Whether it’s for football his family or working on the farm Tom Hawkins knows that doing your best for everyone is what matters
Between football, family and farming, a day in the life of Tom Hawkins is a busy one.
Tom is up early to tick off his morning farm jobs, such as checking the fences and feeding cattle. He’s then off to training or a matchday game as an AFL Geelong Cats superstar, where Tom played game 334 in AFL Country Round 2023.
For Tom, one thread that runs through his three passions – family, football and farming – is dependability.
And the values of being honest, earnest and, as Tom says, “Showing up is key to all three. Every farmer knows that reliability counts—often, as a farmer, there’s just you to do everything required to keep things running.”
Right now, Tom’s working cattle farm just outside of Geelong is in the midst of autumn calving, an exciting, albeit busy, time of the season.
Each day comes with feeding and multiple checks to make sure that Tom can get any cattle off the paddock that are about to calve. As Tom explains, “Even during a busy season, important jobs still need to be done, cattle don’t know when it’s game day.”
Although he wishes that lifting hay bales could count as a weights session for the week, there’s no denying that his itinerary runs as a 24/7 commitment and his passions too, and that’s what showing up means to Tom – values he has learnt as a third generation farmer.
A balancing act
Despite the immense time commitments and pressures of football, Tom always has one eye on the farm and is constantly planning what needs to be done on his to-do list.
On the way to and from training, he is often thinking two steps ahead, also considering how to work his footy and farming around his family life. Day in, day out, you need to know and trust that your tools and machinery are going to get the job done.
You need to be hands-on. Tom realises he needs to be hands-on and running his property has shown him that you don’t know reliability until you experience it. That’s why tools such as his Can-Am make such a difference in his day-to-day.
Can-Am is really proud to have Tom as a customer and cattle farmer, to celebrate all the farmers across the country who value the same hard work ethic and reliability,” says Sam Strutt, Can-Am Brand Manager APAC.
Sam continues, “Our Aussie farmers are earnest and honest, and know why showing up is so important, day in, day out.” See the other side of Tom Hawkins, champion AFL player for the Geelong Cats as a cattle farmer on this video link.
Also see more content on Tom Hawkins on these links: Tom’s Livin’ the Land episode brought to you by Can-Am: canamtomhawkins.com.au
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