Episode 47

See, believe, dream, achieve

In this episode, we chat with Chris Henderson, a former Richmond wheelchair football champion who recently took on the role of Player Coach at Essendon. Chris shares his MS diagnosis story and speaks on finding renewed purpose through wheelchair football.

We delve into the exciting world of this dynamic sport, learning about its unique rules and the incredible athleticism of its players. Chris also discusses his passion for inclusivity and how he’s using his platform to educate young people about disability through his work with the Freedom Sports Foundation.

This insightful conversation offers a glimpse into the challenges and triumphs of living with MS and the power of sport to connect, inspire, and change lives.

Episode Transcript

Voiceover:

Welcome to The Raw Nerve, the official podcast of MS Australia, a conversation space for all things multiple sclerosis. Join us for news and views on the latest research, treatments and advocacy efforts, as well as candid and informative interviews with our community, those living with MS, and their families and carers, together with leading clinicians, researchers and advocates.

Jeremy Henderson

Chris, thank you very much for joining us. It’s always a pleasure to be talking to guests on the Raw Nerve, especially a pleasure to be speaking to somebody called Henderson. So, so welcome.

Chris Henderson

Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you so much.

Jeremy Henderson

Chris, I can start with congratulating you on your new appointment at Essendon, leading the club’s wheelchair program in 2025. Love to talk to you about that. You’ve been a star player. You continue to play. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about wheelchair football. How long have you been involved in the sport of wheelchair football?

Chris Henderson

Yeah, thanks Jeremy. So, wheelchair footy started in 2018 was the first year of the competition. I think it was 2017 AFL started Women’s AFL and then 2018 they started Wheelchair AFL. There were five teams in the first initial iteration if you will and so and they’re still currently the five teams that are in it. That’s Richmond, Collingwood, Essendon and obviously Collingwood and St Kilda.

I guess we’re probably pre-empting, but my first year was in 2019. So, I didn’t play the first year. 2019 is when I started. I got made Captain of Richmond in 2020 after one year and then have been Captain there for three or four years. then last or this year just finished, I sort of retired and then came out of retirement and then ended up playing again.

Glutton for punishment, I guess. And so, then we won the Premiership and then in, as you say, in the off season, I’ve jumped to the dark side and now I’m a Player Coach for the Essendon Football Club, which is a great honour. And certainly, as we’re probably chatting on today, it’s certainly really, it’s a really amazing opportunity for me and what I want to do with the sport. And I understand a lot of that and how important it is for the broader community, not just people with MS, but people with disabilities and with children and families, et cetera. yeah.

Jeremy Henderson

So maybe for those who aren’t familiar with the sport of wheelchair footy, what are the rules of the game? Who can participate?

Chris Henderson

So yeah, so I think the easiest way to explain it, so we play in a basketball court for those that obviously haven’t ever seen it before. We play in a basketball court, so it’s somewhere between wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby or murder ball as they call it. So, it is full contact, so we smash and crash and certainly for the crowd it’s very appealing because they love this crash and bash of it all. We play in wheelchairs that are a little bit different to a, they’re a little bit sort of a little bit of a tweaked basketball chair if you will. There’s five on the court at any given time. we, in answer to your question, we allow able bods to play, but we’re all classified. So, an able bod would be a five pointer, so that’s someone without a disability. They’re a five pointer. You’re only allowed one five pointers on, and then the rest of us are classified up to, we’re allowed 16 points on the court at any given time. Generally speaking, the five are a centre or a ruck. So, we use, I think it’s actually the netball lines as a guide. Forwards are allowed in the front two-thirds, the defenders in the back two-thirds and the centre, who is the fifth player can go anywhere. and for us yeah obviously we can’t kick a footy because some of us legs our legs don’t work at all. So, our hand pass is a kick for us and an underarm throw is a hand pass so play on. Same sort of thing there’s tackling there’s holding the ball and at the end of each basketball court is a goals and points set up like you would, but we hand pass it through for a goal or a point and away you go. Four quarters exactly the same as normal footy.

Jeremy Henderson

Is sport, something you’ve always been involved in Chris.

