Former St Kilda star Justin Koschitzke breaks silence on playing AFL with head trauma
Koschitzke retired from the AFL at the end of 2013 after 200 games, but he now admits there were times when he didn't want to take the field due to dizziness and other symptoms of concussion.
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Koschitzke — a former No.2 draft pick in 2000 — also told gun interviewer Hamish McLachlan that he can 'relate' to people who have had Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and committed suicide as a result.
'The symptoms of people that have struggled with (CTE) and ended up taking their lives with it, really relate to me,' Koschitzke said in a chilling admission on Channel 7's Unfiltered.
In 2006, Koschitzke infamously collapsed during a live television interview on Seven.
That incident happened after he fractured his skull in a sickening collision with former Bulldogs star and current Essendon assistant Daniel Giansiracusa.
'So you're recognising the symptoms back then? Like, it's not as if you look back and thought I was suffering, you were very aware,' McLachlan asked Koschitzke.
Koschitzke said he had always been 'very aware' that he wasn't quite right when he was playing, but he thought the symptoms would pass 'because I've just been smashed in the head'.
'(I kept thinking) it will pass ... and this will get better, because you're in an environment where you don't want to lose respect from your teammates, you don't want to give an inch, you want to be in your armour because someone else is taking your spot (in the team),' he said.
'What I thought was 'manning up', was to come back and play that year, but if I had my time again, there's no way I would have played that year ... knowing what I know now.
'Maybe knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have played ever again.
'I can honestly say that. Why would I put myself in a situation to keep getting hit and keep getting hit knowing what I know and what I feel like as a 42-year-old.
'But back then your bulletproof, right? You think this is going to get better. Your legs are OK. No problem. Let's go and play.
'But it was just the most ridiculously uncomfortable period.
'And running up the race with the helmet on going, 'I'm not ready. I'm dizzy, I'm out of body,' and with the thought of the neurologist going, 'Jeez, I didn't know if you were ever going to walk or talk again,' and then you've actually got a game to think about. You've got a tactics, you've got opposition, you've got a game plan, you've got a structure, you've got all of this ...
'You've got to get yourself in a competitive environment, basically, when you're having an anxiety attack.'
Koschitzke then admitted to feeling 'shame' for just wanting his team to lose and the AFL year to end.
'I don't think I've ever said this publicly before. It was here at the MCG, there was an elimination final that year against Melbourne (in 2006).
'Melbourne got three or four goals up in the third quarter or late in the fourth. Internally, I was the happiest person in this stadium or anywhere in Australia that Melbourne were going to win, and I didn't have to play the next week ...
'I can remember being dazed in that game and sort of blurring my way through to the end of the game.
'Melbourne wins. We're eliminated. Relief here. I'm toeing the party line in the rooms like its a funeral, but in here I'm going, 'Thank God I don't have to rock 'n roll next week,'. The shame you carry for that (feeling),' he said.
'You've got coaches and teammates and fans and supporters and everybody that's riding on your back to win a game before you, but internally, I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, thank God I don't have to come and play again next week.
'(That was) 20 years ago, and that's the first time in public I've said that.
'(Playing) became the worst two hours of the week, and then the shame you have to carry for that.'
He said he often had to try and convince himself that he had the 'best job in the world' and there were 'millions of kids' who wanted to play AFL footy.
'And I get the opportunity to do it and play in it and be paid well for it,' he said.
'But I was like driving to the game (and I'm thinking) I just want this to be over.'
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