is and how
01:43:14
that's going to work and all that kind of stuff and I was like um well gives
01:43:20
new meaning to to the to the saying rip you a new one doesn't it so um so kind
01:43:24
of you know it was you it was kind of like uh you know some some people would be like oh it's cancer why would you
01:43:30
joke about that but it's just kind of you know it's like a coping mechanism
01:43:34
that kind of helped me get through it yeah helps you get through it and also it's very um I suppose it's quite
01:43:38
disarming for the people around you as well like yeah yeah it was quite the old Alex is still there yeah it was it was
01:43:44
quite good when they you know they're in there obviously having a very serious
01:43:48
conversation and then you know just them trying to hold back a little a few laughs that kind of just made it feel
01:43:55
like it wasn't all doom and gloom yeah and I mean to to spend 15 years at the
01:44:01
top level of um sort of any high performance team um it takes a certain amount of resilience and a certain sort
01:44:06
of person but um did you learn much about yourself in terms of resilience through this cancer Journey yeah tougher
01:44:12
than what you thought you would be yeah and I guess the it's hard to say exactly what you
01:44:18
learned about yourself but I guess the biggest difference between me now as I yeah it kind of just
01:44:26
puts you know all all the little things that you worry about and you stress about you know
01:44:33
their you know at the end of the you know you know they're small things you know I don't sweat small stuff as much
01:44:42
as I used to and it's kind of just i' I've learned how I don't want to sound like I'm a
01:44:52
prophet or anything but like how much how much power the mind has over your body and how keeping a positive
01:45:01
mindset um and not kind of giving in kind of like the the dark kind of thoughts how just how how much because there were
01:45:12
days where it was just Doom and Gloom and I'd just be sitting there thinking like what the
01:45:19
[ __ ] man what like why is this happening to me and you know then you know I just
01:45:27
deci like but you know you compare how you feel with those days compared to the days when you're you know making jokes
01:45:34
and you know actively choose to you know focus on the the more positive things you know like the the long-term
01:45:42
prognosis is good and you know I'm getting married soon and all that you know focusing on the positive things how
01:45:50
much it just significantly has over over just how you're over how you feel um just
01:46:00
realizing how important that is yeah and did you get to ring the bell at the end
01:46:03
of your treatment is is that a thing Dean B was telling me maybe it's not a thing in New Zealand oncology WS but he
01:46:09
said there's a a moment where you finish your treatment where you get to ring the
01:46:12
ring a bell um the nurses and doctors stand around clapping no I never rang any Bell maybe maybe maybe the hospital
01:46:21
he had had a bell I don't know cuz yeah after my after the initial like after the main operation
01:46:28
like not the not the one where it got the sto got reversed but the main one where they removed the tumor um I had
01:46:37
six months of post-operative chemotherapy after that um that was because you know
01:46:47
they they cut it out they they removed move the section of bell that it's in
01:46:52
and they look at the edge of the bell of the part that they cut out and the edge
01:46:57
of the part that's still there and they test to see if there are any and then
01:47:02
they remove lymph nodes from that area as well and they test all of that for can um for cancerous cells because you
01:47:12
know obviously a single cancer cell is not going to show up on like an MRI or anything so all of those tests came back
01:47:19
um like positive so they all came back clear like they didn't detect anything
01:47:25
and any of that stuff that they removed um but they suggested just because I was
01:47:32
a young guy having that six months of chemotherapy afterwards um any Rogue cells that are
01:47:40
kind of left around in there it can help get rid of those or it would get rid of
01:47:46
those and it and studies show that it signif like nothing can ever guarantee that it won't come back but it
01:47:54
significantly um decreases the likelihood of it coming back so yeah um that was that was a very
01:48:03
very long six months it was um 12 rounds of um there was one God I can't remember the name of
01:48:13
them now but they there was one that was like an IV that they did at the hospital
01:48:17
took about 3 hours and then there was another one they connected to the line and it had was like in a little bubble
01:48:24
and a tube and that um I'd take that home and would take about 2 or 3 days um
01:48:30
to kind of slowly pump that through um and that was every two weeks for for six months so that was that was a pretty
01:48:40
significant um yeah and it was kind of um I I actually got off quite lucky with some of the some of the side
01:48:49
effects well because there was you know it's they were saying that it they give you
01:48:57