Chris Henderson

Yeah, yeah, it is Jeremy. I think that it’s probably defined me in lots of ways. I think that growing up in Ballarat and going to school there, primary school and high school at St Pat’s and in high school there and then it was a beautiful and then I moved to Bendigo and then I moved to Perth with footy. So, I was I was a good country footballer. I think it’s a fair assessment of where I sat. I was never a champion. I was never a superstar. But I was certainly, and I think sport in itself is a really powerful tool to be able, like I often used to say to people, if I walk into a footy club, if you can kick a footy and mark a footy, then you leave with 30 new best friends. And especially when you move to a new town, like when I moved to Bendigo as a 19-year-old, when I moved to Perth as a 22, 23-year-old, I created some lifetime friends out of those experiences.

Yeah, I love sport and again, growing up in a country town like Ballarat, it was, you know, was footy in winter and cricket, cricket and tennis in summer and a few other boys played basketball, but not really my thing. But yeah, I mean, we were always, and our parents were really strong on that. You know, sport was certainly something that was, they were really encouraging and in places like Ballarat, you could play any sport you wanted to. So that was a really great place to grow up, I guess.

Jeremy Henderson

So, by the sound of it, from your perspective, sport plays a really important, really integral role in, health, in wellbeing and in a positive mindset.

Chris Henderson

yeah, it does. And I think that I think I lost sight of that after my diagnosis, and I guess we’ll get to later. But I think it was something that my wife was really strong on after my diagnosis in October 17 that 2018 I was really sick and struggling to process what my new world was. And also, know, the neurologist telling you that you can never play sport, we never play football again. I’m like, and it was really silly, but I was bummed that that choice was taken away from me. was still playing over 40 footy at the time. And I loved the camaraderie and the mateship that that provided. And so, to have that taken away from someone who I didn’t know was really didn’t sit well with me. so, yeah, I think it is. And I don’t even know that it necessarily has to relate to sport. I think that if you have a passion and to be able to reconnect with that passion can go a long way to improving your view of everything. Yeah.

Jeremy Henderson

I wonder if you’re happy Chris, to just share a little bit about your initial MS diagnosis and that journey that you’ve been on.

Chris Henderson

Yeah, yeah, I’m happy to share mate. I played footy in 2017 that year. was playing for Marcelin Bald Eagles, which is in the over 45 comp or something. And the last home and away game, we were not going to play finals. And so, I ended up having to play ruck, which is not my thing at all. I’m not that tall, but everyone had given away. We had to travel to a place called Beaconsfield and I played ruck for that day. I think it was in the first quarter I got sort of stood on by the ruckman and he sort of scratched my knee and left a bit of a gash and I actually thought for the next few weeks that he must have damaged nerves because I had this weird sensation in my knee that I couldn’t, I couldn’t feel my knee and then over the next few weeks and months or no probably about four to five weeks that numbness spread right down my right up and down my right leg and as is typical of blokes in their 40s I thought I’ll be fine. I diagnosed it as bit of sciatica and not that I knew what that meant, but I kind of dismissed it as, it’ll be fine. But over the next couple of weeks, I reckon it about six, seven weeks after that footy game, that numbness had spread down both of my legs. felt like I was trying to walk in quicksand. I just couldn’t get my legs to work. I ended up going to see our footy club president who was a GP as well. And he took one look at it and said, I really don’t like this; I need you to go straight for an MRI.” And I think he possibly mentioned MS in that conversation, but I wasn’t listening, I don’t think. And so, I went in, had a CT scan. Then they wouldn’t let me go home. And then the next morning I had another one on my spine. That was the Monday night, then the Tuesday, and then the Wednesday. They said they were looking for a spinal tap. Wednesday afternoon, a neurologist came in to say that I had MS, and I wasn’t listening at that point. It was really troubling for me. I wanted everyone to leave me alone to be able to process what I’d just found out. I’d only been married for about 18 months. I remember saying to my wife, just go. I don’t know what this is going to look like but just go. Go now while you can. Of course, she would never have done that. And it was weird. I remember in that hospital bed, being told they’re about to start an IV treatment of Methylprednisolone, or whatever it is to settle down the inflammation. All I wanted to do was grab my phone to work out (who) the most famous person with MS was, to try and put it in perspective. I had no idea what MS was other than when you’re a kid, MS readathon. So, my knowledge of it was minimal. And again, I hate to say this, but in my head I was thinking, is this Michael J. Fox, Muhammad Ali? What – is this Neil Danahur? And then when I looked at it, was like, it’s Tim Ferguson. That put it in perspective for me a little bit. And so then it was still a shock. It was still a huge shock. And it still meant that I had to process what this means. And I still was not prepared for any part of that. I never thought it was going to be something like this, a permanent thing. And so it took me, it took me, I reckon it about 14 months till I could properly walk and all those other sorts of things. and I reckon all of that time and probably more than that to be able to process what my new normal was, which was almost as hard as all the other stuff, the treatment, the stuff, some of the medications I was on at the first year or so made me even sicker. So you’re navigating that and plus you’re trying to get yourself better and so yeah, there’s a lot to take in in those first few years.

