Archie Smith would have never considered an AFL career had it not been for the Hyundai Brisbane Lions Academy.
Smith looked set to follow in his father’s footsteps by becoming a professional basketball player, until he was spotted by the Club’s Northern and Pacific Talent Identification Officer, Ashley Drake, at a local basketball game.
Drake was immediately impressed with the 200cm giant’s obvious athletic abilities, so invited him to join the Academy.
Smith baulked at first, but with the continued persuasion from Drake, he eventually warmed to the idea of enhancing his fitness in a professional sporting environment.
If nothing else, he saw it as a good way to improve his basketball.
But before long, Smith was hooked on the previously foreign sport of Australian Rules, and went on to represent Queensland at U18 level on the back of just a few months of training.
His hard work was ultimately rewarded last December when he was selected by the Lions at the Rookie Draft.
Without a program such as the Academy, a prodigious talent such as Smith might have been lost to the AFL forever.
“There’s absolutely no chance that I’d be where I am today without the Lions Academy,” Smith told lions.com.au.
“It's great in the sense that it helped teach me the game of football from scratch, as well as set me up for a professional environment early on.
“All the work that goes into it…it’s not just the training and gym during the week; the Academy also gets professional players in to go through some of the finer details with you. There’s a lot of care, and you really feel as though you’re being looked after.”
Smith said he will be forever grateful to Drake and the Academy coaches for helping steer his sporting future down a somewhat unexpected path.
“(Ashley Drake) is pretty persistent to the point where he’s annoying, but he’s the best bloke I know,” Smith said.
“The amount he’s done for me, I can’t find a way to repay him.
“I’ve been his first athlete to come through from another sport and get onto an AFL list, and it’s all due to his hard work. He went above and beyond his job description to help me out – he even got me a job at Rebel Sport. I owe him a lot.”
Smith is still relatively ‘raw’ in terms of his AFL development and there’s no telling how his AFL future will pan out.
However, his story might open the door for more talented young Queenslanders with a non-AFL background to consider switching to AFL.
And there’s no greater advocate of the Lions Academy than Smith himself.
“The best thing you can do is give it a shot. The worst that can happen is that you’ll get incredibly fit, which will help you become even better at your own sport. I obviously recommend it highly,” Smith said.
“I didn’t make my final decision to focus on AFL until late in the year as I was still playing basketball throughout 2013.
“The improvement in my basketball went through the roof thanks to the extra fitness and training I was getting through the Academy. In the end, I ended up falling in love with AFL and wanted to learn more and challenge myself with something different.”
Smith praises program
Archie Smith is one of the great stories from the Lions Academy