Not All Black and White: Scott Hodges’ Life in Football and How It Almost Ended

The one book on sport - and mental illness - that everyone must read

On paper Scotty Hodges had it all.

In a football career almost without peer, Scott was drafted as a teenager to represent the team he loved, Port Adelaide, and would go on to win a staggering eight premierships.

He would break the State’s all-time goal-kicking record, win its highest honour, the Magarey Medal, and be headhunted as the star forward in the inaugural Adelaide Crows AFL team. He had a beautiful wife, herself the daughter of football royalty, and two gorgeous young kids.

Behind all this his life was falling apart.

For years, Scott grappled with undiagnosed mental illness, sending him into a spiral of confusion and isolation, drug and alcohol abuse, anger and violence. He kept this secret from the world, and even began planning his own demise.

This is the gritty and raw account of how an ordinary man overcame extraordinary demons, and emerged the other side with a message of hope and survival.