Oleksandr Vasiliovych "Alex" Jesaulenko ( ; , ; born 2 August 1945) is a former Australian rules footballer and who played for the Carlton Football Club and the St Kilda Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He also served as a coach at both clubs.
Jesaulenko is a Legend of the Australian Football Hall of Fame, and as a player was known for his versatility, uncanny balance and spectacular marking. He immortalised his reputation in the game by taking the most iconic mark in football history in the 1970 VFL Grand Final. In 2009 The Australian nominated Jesaulenko as one of the 25 greatest footballers never to win a Brownlow Medal.
Recruited from Canberra, Jesaulenko has played more games and kicked more goals than any other player from the Australian Capital Territory. He represented his home territory in 1978. His popularity caused the code to surge in popularity there, and he remains a household name in the ACT.
He remains to date the only Carlton footballer to have kicked 100 or more goals in a season, and the last player-coach to win a VFL/AFL premiership (1979).
In 2002, he was inducted into the Ukrainian Sports Hall of Fame. On 20 October 2010, he was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame. In July 2013, Jesaulenko was named captain of the first Australia Post Multicultural Team of Champions.
In January 2022, Jesaulenko was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
Early life
Jesaulenko was born in Salzburg, then Allied-occupied Austria. His father, Vasil, was Ukrainian and served as a German policeman during World War II. His mother, Vera, was born in Russia, and she had survived the horrors of seeing her father shot dead by German soldiers and having her first child, whom she first gave the name Alex, taken away from her when she was in a German prison camp. The child was not heard of again until over fifty years later.
Along with many other Eastern Europeans who were World War II refugees or displaced persons, the Jesaulenkos emigrated to Australia via the Norwegian passenger ship SS Skaugum. They arrived in the port of Melbourne on 28 July 1949. They spent the first six months living at the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre. According to Jesaulenko, the family name should have been spelt Esaulenko, but immigration officials listed "Esaulenko" with a "J" in front, thinking that they had heard a "J" in his name.
From there, the family moved to Canberra, where Vasil set up shop as a carpenter-cabinetmaker. The young Jesaulenko was enrolled at St Edmund's College and then Telopea Park High, where he played soccer and rugby union. He did not start playing Australian rules football until he was 14 years old. He began playing at the Eastlake Football Club in Canberra.
Playing career
Early playing career
Jesaulenko has credited his time at Eastlake for instilling in him a winning culture. After breaking into the senior team, he quickly established himself as a star, playing in three consecutive premierships for Eastlake from 1964 to 1966.
Carlton
On joining Carlton, Jesaulenko reflected in an interview with The Canberra Times that: [Eastlake] certainly provided a winning culture. I was lucky to play at a footy club that was on the way up that just had a new regime put in, with George Harris and his mob, appointed a new coach in Ronald Dale Barassi, they had experienced players and they recruited young guns ... and I just fitted into the mix.
Jesaulenko moved to Melbourne with his wife Anne in November 1966, and during his first pre-season was soon left in no doubt the standard that Barassi required at Carlton: Here was this raging, serious man who demanded excellence and perfection. I knew straight away if I didn't take this game seriously, if I didn't try to be the best, I would be in big trouble. But it only took me two or three practice matches to know myself these guys were just the same as me, no better than me, and it was just a matter of me getting myself into the thick of things.
Jesaulenko made his senior VFL debut in the opening round of the 1967 season against at Princes Park, where he had 14 touches and kicked two goals in a 94-point victory. He would play every game for Carlton that season, one of four players to do so. In that season's Brownlow Medal count, he would poll 15 votes to finish third behind eventual winner Ross Smith (24 votes) from and 's Laurie Dwyer (17 votes). Jesaulenko would go on to play in four Carlton premierships – in 1968, 1970, 1972 and 1979. Jesaulenko was selected for All-Australian honours in 1969 and 1972. He also has the dubious record at Carlton for the most inaccurate score of 5 goals and 12 behinds, against Hawthorn in 1969.
In December 1969, Jesaulenko put an end to newspaper rumours that he might leave Carlton and either play football in Western Australia or return to Canberra. It was well known that he was working as a barman at a Melbourne hotel at the time, and was receiving little more than the "average" player. In an article for The Canberra Times, Jesaulenko reiterated his commitment to Carlton:
There is absolutely no chance of my returning to Canberra next season nor for that matter for the next two or three seasons. [...] I have had a long discussion with Carlton officials and I am now more than happy to stay with the Blues.
