Powerful athletes storming across the field, muscled, tough and fast – it’s the image most of us have of professional rugby league players. Phillip Borell (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Tūwharetoa), however, has seen another side of the picture: of young men vulnerable to homesickness, depression, economic insecurity and even suicide.
In his University of Canterbury PhD thesis, completed last year, Borell shone a light on the experiences of 10 Polynesian professional rugby league players and found that they were significantly different from what we see on TV.
“At least three of my [research] participants spoke about having deep depression when they got over to Australia, because they went over at 16 or 17 years old,” he says.
“One of the guys I spoke to, he’ll rack up 50 NRL [National Rugby League] games this season and is doing really well, but when he got over there, he said it was the toughest thing. You had no idea if you were going to make it. You’re 17, you’re doing everything you can, but in the back of your mind it’s, like, ‘Man, it’d be a lot easier to go home and be with my family.’
“And some of the guys didn’t want to talk to their welfare managers because they didn’t want to show any signs of weakness. Because if the manager goes to the coach and tells him this guy’s depressed or misses his mum, then maybe he won’t get selected.”
Borell did his PhD through the university’s health sciences faculty, where he teaches in the bachelor of sport coaching course. He also lectures at its Aotahi – School of Māori and Indigenous Studies. For the past two years, he’s been voted “Overall Lecturer of the Year” by the university’s students.
He decided to undertake his PhD research after hearing about a number of player suicides in 2015-16. Initially, he thought it would dig deeper into clubs’ pastoral care policies and strategies, but once he began building relationships with players, he saw greater value in sharing their experiences. The players’ stories are expressed in his thesis largely in their own words, in the storytelling traditions of pūrākau and talanoa. This provided a voice for those who are often written about, he says, but rarely get to tell their own stories.
Borell says pastoral care for players is getting better, but the research could help inform further improvements – particularly in culturally appropriate ways for the Māori and Pacific players who make up nearly half the NRL player roster.
He also sees his work contributing to wider conversations about Polynesian masculinity. As part of a recent University of Canterbury public lecture series, Borell gave a talk titled “Run it straight: Towards a nurturing masculinity in Polynesian men”. The talk drew on his research to explore the “hardman” image often used to define Māori and Pacific men and the very different ways they more often see themselves: as fathers, sons, partners and community members.
“We have this obsession with being hard and it doesn’t do us any favours. It’s one thing to be physically strong and dominant in a place like the footy field … but one of the participants expressed it well when he said, ‘It’s actually hurtful to see me only as an athlete; you don’t see me as a father, a business owner, a husband or a son.’ All of these other roles that Polynesian men have in our communities and within our families, they get disregarded because they’re seen through this lens of their physicality.”
Sharing the vulnerability expressed through the players’ stories has resonance beyond the sportsfield, he says, given that professional athletes are role models for many young men.
Everyday language
Borell says his findings also gel with national conversations, such as those led by his good friend Mataio Brown, who, with his wife Sarah, founded the family-violence prevention movement She is Not Your Rehab. The movement has its origins in Brown’s Christchurch barbershop, where he shares his own experiences of family violence and abuse with clients. The couple have since grown a huge platform, and central to their messages and work is redefining society’s ideas of masculinity in ways that embrace vulnerability, connection and community.
Brown recalls meeting Borell more than a decade ago when he first sat in his barber’s chair, and now counts him as a close friend. He says Borell’s work is important because it puts an academic lens on issues of Māori and Pacific masculinity in an accessible way.
“Often in the family-violence prevention and mental health sectors where we’re working, there’s a lot of psychobabble, which is not accessible to a lot of our men who come from these places of trauma and pain. Phil is always the smartest man in the room, but he expresses his ideas in language that everyday men in our communities can understand – because Phil also comes from our neighbourhood.”
Warriors fan
Borell was born and raised in Christchurch and while academia and rugby league have been twin passions in his life, he was bitten by the league bug first.
“I was about 12 when the Warriors launched in 1995 and I remember watching their first game against the Broncos. I was on the phone with one of my mates and I remember saying, ‘What is this sport? This is awesome!’ From then on, I was begging Mum, ‘I need to play this sport’.”
Now the father of two boys, he remains a Warriors fan. He played into his early thirties, then about five years ago began training players for Canterbury’s Premier League & Reserves competition. He now sits on the Canterbury Rugby League board.
The story of his journey into academia is far from linear and he shares it often with young people to illustrate there are many ways to find a career you love. He describes getting kicked out of high school in his final year, before returning thanks to support from a community advocate, then being encouraged into a polytech diploma course in Māori studies. He started studying at the university in 2002, later taking a year off to begin a plastering apprenticeship, then going back and ultimately teaching there from 2008.
Teaching is a privilege, he says, and, as with his research, he loves the opportunity it offers to change perceptions. He thinks his Lecturer of the Year titles probably reflect his accessible approach: “When you’re in front of a lecture theatre of students they don’t need to hear jargon. They just want information that’s relatable and something that’s engaging, you know?”
He eschews the idea of being a role model, but is a leader in his community. For six years, he and his wife, Stephenie van den Anker, along with friend Heperi Harris, ran a community gym. Now, they’re piloting an academy – which includes wānanga, mentoring and wellbeing support – for rangatahi playing the sport of kī-o-rahi.
It’s a holistic approach that he also applies when training rugby league players.
“I’m tasked with getting them fit and making sure they’re physically capable of getting through games, but also if they get injured, I’m following up – sometimes a little too much,” he laughs. “It’s like, ‘Hey bro, how are you doing today? How are you feeling? Is the darkness creeping in? What’s our plan?’”
Where to get help:
If it’s an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
· Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor
· Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
· Lifeline – 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP)
· Youthline – 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat
· 0800 What’s Up - 0800 942 8787
· Samaritans – 0800 726 666
· Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757 or free text 4202 to talk to a trained counsellor, or visit depression.org.nz
· Anxiety New Zealand - 0800 269 4389 (0800 ANXIETY)
· Healthline – 0800 611 116
· Additional specialist helpline links: https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/get-help/in-crisis/helplines/