the laundry list of potential side effects before you started um and you know the the more
01:49:03
significant ones were you know nerve ending damage to your fingers and your feet
01:49:11
and and making you really really susceptible to cold so like touching cold things drinking cold
01:49:20
cold things you were living in denen and Southland as well I know I was back in Hamilton okay yeah CU yeah cuz I cuz I
01:49:27
had the um the operation up in Hamilton oh got you um yeah so I was back in Hamilton at this point and you know
01:49:34
they'll say like they said um you know when you get into the thick of the treatment you know if you get like a
01:49:44
like a like a non room temperature drink like something out of the fridge it will
01:49:49
feel like you swallowing ice like I like your swallowing glass like it's that
01:49:55
that that's how painful it is it's painful to touch stuff that is cold and
01:49:59
I I got a little bit of that but not really significant like it was a little bit
01:50:05
sensitive During the period where I'd have that take-home thing um it would probably linger for a
01:50:13
day or two after and then it would be okay um and as it went on that day or two that it Ling good would be an extra
01:50:21
day or two an extra day or two and then yeah so yeah it was 12 rounds and luckily um you know some people I know
01:50:30
have had to finish because it can cause permanent nerve damage and stuff like that if
01:50:36
you if it affects you really badly so quite a few people that go through the same process that I
01:50:43
have um they don't get through the whole 12 rounds cuz it's kind of like fix ing
01:50:50
one thing but create like fixing one problem another one yeah so um yeah so there are some people that you know they
01:50:59
get to the eighth or ninth cycle and they just stop because you know they can't feel the tips of their fingers and
01:51:06
they're walking around and they can't really feel their feet or their toes or
01:51:11
stuff like that so I was fortunate that I was able to well not fortunate cuz it sucked but no I've noticed this you've
01:51:18
done this a few times you do have a good this really good ability at looking for
01:51:22
the positives looking for the Silver Lining yeah because um yeah I was lucky lucky enough that I it didn't affect my
01:51:31
body badly enough that I had to finish it before the 12 Cycles were finished so you so during this um like how do how do
01:51:39
you not give up on yourself so you you know you start this treatment like uh it's growling it's hard you're tired
01:51:45
you're exhausted you you feel like you've been beaten up and you know that
01:51:50
you've got round after round after round to go like how do you just keep going I I guess just because there's no
01:51:57
other option yeah there that's basically it sometimes you're you're presented
01:52:03
with something and you're you kind of just have to get on with it it's kind of
01:52:07
that that and that that's kind of what my mindset was like right from the very
01:52:12
beginning like obviously if my long-term prognosis wasn't as good um you know my
01:52:19
attitude towards fighting it would have been exactly the same but you know if I had stage 4 cancer I probably wouldn't
01:52:27
have been making butt jokes around the hospital but um but um but you know so you know it was kind of it it was kind
01:52:34
of my attitude right from the get-go like once I'd had that initial meeting about exactly what we were dealing with
01:52:42
and what the treatment plan look like over the next year or so it was kind of you know I had my week
01:52:50
or so to be angry and sad and cry and laugh and just go through the whole spectrum of emotion and then it was like
01:53:02
all right well I know what I have to do now so now I just have to get on with it
01:53:06
so that was so yeah like like that postoperative chemotherapy that wasn't a surprise like I knew that that was part
01:53:13
of the overall plan um so I was kind of I knew that after the operation that that was the hard part but I knew
01:53:23
that I wasn't done um so yeah that's kind of what got me through to the end
01:53:29
it was kind of it was around the point where where I was around it like the seventh or eighth kind of thing like I
01:53:38
was over the hump but I still had like five more to go so it was like yeah it's
01:53:45
kind of I don't know if you ever did the miq the two weeks in the hotel at any
01:53:50
point I don't know if you did that but you know Day N and 10 were probably the
01:53:56
worst cuz it's like we've been in here for like we're over halfway but they're
01:54:01
still so long ago and that that's kind of what it was like it was kind of yeah
01:54:06
but as the Finish Line got a bit closer and just knowing that that I was that I was close to the end and and the the day
01:54:14
you find out you're cancer free is it a dramatic Moment Like You know the results are coming you wake up that
01:54:18
morning and you know you getting a phone call and it's going to be good or bad or
01:54:22
do you have a sense it's going to be fine and um yeah well I like everything obviously the initial
01:54:30