Jeremy Henderson

Tell me about that 14-month journey that that sort of journey towards a new normal. Did you, do you have an idea of what that new normal would look like? Did you have a goal in mind? Tell me what those 14-months looked like.

Chris Henderson

Yeah, I wanted to be able to walk properly, so I couldn’t walk. I often say to people it was like I was trying to walk through a meter of mud, mud up to my knees, or quicksand or something. I would just labour to get from A to B. Not only that, I would labour to get there, but then I’d be so cooked I’d have to sit down, I’d be red-faced, was like I seriously have to work. I remember where we lived in Mentone, Melbourne, we had a gym there and I didn’t do anything in the gym other than the treadmill. I remember I set myself little goals of trying to walk 400 meters on the treadmill and God knows how long it took me. I wanted to try and walk a kilometre and I reckon it was probably, I don’t know if it’s 15 minutes to walk a kilometre. It was like it was slow, but I just, it took me a few months to be able to. I’d go over there and then I’d bush walk 400 meters on the treadmill and then I’d do that heaps and heaps and heaps of times. 400 was my target and then 400 became, I think it was into 600, then I went to 800, then I could do a K. And then I didn’t even feel comfortable going for a walk at that point because I would fall. I still couldn’t process. I’d go to work and I’d end up with cracks on my head or black eyes where I’d fall into something or clip something because my legs would just buckle and I’d just go over. So, yeah, so there was a lot to take in. also, MS is one of those things where you actually, you almost, you look fine. That’s the hardest part, is you actually look like there’s nothing wrong with you. And I really struggled with that. I reckon for the first, of that 14, 16 months, whatever it was, I reckon for the first 12, I didn’t tell anybody which in hindsight was really a really poor decision on me because I realized once I started to tell some of my closest mates that I was sick that I had MS that it actually changed everything for me. I don’t even know why I didn’t tell them to be honest because I knew that they would have been supportive of course. I never thought they wouldn’t be, but it was just, I couldn’t say it out loud without crying. I don’t think if I said it. I would get emotional about it because I hadn’t yet processed or accepted what it was. yeah, so it was a really tough 18 months probably, I guess, before I could sort of, and again, like even to stand here or sit here and chat with you now, mate, I, you know, at point of time, I would have been a blubbering mess even just saying it out loud sometimes.

Jeremy Henderson

You talked before about the importance of sport, but for, for everybody finding that passion and, and you know, the advantages of that and what that gives back to you in terms of hope. And at what point did you realize that maybe in terms of your passion for sport and particularly your passion for footy, that there might be an avenue open to you. When did you recognize that there might be that wheelchair footy might be something for you?

Chris Henderson

I remember it really vividly because a beautiful mate, Brendan Stroud, and he’s no longer with us. We lost him to cancer a couple of years ago, but Brendan was the initial, he was a huge driver in creating the wheelchair AFL league with the Robert Rose Foundation and Disability Supporters Victoria. And they were the ones who I think who drove it. And I was, I remember I spiked before around my legs and so I had to get rid of my car, I had a manual car, I had to get rid of it because I couldn’t press the clutch, I couldn’t feel it. So I had to get an automatic car and I remember driving in my car, it was a beat up old Subaru but it was getting me around and I remember I became one of those guys who rings up Talkback Radio. Brendan Stroud was on SEN with Andy Marr on a drive afternoon or whatever it was.

