This is the story of the boy who didn’t listen when they said he couldn’t, who kept going when they were convinced he wouldn’t. Who they thought wasn’t worthy of a single game, so he went and played 300 of them. Who became not only a great of his club, but of the AFL.

Sam Mitchell was in grade one at Bimbadeen Heights primary when he came home one day and announced he wanted to do “footy clinic”. What became Auskick was called Vickick back then. The terminology wasn’t important – he saw a game whose essence was getting the footy, and he wanted some of that.

His father hadn’t been a footballer, but the son remembers finding books around the house with titles like “How To Coach Youngsters”. They pored over them together, and he pulled on his St Kilda jumper with Tony Lockett’s No.4 on the back and played fantastical games in the loungeroom with a balloon.

There are potholes in every sporting road, and his father shared the bumps. After games at Moorabbin and Waverley Park Mitchell stowed empty cans into garbage bags for pocket money. “One day I had a really good haul, a few garbage bags full. We couldn’t fit them all, so we laid them out on the driveway and Dad drove over and over them to flatten them out.” Two punctured tyres later, it was decided the son would crush his own cans.

At Vickick he saw a kid named Peter Atkinson who could run and jump, another called Ryan Newstead who was a strong mark. He vowed to be good at both. In an early hint at a knack for reading the play, he traded his No.4 for Nathan Burke’s No.3. “Little inside-mid, nuggety, tough. I never adopted the helmet though.”

In grade five he’d still never played in a team. Churning with nerves, he headed off to Mooroolbark under 12s training but got the night wrong. The under 14s were playing “Marker’s Up”. He joined in and outmarked the bigger kids. “He can stay in the under 14s,” the coach said. He felt the warmth that comes with confidence.

The emotional flipside came in his draft age year – in the national under 18 championships he got little game time in which to impress, then a dozen Eastern Ranges teammates were invited to draft camp but there was no letter address to S.Mitchell. “We had guys who weren’t getting a TAC Cup game who got invited. It was the era of wanting everyone to be an athlete.” For the first time he thought, “They don’t think I’m gunna make it.”

Hawthorn saw something others didn’t. In 2002 he played 11 games for Box Hill and earned three votes in 10 of them to win the Liston Medal in a canter. Kris Barlow tweaked a calf and he was picked to debut. Barlow recovered in time to play but Mitchell kept his spot. He had a solitary kick and three handballs.

He went back to the VFL, earned a recall and finished with 22 possessions in the last game against Geelong. He polled a vote in the Brownlow, the first of 204 and counting. “It was Crawf’s 200th game, Nick Holland’s 150th. “I’d established I could play at the level. I was shattered the season was finished.”

Terry Gay had presented him with No.28, which had passed through eight sets of hands in eight seasons. “Make sure you keep it,” Gay told him. Before the 2003 season footy manager John Hook asked if he’d like to trade up to No.5. Mitchell said no thanks, but at the jumper presentation was shocked to hear, “Moving into No.5 – Sam Mitchell!”

He was still spending chunks of games on the bench, but against Adelaide in round 10 coach Peter
Schwab gave his youngest Hawks their chance to shine. In his 20th game, Mitchell started in the
centre square for the first time. “From that point of the season onwards I was a starting midfielder,
and have been ever since.”

Now he becomes the seventh Hawk to reach 300, the latest in a remarkable chain of numbers that
would need crushing to fit in the sack of his stellar career. Four premierships, three Peter Crimmins
Medals, four All-Australians, more disposals than anyone since that humble first-game return. And
they said he wouldn’t make it.

Through football he met Lyndall, who came to pick up a mate at Luke Hodge’s place one post-game
evening, and who a couple of days later had been on the phone asking her friend about Mitchell five
minutes before he rang to ask about her. He thinks she’d describe him as misunderstood, nicer than
most people think, but still a bit of a juvenile.

Before he was a family man his life was a routine wedded to football. When Lyndall fell ill before
they knew she was pregnant with Smith, he spent a day and night at the hospital, stole a couple of
hours sleep and played well regardless. “It was a lightbulb moment – you don’t play footy well
because you get to bed at a certain time and you eat Weet-Bix and you do this or that. You play
footy well because you’re good at it.”

Twins Scarlett and Emmy followed, and he found himself becoming more empathetic towards those
who don’t have his drive. “I evolved, it made me more relaxed.”

As a footballer he’s proud that mistakes have never cowed him. Very occasionally he might be run
down from behind, or that risky kick others aren’t game to try won’t come off. “I don’t mind getting
embarrassed. I can get past it, I’ll try it again. And for the most part I don’t get caught, and I usually
hit those kicks.”

He long ago apologised to Terry Gay about the mix-up with his old number, but has nothing to rue in
his service to No.5. As a youth he imagined the man he wanted to be – a good father, husband, son,
person, teammate. “I think I’ve lived my values, I’ve been the person I wanted to be.”