diagnosis was shocking but everything that happened after that had been quite positive you know the
01:54:39
when I cuz when the initial the the when the five weeks of radiation therapy and
01:54:46
dened in had finished um I cuz yeah there was like 10 weeks between when that treatment finished and
01:54:55
then when I had the operation cuz even though when it finished when it's finished it's it still works so um yeah
01:55:04
about a month after May yeah maybe not long after our wedding a week or so after our wedding I went back and had
01:55:10
some more tests done and um you know the the Tuma had shrunk quite a significant
01:55:16
amount so you know that was obviously a POS sort of thing and then when I woke up um after the
01:55:24
operation you know the sto was on the side which means they believe the reattachment or
01:55:30
the resection was viable that was obviously a positive thing so yeah I everything had gone well um up until
01:55:39
that point so when I was waiting for the phone call after the operation when they
01:55:43
done all the testing on the on the section that they removed you know it's not like I was was sitting I wasn't
01:55:50
sitting at home going oh I've had two or three good things in a row I'm Jew a bad
01:55:54
thing you know yeah I wasn't thinking like that at all I was um you know I had
01:55:59
no reason to believe that anything had gone wrong everything that they had told me posttop
01:56:07
posttop when I woke up they said it went basically exactly how they thought or how they hoped it
01:56:15
would um and yeah when I got the phone call saying they've they've done done
01:56:19
all the testing and um yeah there wasn't a cancer cell in sight that was um there
01:56:27
were a few a few happy tears around the The Pledger household like I cuz at the cuz we just moved back up here and we
01:56:34
hadn't moved into our house yet so I was staying at my mom's house um and my mom
01:56:39
wasn't at home and the phone rung and I put it on speaker so Bailey could hear
01:56:45
and we were both just sitting there like this and then yeah when he s of expecting the worst but hoping the best
01:56:51
yeah yeah when when he gave us the news um yeah um yeah there were a few a few happy tears around the household yeah oh
01:57:00
I can imagine just the Gratitude yeah and the weight off your shoulders hey thanks for being so open about all this
01:57:05
today is it is it hard to talk about now or is it quite sort of methodical or no
01:57:10
it's not hard to talk about but I I really only talk about it if people ask me yeah I'm not going to just R like oh
01:57:17
hey hear about that time I had cancer um yeah so I like if people ask me I have no problem talking about it at all
01:57:24
but um as I said it's not for any sort of gratuitous reason it's just um
01:57:28
because I think it's incredibly helpful the more aware people can be it can potentially um you save me or some other
01:57:33
people that are watching or listening to this going through the the the hell that
01:57:37
you've been through yeah so it is um yeah it is nice well it's not nice to
01:57:43
receive messages like that like this because it means that somebody else is potentially going through the same thing
01:57:48
but I have received some messages on social media and emails and stuff saying I heard your
01:57:55
story and I was feeling some of those same symptoms so I went to see the doctor and you know I had a colonoscopy
01:58:02
done and there was some precancerous pops or some sort of early stage cancer was discovered and yeah so hearing you
01:58:13
know just knowing that talking about it and kind of saying what the sharing my experiences knowing that that's um that
01:58:24
that's helped a couple of people um uh just from going through potentially something a lot a lot worse than what
01:58:32
they would otherwise um and yeah and i' I'd encourage anybody to kind of if you just if you notice any sort of
01:58:43
difference in the way you feel and the way things function and um um yeah I I I don't know if it's like a
01:58:53
a New Zealand thing where you know having that area of your body examined and having people poking
01:59:03
and pting around makes you feel I don't know if it's like oh you know men don't
01:59:09
do that you know it's like a like like like like an unmanly thing to do um yeah
01:59:15
that that I think that's just kind of a you know if you have 10 minutes feeling
01:59:21
uncomfortable in a doctor's office versus 18 months of Hell of the stuff that I went through um it's not really a
01:59:30
choice yeah like yeah New Zealand me we do need to get over that like um a dude a dude or a female nurse having their
01:59:38
finger up your up your date for 10 seconds 15 seconds it's not a sexual thing it's not even an embarrassing
01:59:44
thing you don't want the finger up there they don't want their finger to be up
01:59:47
there but it's a medical procedure we need to just get over it and get it done
01:59:50
yeah um so how say you were 100% precancer how are you now you said before you can't have like milky coffees
01:59:58
anymore like it's not that I can't it's just that sometimes my um body doesn't
02:00:04