I rang up and got on the air and asked Brendan, who I didn’t at that stage didn’t know, and asked him if a bloke with MS could play wheelchair footy. And I almost, I don’t even know what possessed me to ring to be honest, because yeah, I just was listening to him talk and I was like, this could be fun. And it’s weird, isn’t it? But when neurologists sort of tell you what life’s going to look like, you either deny it or you can sort of embrace some of that. And I, so I got told, you’ll end up in a chair and all these sorts of things, which I, you know, I understood that, but it was a different thing to, a different thing to accept that as reality. And so, and to accept that meant that I would actually have a go at playing wheelchair sport, which I wasn’t in a wheelchair at the time. So Brendan to his credit said, I’ll get your number after, after the interview and I’ll give you a call. And he did. We became great friends and he was such a beautiful man and he got me down there to trial and for those that follow the AFL it was the traditional draft combine sort of thing. They’d whack you on a chair, it’s a whole day of testing, agility test, 20-meter sprints, beep tests, all these other things and Jeremy I’m very happy to tell you that I absolutely stunk. I was so bad.

I was deplorable, but one good thing about being a left footer playing footy was if you can’t kick on your right foot, my grandfather always taught me to be able to hand pass left and right handed. So when you’re playing wheelchair footy, being able to hand pass left and right hand is pretty handy skill to have. So we played a scratch match after the testing and I scored a couple of goals against someone who played for the big Metro team at the Nationals year before. I was serviceable, I think, enough that Richmond decided to take me with them in one of their picks in that year’s draft. So, and that was how it started, I guess.

Jeremy Henderson

Fast forward now to 2024, Chris, how does MS impact your daily life at the moment?

Chris Henderson

I still affects my mobility quite a bit. cognitively it can at times. I’ve had some moments where, my ability to recall nieces and nephews or just other things, , I lose them. again, MS is different for people. My vision’s not great. I usually wear glasses. I had episodes where I choke. So I have to learn , I can’t talk and eat at the same time. My brain gets bit muddled and so, yeah, sometimes I’ll choke on, I think I’m choking on air. I’m not sure what I’m choking on, but sometimes I choke myself. So yeah, it affects a lot. And again, one of the neurologists that I deal with at the Austin, he once told me early on in the piece that you’ve got to think about every day as having three meal tickets for a day, morning, afternoon and night. And you’ve got to think that you’ve only got two per day. So if you do stuff in the morning and the afternoon, you don’t do anything at night. And so, and it’s funny that I actually kind of live by that a little bit, that I’ll know that there’ll come a time when I need to rest if I’ve done a bit during the day or if I’ve got something on that night. So I think you learn to adjust. I don’t fall as much as I used to. I did start shaving my head because it was too hard with scars on my head and stuff. So anyway, you change a few things, but that’s fine.

Jeremy Henderson

So talk talking about navigating those symptoms. So in terms of heat sensitivity, civic, sorry, heat sensitivity and fatigue, touched on it briefly then in terms of sort of not overdoing it each day. But in terms of playing and coaching, wheelchair football, do those two things that those two factors come into play?

Chris Henderson

Yeah, I’m really lucky. Heat doesn’t seem to affect me. So living down in Torquay, which is where we are, seems like maybe we get to see breeze. That’s a bit cooler. So I’m sure if I lived in Noosa, I might find a bit different, but down here, it’s a little bit cooler. So that’s certainly not an issue for me. And I’ve sort of learned to adjust. Like I travel with a pillow in my car. So if you’re ever on the Princess Freeway, you might see my car pulled over on the side of the road for a 40 minute power nap or something. If I need to, I’ve become quite an aficionado with the power nap or a grandpa nap or whatever you want to call it. So a siesta shall we call it. So I know when I need to. And again, Essendon’s been really amazing.

Knowing that I there’ll be times when I’ll struggle Usually it’s sort of just before my infusion, which is June December every year So when I’m close to my infusion, I’m sometimes a bit low on petrol tickets effectively So we’ve appointed an assistant coach who can help me to give me some support if need be But you know again, I really understand and I know personally from my own mental health that to be active is actually a really good thing. to be, and again, it might be that I sort of pull back a little bit from going flat out at training, but just to get in the chair and roll around and move, is really good for my, to raise a bit of a sweat and whatever else is pretty important. So, yeah.

Jeremy Henderson

Chris, I wonder if we could pivot now to your business. I’m curious. So you have a business that I guess is really educating young people about disability and it’s increasing their understanding, hopefully, and their empathy. And I’m curious to know whether that first time navigating the wheelchair yourself when you were in those trials for the wheelchair footy and getting to grips with a wheelchair and, you know, really understanding how hard that is and how difficult that is. Do think that’s had some bearing in your business and your desire to sort of increase people’s understanding about disability? I wonder if you could share something about your business.

