The miracle of Daniel Hayes's life on and off the football field is that he is still here to tell his story.
It was 17 years ago when the Aboriginal small forward from the Melbourne suburb of Montrose was forging a path to football fame, recruited into the AFL by the Melbourne Football Club among a draft class that would play hundreds of league games between them.
The attributes Hayes possessed were prized by any club: speed, agility — he was among the top 2 per cent of performers in the latter category at the AFL draft camp — and the priceless ability to kick goals in big games.
As a 17-year-old "bottom-age" player, he kicked five goals in the Eastern Ranges' 2005 semifinal victory in the TAC Cup — the AFL's elite junior competition from which the cream of each year's teenage footballers are recruited into the professional game.
John Lamont was the head coach of the Eastern Ranges during Hayes's time with the club. He remembers a player of rich potential.
"Hayesy had real AFL attributes — he was skilful, light on his feet with a good turn of speed," Lamont says.
"He could change direction with good sideways lateral movement, good evasive skills and clean hands. They're all AFL attributes.
"So, that's why when I first met him, I just sort of said, 'He needs to be in our program.'"
However, for all his talent and potential, Hayes would never feature in a single senior AFL game for the Demons.
At the time, media and fans put it down to the "commitment issues" label so often thoughtlessly applied to Indigenous players who do not thrive in the high-stakes world of big-time football.
None could have fathomed the feelings Hayes was grappling with.
'That's something I'm holding on to'
In a Victorian Supreme Court writ served on the AFL and former Eastern Ranges' assistant coach Mark Heaney this week by Daniel Hayes's lawyers, Arnold Thomas Becker, Hayes alleged that, following a boozy post-game barbecue at the home of Heaney, he was "raped" by Heaney after other guests had left.
The court documents allege that: "As a result of the abuse, [Daniel Hayes] self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. He has made three suicide attempts" and "but for the abuse, [Daniel Hayes] would have continued with the Melbourne Demons".
In response to questions from the ABC about Hayes's allegation, Heaney said: "I deny that. I had a professional relationship with him as a trainee and player."
Nine years after the events alleged in the claim — by which time Heaney was an AFL employee playing a crucial role in the code's New South Wales expansion — Heaney pleaded guilty to one count of using a carriage service to groom a child under the age of 16 for sex, and was jailed for a year.
Seeing media reports of Heaney's disgrace filled Hayes with feelings of sickness and guilt that he had not made his own allegations earlier.
"I felt bad, like maybe if I had said something earlier … that's something I'm holding on to," Hayes says.
"I should have come out and said it when it happened. I should have come out and told people."
Hayes's complaint is now the subject of a new Victoria Police investigation.
'My dream was to play AFL footy'
That Daniel Hayes had even clung on to his football dream until the 2006 AFL draft was a miracle in itself.
For much of his childhood, Hayes had tried to make the best out of bad situations that were beyond his control.
Separated from his mother for long periods, he was raised by his foster parents, Helen and Arch Daniel.
"Arch was the main one to take me to footy training, to pick me up from school," Hayes says.
"Nan [Helen] would do everything else. I couldn't say a bad word about them. I loved them."
He was a quiet, shy kid who lived for sport and his gifts were obvious.
To Helen, football must have seemed like a lifeline for Daniel and the goal of a professional career something positive for all the family to work towards.
"I was that one kid [who] slept with a footy, [who] did everything with a footy," Hayes says.
"I used to eat my dinner with peas and set up goal squares.
"My dream was to play AFL footy."
In a self-published book of her life that covered those times, Helen wrote of Heaney and Ranges head coach John Lamont as "angels" who were "supporting Daniel towards his dream".
She did not know of the allegations at the time, nor did she imagine that, two decades later, Daniel would be suing Heaney and the AFL.
'I blame myself for it every single day'
For the past 17 years, Daniel Hayes's most formidable opponent has been the mental ill health that affects almost every aspect of his life.
"I've got anger-management issues," Hayes says.
"I've been into rehab. I've been on every single tablet.
"I've tried to end my life three times."
In his late teens, Daniel hid his feelings and few seemed to notice the warning signs that his mental health was deteriorating.
From state selection as a bottom-age player, Hayes was almost a non-starter in his senior year in the TAC Cup.
He found any excuse not to play, he now admits, featuring in only five of the Ranges' games in 2006.
"By then, I was faking injuries because I didn't want to be around the club," Hayes says.
Having slid down the pecking order to AFL rookie list selection, his early days with the Demons were characterised by disappearing acts and club-imposed suspensions.