react to it very well so when I'm not in the comfort of my own home I uh I try to avoid the like most
02:00:14
things I can eat and I'm perfectly fine um but there's a couple of things that
02:00:18
um if I'm away from the house or if I don't know where the closest bathroom is I'll
02:00:25
probably avoid them but um but yeah in terms of yeah for the last like I said I had the the sto reversal um in November
02:00:37
last year so just over a year ago um and there were a couple of months you know when
02:00:44
you when nothing goes through there for 14 months then all of a sudden sudden it
02:00:49
starts working again it takes a little bit of time to um basically cuz you know I had
02:00:58
virtually my entire rectum removed so you know that plays a pretty important role in being able to push it
02:01:07
out essentially um so basically the lower part of my bell that was attached down there basically has to learn how to
02:01:16
do learn how to do something that it's sort of reprogram yeah basically basically learn how to do something
02:01:24
that's never done before you know it takes yeah it took um a month or two for things to kind of start working
02:01:35
relatively normally you know things were the lack of a better word were quite erratic um for those first couple of
02:01:44
months it was kind of like you know to to training basically I was basically a 36y old
02:01:52
toddler but um but yeah so yeah once um yeah once it all started working normally again um yeah
02:02:03
it's life has been pretty much normal to the point where you wouldn't even know
02:02:09
something happened um yeah kind of for the last six months or so really and I still I get uh um but I'm on a pretty
02:02:20
thorough um like surveillance program I get a um a a blood test every four months which
02:02:29
tests um like a tumor marker in your blood um and that is like everybody has it in that marker
02:02:40
in them at a very insignificant level but you know if it elevates to a certain number that's
02:02:47
where they can kind of be concerned about it but it's significantly below kind of that where the level is which
02:02:57
would cause them to be concerned and the last four or five ones I've had it's
02:03:01
been trending in the downward Direction um which is good and yeah I get yearly um CT CT
02:03:12
scans just of that whole area and um uh it's called a flexy Sig it's or a
02:03:20
flexible sigmoid oscopy it's kind of like a colon oscopy but instead of going
02:03:26
all the way around they just look at the initial part and it's kind of like a the
02:03:32
little camera thing is kind of like a hockey stick like it goes in and then it kind of bends Brown and looks back in
02:03:39
the direction that it came in CU that lower area is where the cancer was so I get those checks done every uh every
02:03:48
year and then the blood test every four months so yeah I'll be on that um surveillance regime for five years and
02:03:57
if I can go five consecutive years um with everything being all clear that's
02:04:03
when they can officially say that it's it's gone but um yeah I'm about almost
02:04:11
two years into that now and everything has come back clear so far so I have I have no reason to believe that uh
02:04:19
the that for the next three and a bit years um those results won't be exactly
02:04:24
the same but things are trending good jeez um well hell of a year 2023 for you I
02:04:31
like retiring from it's it's a it feels like it's a real Line in the Sand in
02:04:34
terms of your life you know what I mean the basketball's over the cancer touchboard is over um how you feeling
02:04:42
about the future you excited you're optimistic you're hopeful yeah yeah of
02:04:45
course like what do you want to what do you want to do next of career or I I honestly don't know that's probably
02:04:55
you know people talk about life after basketball and and all that kind of stuff um you know things obviously got
02:05:03
thrown in a blender a little bit so I had to re-evaluate basically my entire life you know um you know I've got uh a
02:05:11
job at the moment which I'm thoroughly enjoying doing um and um you know work
02:05:17
and business wife uh business wise uh for for Bailey things are going very well um at the moment as well so you
02:05:26
know we've got our we've got our own place um uh that we bought quite a long
02:05:31
time ago in Hamilton so we're fortunate enough to be um in a position where um
02:05:40
obviously things at the moment cost a lot so um so yeah I guess just I'm pretty fortunate to to be in a
02:05:49
or for us to be in a position where um I don't have to desperately find out what
02:05:56
that next thing is going to be um but yeah like as I mentioned before things um you know Bailey had been my cheer
02:06:05
leader um my entire basketball career you know she packed up her life and would move around with me to various
02:06:12
places when things would happen um and now she's you know on top of all of the
02:06:19
stuff that I mentioned that she did during my treatment um she um you know she also um you know started um a
02:06:29
business that she runs and things are going pretty well with that so for the time being you know she was my
02:06:34