Chris Henderson

Yeah, absolutely, mate. I’d love to. So myself with six other people who have joined the board have started Freedom Sports Foundation as a vehicle to be able to provide sporting opportunities for kids. it was born out of one of our board members, a beautiful lady, Kat Barlow and Mark and their son Noah, who was one of the first kids I met as a in 2019, I reckon in my first year. I reckon, and I sort of reference that a lot in 2019, I started playing footy because of my wants to get back into sport. But I reckon that some stage during that year, it pivoted for me because I realized that, and I’m also aware of the fact that we are really in a really privileged space to be able to wear the Richmond or Essendon jumpers.

Because if it was red versus blue team, probably not many people would care. But the fact that again, in Victoria in particular, but Australia generally, footy is so synonymous with society that when it’s Richmond vs. Collingwood or whatever the case, or whatever other teams it may be, it actually resonates on a whole different level. So it pivoted for me during that year where I went, I started doing this for me, which was fine, but very quickly it became about, I would see young adults or kids coming down and they were just, I don’t know, in awe is probably a bit strong, but maybe, but they were, they felt connected in a way that they’d never felt connected. I mean, if you go to the MCG or to Marvel and watch a game of footy, those kids in those seats are that far removed from the action. Whereas with us, they are literally on the edge of the line. They were literally on the edge of the court. And then you know I had mates who would say you don’t get out of your chair after the game and I’m like no, no because I chat to the kids and then I’ll say hey do you want to come out and throw the footy around and they’re like “can I” and I’ll be like if mum and dad okay then let’s go and so we’d get back out on the court and invariably, I take a footy out, but the kids would just want to smash into my chair. Just smash and crash It’s like I equate it to the proverbial kids see a puddle of mud and I want to jump in it. Well, that’s what these kids want to do They see us smashing bashed chairs and they want to do exactly the same.

So then last year we started to go out, we hired some chairs, we hired a trailer and we would go out to schools and we would, and our plan was with Freedom that we would actually be able to go to schools where there might be a little one in a chair and we would make them king or queen for a day. And we still do that and that’s amazing when we get to that because I would drag the kids up and show them how to use a sports chair and I know how hard it is.

But what we’ve found this year and so we sort of tried it last year. This year we’ve gone all in and we’ve set up Freedom Sports Foundation. I’ve pulled together an amazing board of people who are supportive of what we’re trying to achieve here. And we go out to schools now and quite often most of the schools have no one with disability in them. So what we do now is we actually, we tie them into the curriculum or whatever the case may be, their learning outcomes, but we actually show these kids what it’s like in a chair. one of the mums, Kat, I credit, Kat with this regularly I once made a comment that I want to normalize sports for kids in wheelchairs. that when, she was like, “Hendo, you don’t get it. You’re not normalizing it. You’re making it cool.” And I was like, I love that sentiment because that’s exactly what we do for kids in chairs. What we do is we go out and we make it so much fun and they get to be the first picked when we’re playing a game of wheelchair footy. It’s like when I go to a school where there’s no one with a disability, but I make those kids understand what it means.

And maybe we change their perception of people with disabilities. Maybe we change the way they view the next time they encounter someone in a coffee shop or a cafe or a restaurant or in a supermarket, that they’ll actually look past the chair, and they’ll actually go, hey, how are you? You’re up? What’s going on? And just be normal because I’ve learned, and again, my teammates at Richmond and now at Essendon, you know, a lot of them were born with their things, spinal bifida or cerebral palsy or whatever the case may have been. Some, yep, some are accidents, but those kids, those young adults, those people just want to be treated as per normal. And so, when we go out and now we’re starting to do a few corporates and similarly, you know, corporates are there. It’s an education for them. They’ve never been in a wheelchair. So, to play footy and to crash and bash and have all that fun with it. But then I go, let’s go out onto the footpath and see how you go on the footpath in the chair. And let’s try and grab a drink of water from the, from the tap or whatever it may be. And how hard is it to get around now?

So, what we do it with freedom is amazing and I love what we do. It’s the coolest way, not only that, but I get to employ all the wheelchair footballers and basketballers who now sometimes struggle to find work. They get to come out with us, and they get to play footy or basketball or whatever else with stuff with the Paralympics and stuff that we do and whether it be volleyball or whatever. It’s amazing what we get to do, and I love it. We’re really blessed to be in that situation and be able to do that I guess.