At one point, struggling to cope, he missed training to visit his mother in Bairnsdale.
"I just wanted to go back home with family and Mum. That's all I wanted to do," Hayes says.
"I finally made it back to Bairnsdale and I saw an article in the Herald Sun about me missing training.
"I was pretty shocked. I thought, being a young guy and a new player, no-one knew me, so it was more disappointing because they didn't know what was going on with me."
He believes he may have worked through his mental health challenges back then if then-AFL players had the mental health support structures they do now.
"I didn't know how to cope with it," Hayes says.
"I wish I was in AFL now because there's way more help for people to come out and ask for it.
"Back then, if you were struggling, you had to deal with it, like, 'Come on.'"
As quickly as he arrived on the AFL scene, he disappeared, turning his back on football and entering a world of alcohol, drugs and self-destruction.
"I gave it away," he says.
"I blame myself for it every single day.
"It was meant to be the best time of my life, something to strive for. I started hurting people after that day. I started pushing them away."
His inevitable delisting from the Demons instantly changed his outlook on life.
"My first week after I got delisted from Melbourne, I went partying and I hit the drugs," he says.
"I'd never hit the drugs in my life before that night, but I abused my body."
'I need help. I need to fix myself'
With no guard rails in place, and his football dream over, Hayes says drug use and mental illness blighted his post-AFL years, not just hindering his ability to get and keep a job but to hold a growing family together.
Hayes has five children, four of whom he says he doesn't see, so acute have been his personal problems.
"When I hit the drugs, we lost our kids," Hayes says.
His youngest daughter with his current partner lives two hours away with a kinship carer.
"We travel every fortnight to pick her up. We see her for two days and that's it," he says.
"I need help. I need to fix myself and there's no day I don't think about wanting to see my kids."
Since leaving the Demons, Hayes has tried his hand at a few jobs, working in cultural heritage, traffic control, plastering and at an abattoir.
However, he says, his depression comes in such devastating and regular cycles that he can't keep a job for longer than a few months.
"I can't get a stable house or hold a stable job," Hayes says.
"The same circle goes on with me: I get in two months of work, then I want to quit, so I don't answer my phone. My depression is bad."
In an ideal world, he would be financially secure and basking in the afterglow of a glittering AFL career.
Instead, he says, he is sometimes so debilitated by his personal problems that he goes days without eating.
"I don't do anything these days," Hayes admits.
"I've got no friends. I've only got my family and my partner."
"I just feel sorry for my kids and my partner."
In recent years, football has been one of the few positive forces in his life.
This year, Hayes is assistant coach of Swifts Creek, following stints with Trafalgar, Paynesville, Wy Yung, Orbost, Lakes Entrance, Barwon Heads, Mooroopna, Morwell East and Ellinbank.
"Footy is everything to me, for my mental health," Hayes says.
"It helps me with being out there for a couple of hours with mates, trying to achieve something at the end of the year, being part of something, a brotherhood."
However, here, too, there is a caveat.
Despite his love of the game, and the relief it can provide to an overburdened mind, Hayes says his depression has thrown entire seasons off-track, hence the long list of clubs.
"It sort of goes up and down," Hayes says.
"When I do have depression, I don't tell the footy club."
"I don't give them an explanation, I just leave."
'I'm an Aboriginal man who has been looking for help for years'
In 2020, like so many Victorians feeling the strain and uncertainty of lockdowns, Hayes reached a personal crisis point.
"I hit rock bottom," he says.
After spending 19 days in a mental health facility, Hayes finally talked to his family about his state of mind.
"I spoke to Mum, and my younger sister in Bairnsdale and there were a lot of tears," Hayes says.
"I'm an Aboriginal man who has been looking for help for years now and no-one seems to be helping."
By sharing his story, Daniel hopes to empower others to share theirs.
"With my voice now, I hope I'll be a good role model for everyone [who] wants to come out with their story," he says.
However, without a stable job, he and his partner battle to pay the bills and get by.
"I'm struggling," he says.
"For someone to be living off payments once a fortnight … no one can live off that.
"I'm hoping to get a stable house for me and my partner. It's going to help me, because I want to start fresh and, by starting fresh, I can maybe start again with my kids down the road."
Importantly, he is beginning to conquer tasks within his control, getting himself clean of drugs and seeking counselling.
"If I go down that road again, I don't think I'll come out of it," Hayes says.
"I'm pushing myself so I can get myself better."
Do you have more information about this story? Contact Bec Symons at symons.bec@abc.net.au
Additional reporting by Russell Jackson