cheerleader for for 10 years so yeah it's kind of cool that kind of things have flipped around and uh you know I'm
02:06:41
the I'm the biggest cheerleader for her now yeah oh how good oh that's wonderful
02:06:46
yeah yeah what a great couple um yeah I would say don't don't rush into whatever's next because there's so much
02:06:51
life ahead of you uh and I don't know anyone that's um that's like to be as good as what you were at
02:06:58
the sport you did especially for the length of time the longevity you had it means you've got a growth mindset and
02:07:03
also a winers mentality so whatever you do next you're going to do [ __ ] well
02:07:08
yeah yeah so I've got a you know like for us um you know 2023 was kind of like
02:07:15
a you know cuz I've been fit and healthy this whole year it was kind for us it
02:07:20
was kind of just a kind of like a say yes kind of year whereas you know like we you know we went to it was kind of
02:07:29
like a working holiday cuz she had the the Bravo con thing over there but you know so you know we went over there we
02:07:35
went to Fiji for a little little holiday just the two of us it was it was basically our honeymoon two years after
02:07:42
we got married cuz we couldn't go on one when we actually got married so we did
02:07:47
that so yeah kind of things we kind of yeah we just kind of decided that this year was going to be the you know the
02:07:55
first year when things were back on track um you know we're just going to not overthink things and just enjoy enoy
02:08:05
and just enjoy life being normal again just um um you know just the two of us and um and yeah over the next year or so
02:08:15
is when I'll really you know start to to focus on what that next step is but for
02:08:21
the for the time being I'm just uh you know happy supporting her doing the stuff that she's doing and um and just
02:08:29
happy to be to be healthy and and just yeah just life being back to relative normaly after the last two and a bit
02:08:39
years yeah I'm so pleased to sit down with you today and pleased to see you're
02:08:43
looking so healthy like you read in the checks you've just got that glow that
02:08:46
glow of a healthy person um um yeah thanks for being so so open and generous with um your experiences the good ones
02:08:53
and the bad ones I really appreciate it oh no worries yeah I think it's just yeah it's you know people talk
02:09:00
about mental health and and all that kind of stuff a lot especially with men around my sort of age and I think just
02:09:09
um you know talking to people about things obviously I had a pretty significant Health thing so that's you
02:09:16
know but fine you know what whatever you you might be going through just um you know finding people to to talk to about
02:09:23
those things because most people you know you you'd be surprised how many people actually want to help
02:09:30
you know there are lots of they kind of people kind of feel like they're afraid
02:09:35
they don't want to share what's going on because they think people might judge
02:09:38
them or they just kind of blow them off or whatever but you you'd be surprised
02:09:43
how many people genuinely want to help it's not as um it's an easy thing to say
02:09:50
now because things are looking quite positive but um yeah it's it's not always as when you when you're kind of
02:09:57
in your own head and you're by yourself but when you voice those things and talk
02:10:01
to people it's um it's not as not as Doom and Gloom it's it's not always as
02:10:07
Doom and Gloom as it as it might appear yeah yeah one thing I found during this podcast I've done almost 100 episodes
02:10:12
now is that vulnerability is sexy as [ __ ] have you always been good with that or is that just sort of something that
02:10:18
you've leaned into that's that's something that I've kind of just
02:10:23
basically because I had to when you were you know it's kind of you know this isn't a thing that you can
02:10:31
kind of do on your own bottle up and just kind of keep in you know it's you know when you're going through something
02:10:39
as shitty as it was you kind of just have to at times you kind of just have to let
02:10:45
it out and tell people how you're feeling and you know sometimes you know I I went through some pretty dark
02:10:54
moments over the last couple of years and it um yeah just having having people to talk to about those things um yeah
02:11:04
it's yeah it's it's you know people as I said before you know people will kind of
02:11:11
put their arms around you and you know try to help you as much as they can which um which you know sometimes just
02:11:20
you know a hug or a chat or just being a set of ears for someone can just be the
02:11:28
just be what they need and yeah it's yeah it's just I've I've realized over
02:11:34
the last couple of years just how how significant and how helpful that kind of thing
02:11:41
is I can't think of a more significant or important message to leave it on I
02:11:46
think that's really good Alex pler one of the goats of New Zealand basketball
02:11:51
cancer conqueror husband and so much more thanks so much for your time mate I really appreciate it oh no worries I had
02:11:58
a great [Music] time