Jeremy Henderson

I think you said a second ago that you’re actually making it cool, but what are you seeing on the ground? you seeing these young kids sort of having their eyes opened and having that sort of greater awareness of going, wow, this is actually, this is hard.

Chris Henderson

Yeah, we are. again, it’s every facet of that. I mean, we talk around the chairs. Like my chair would be, to go out and buy my chair today would be probably $18,000 to $20,000 in equipment. So, it’s really, it’s expensive equipment. And as I say to lot of the kids, like if we go out into a footy oval, I’ll probably be able to kick the footy with you for couple minutes until I fell over. But put me in a wheelchair against you and I will run rings around you. So then…

And again, you know, sometimes I could hit someone and knock them out of the chair, but sometimes I just hit someone so that they sit upright, sit up straight. And then they kind of have an appreciation for what it’s like to play wheelchair sport and they love it. I’m not saying they don’t, but they love what it represents. then, so, I don’t know, maybe the next generation of people who, the more kids we get to see, the more schools we get to see, maybe we’ll change the way they perceive disabilities in the future.

You know, I often equate it to my little boy, Ronnie’s four and Ronnie doesn’t see the wheelchair. He’ll walk up to somebody in a wheelchair and just go, hi, what’s your name? And that to me is exactly what it should be like. It’s like, you know, I’ve had conversations with the AFL around this and around that just, we’ve just come away from the nationals in Brisbane and I was fortunate enough to be captain of the big countryside and, and this year they’ve called it The Open, which is, I love that fact because when I was involved in those conversations,

I was like, you’re sitting here and all you’re doing is focusing on what we can’t do. And we already know what we can’t do. We don’t need you to tell us what we can’t do. We’re well aware of what we can and can’t do. So just celebrate what we can do. So, they changed the name to just The Open. I was like, yeah, you get it. You listen to what I’m saying. And so, I don’t know, that’s probably not to do with me. It’s got far more people than me involved and far more intellect or whatever. But I think that we have an opportunity to make a real difference. And I’m really proud of that.

Jeremy Henderson

Chris, I have to ask this question. You’ve been talking about the physicality of wheelchair footy. I can’t help but notice you’ve got one of your fingers in a splint there. Is that that a wheelchair footy injury?

Chris Henderson

Yeah, that is that’s yeah, I have blisters all over my fingers. That’s from Brisbane the other week. So, I broke my finger. I broke my finger in Brisbane. One of the first one of the early games, so I had it strapped up, but it’s I keep and it’s weird, isn’t it? Fingers are so hard. So, things like doonas and towels when I get out of the shower, I hurt it. So, I just wear that with a split now to sort of try and protect it. So, we start preseason in a couple of months. I’ve got to be right to go, sort of by February, so yeah.

Jeremy Henderson

It’s a really nice segue to come back to the season ahead and your new role at Essendon. I should mention MS Australia’s had a previous connection with the Essendon footy club. The captain of the men’s football team, Zach Merritt’s mother lives with MS. Is Zach somebody that you’ve had contact with through your work at the club?

Chris Henderson

Yeah, I met Zach last week. We had a day up at the Hangar with International People with Disabilities Day and I emceed an event with a bunch of different people. Kyle Langford from the men, Jess Gallagher and also James Leonard, of our captains at this and then we actually did a whole series of events for all staff. There’s about 270 staff and players there so it was a really great celebration about the day.

We played wheelchair footy, and I played with Zach. I mentioned about his mum, and I said that I was doing this chat with you and then I made him look good. he was pretty appreciative of that fact. I just told him to stay deep in the goalscoring and I’ll get the ball to him and make him look good. So, he scored all the goals for the day. So yeah.

Jeremy Henderson

Excellent. Tell me about the upcoming season. You’ve got a premiership in your sights?

Chris Henderson

Well, Jeremy, we don’t like to talk about that too far, but we like to keep a lid on it a little bit. But certainly, Essendon’s never won one. So that’s a very real Craig and Bolts and the team, Tim and your Ira at Essendon, the community team are really focused on building it out so that Craig’s the CEO, Craig Bozzo, he’s really strong on having five teams. So, two men, two women and the wheelchair team.

And really strong and that’s something that Richmond’s been really proud of over the journey as well and I’ve been a part of that. And I’ve loved my time at Richmond. I have nothing but love for the Richmond Football Club and everything that they represent. But the opportunity, the challenge that Essendon presents, never having won one, I think they’ve lost three grand finals maybe over the journey. So, they’ve been getting close but never been able to salute.

