Life’s still a ball

By Justin Robertson
FOR Adam Ramanauskas post football life has been bustling.
With a regular spot on ABC radio, day to day player management commitments at Elite Sports properties and media duties for Call to Arms, he’s barely had time to sit down.
On weekends, you’ll see him running around the MCG delivering messages to the Essendon players. It’s part of the small development role he has with the Bombers.
And he’s just released a new book, written with journalist Emma Quayle, called ‘Nine Lives’ documenting his football career and fight against cancer.
During the Call to Arms month of July the former Bomber has been spending his time at various public speaking events at sporting clubs to help raise cancer awareness. In its fifth year now the national program is supported by Essendon Football Club and the Victorian Cancer Council and hopes to raise a whopping $1 million this year.
“It’s such a big fund-raising event, it’s quite exciting to be a part of,” he said. “I’ve been an ambassador since the start really, obviously on the back of Essendon wearing a yellow armband all those years ago against Melbourne and out of that the Cancer Council asked me if I wanted to be an ambassador.”
The St John’s College old boy went back to Noble Park for their Call to Arms match last month.
“I was down there a couple of weeks ago and they raised a heap of money for it, which is phenomenal,” he said. “They are always so welcoming, they always invite me back to the club and when I go back there, it does feel like home with plenty of familiar faces around.”
Despite being a basketball nut and after short stints of footy at Doveton, Hallam and Endeavour Hills, he was eventually lured down to Noble Park by his best mate some 14 years ago and began his football career in the under 15s.
“It just so happened that one of my dad’s best mates, Peter Boyle, was coaching at the time too,” he said. “I guess the stars aligned and the rest is history.”
In 2003 when doctors found a benign lump in the midfielder’s neck, his life took a jolt.
During that long period of uncertainty where “Rama” fought off three bouts of cancer, aside from the Bombers and close friends and relatives, Noble Park president, Kevin Wright and life member Ian “Pissy” Wilson were among the hordes of people who offered him continued support at Noble Park.
“They’ve both been fantastic to me and not only to me, but to my parents as well, but they are only two guys – there have been so many other people that have been fantastic as well,” he said. “They are a real community club, a fantastic bunch of people and you can see why they’ve had so much success over the years.”
With the birth of his second child duethis month, it doesn’t look like life will be slowing down for Ramanauskas anytime soon.
“I’m really enjoying my involvement with football and what I’m doing with work, to be honest,” he said. “It’s time I give back to my family but, yeah, life’s pretty good at the moment.”