The challenge that provides me is to see how good I’d go coaching someone that’s never won it before. So, I think that’s a really big challenge for me personally. And it’s probably, I know that I can play, but it’s like, want to see how I go coaching and being able to get the best out of individuals and the collective. And then to do us where Essendon, so Essendon’s at the hangar up in Tullamarine, which is also where the Australian Paralympics is housed. So, to work with those guys and to work with Freedom Sports Foundation and be able to develop that even further is exciting for me on so many levels, personally and professionally, if you will. yeah, it’s a really, again, it was a bit of a heavy heart at the start, but now that I’m in, yeah, I’m excited for what it’s going to look like. And I think the players behind me, sort of with me, are also suitably excited at what 25 is going to look like. So, it’ll be fun. It’ll be real fun.

Jeremy Henderson

Excellent. And Chris, just to bring this to a close, I wonder if you can tell me about your personal mantra. See, believe, dream, achieve, and what that means to you and what that means to you as somebody living with MS and how you live your life.

Chris Henderson

Thanks. Yeah, and it’s funny, like when we started Freedom, we were having a brainstorming session and I was with the board and I was sort of at the time saying, and initially I was saying if people see us doing stuff, and again, you can insert a here footy or playing guitar;  it doesn’t matter what it is, but if you could see it and then you could believe it and then you could achieve it.

So, Freedom was designed that eventually we want to get to a stage where we can actually open up a grant window to help these people achieve their dreams. So initially we were going to have it see, see, achieve. but then I was talking to, I have four little boys that are little superstars, little Hugh, Noah, Lincoln, Bo and then I’ve coached them and the AFLOS kick wheelchair AFLOS kick for a couple of years and they’re four little superstars and they, they’re my little buddies and it was funny I was chatting to them one day and I was talking around the fact that they had never thought about but now they dreamed about one day going to the Paralympics or and so then I went so if they see it then they can dream it and then they can believe that it’s real and then it can be they can achieve those things and so it’s and I don’t pardon my French but I don’t really give a shit about anything other than if these kids and I’m get to be a part of their journey for a little bit of that but we actually help them on their way, then that’s incredible. That for me is what it’s all about. So that’s where we added in See, Believe, Dream, Achieve. So that we felt that if they see it and they believe it’s possible and then they can dream it and then we can help them to achieve it. And we just want to be a part of that. If that’s a stepping stone to it, if that’s just seeing us do what we do and people can, and again, like I’ve spent time a couple weeks ago at the Talbot Rehabilitation Centre with a young man who lost his leg in a car accident. A 22-year-old lost his leg in a car accident. I think it equates to MS as well because I think that I have an affinity with people who have invisible disabilities because we are, sometimes the challenges we face are not as obvious as for a lot of people. So, I understand that. You know, for years I refused to get a parking permit to be able to park in a disabled spot, even though my wife would argue that I needed it more than anyone sometimes if my legs are bad. But I refused because I just didn’t want to have to deal with people having a crack at me about parking at disabled spot. So, yeah, I have got one now, but I’ve only encountered one or two people that have felt the need to question my validity about that, which I guess is just what happens.

But yeah, so for me, that’s how we started with See, Believe, Dream, Achieve, is that we want to help to facilitate what’s possible. And again, I’ve met kids who never thought about it. And again, for some kids, they’re not permanently in chairs. So, they can walk, but they’re better in a day chair. so, they equate they are like they look at me and go, yeah, I’m like Hendo. Which still doesn’t sit well with me in lots of ways, but I understand it.

Jeremy Henderson

Chris, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your story. It’s been really inspiring speaking with you today. Good luck for the season ahead in 2025 and thank you so much for joining us today on the Raw Nerve.

Voiceover:

Thanks for listening to The Raw Nerve, the official podcast of MS Australia. To hear more, subscribe to our podcast today, at msaustralia.org.au/podcast.

Views expressed on the Raw Nerve Podcast, including any discussions or reference to medications or treatments by podcast guests, do not necessarily represent the views of MS Australia and should not be seen as either an endorsement or rejection of a treatment.

MS Australia does not recommend any specific treatment for people living with MS. Decisions about any treatments, taking into consideration the potential benefits and side effects for each individual’s circumstances, should be made in careful consultation with the person’s neurologist.

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See, believe, dream, achieve