A spectacular and popular player, Jesaulenko was renowned for his high marking, mercurial ground play, superb balance and goalkicking. He kicked 115 goals in the 1970 season, breaking the club record and becoming the first (and, as of 2021, only) player to kick more than 100 goals in a season for Carlton. He went on to play in the famous 1970 VFL Grand Final against Collingwood. In front of an all-time record MCG crowd of 121,696 fans, Carlton came from a 44-point deficit at half-time to win by 10 points.
"Oh, Jesaulenko, you beauty!"
Jesaulenko's marking skill was perhaps best highlighted by a spectacular mark over big Collingwood ruckman Graeme Jenkin in the 1970 VFL Grand Final. The commentary has Mike Williamson shouting the now-famous phrase: "Oh, Jesaulenko, you beauty!". This "specky" is acclaimed by some to be the "Mark of the Century", and it was the first to be recognised officially as the Mark of the Year; the medal awarded to the annual winner is called the Alex Jesaulenko Medal. Jesaulenko has downplayed the specky, citing other marks he took—even during the same game—as greater feats. He later said: "The images make it look classical, like it was taken from the marking manual, ... It was against Collingwood, a Grand Final, the biggest crowd ever, Graeme's a six-foot-four ruckman, I guess there's a mystique in standing on top of him with your arms outstretched." The mark is captured in Jamie Cooper's painting The Game That Made Australia, commissioned by the AFL in 2008 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the sport.Australian Football League, The Game That Made Australia, Retrieved 19 September 2010
Media commitments
For a brief period in 1977, Jesaulenko wrote a weekly Tuesday column for The Canberra Times called 'Jezza on Rules'. In his first article on 5 April, he spoke of the Night Series rift between the VFL and the then National Football League (the VFL had separated itself from this umbrella organisation the previous year) and advocated the formation of a national competition:
The two separate night series will prove nothing and achieve little. Both will survive, but neither will prosper to the same degree as one half the response as one fully national competition would do. The ideal solution to the night-series dispute lies somewhere between the structures of the two present competitions. The VFL must play along with all the other States and games must be spread (televised) right around Australia.
Jesaulenko's vision would be realised 13 years later when the VFL became the Australian Football League.
1978–1981: The last VFL captain-coach
The 1978 VFL season began dreadfully for Carlton. After finishing top of the ladder in 1976 but losing the Preliminary Final by one point and then losing in the last round of the home-and-away season to miss out on the finals in 1977, they had brought Ian Stewart over from to replace Ian Thorogood as senior coach. By Round 6, they had only won one game and were sitting second-last on the ladder, and Stewart had gone. Carlton president George Harris turned to Sergio Silvagni to fill the void while a long-term replacement was being sought, but on the suggestion of media personality Michael Williamson, Harris gave the job to Jesaulenko.
Jesaulenko's sporting achievements were recognised outside the football world as well; he was included in the 1979 New Year Honours list as a Member (Civil) of the Order of the British Empire "for service to the sport of Australian Rules football".
Jesaulenko continued on as Carlton's captain-coach in 1979. With a superb support cast, the Blues took out the minor premiership with 19 wins and also set a new VFL record for the largest-scoring aggregate in a home-and-away season (2,772 points). In the second quarter of the Round 10 match against Collingwood at Princes Park, Jesaulenko was running back with the flight of the ball when he was met heavily by Stan Magro, resulting in concussion and a shoulder injury. The Blues were trailing by 25 points at that stage, but they rallied and fought back with a strong second half to win by 16 points. Amazingly, Jesaulenko was back in action just two weeks later in the Round 12 game against Geelong at Kardinia Park; trailing by 30 points at the last change, Carlton almost pulled off a great comeback, eventually falling short by six points.
After the 43-point win against Essendon in Round 15 at Princes Park, in which he had 22 touches and kicked a goal, Jesaulenko missed the next six games with what was later revealed to be a back injury; he had suffered damage to his sciatic nerve which had caused him to lose feeling in his right leg. He underwent a daily 30-minute exercise routine to strengthen his stomach and back muscles, returning to on-field action in time for the final round of the home-and-away season against South Melbourne at Princes Park.
Jesaulenko was, in fact, the last player-coach in the VFL/AFL to win a premiership, and he is likely to remain so indefinitely.It would be almost impossible for a captain of an AFL team to act as a coach today, and even so, playing coaches are prohibited under salary cap regulations (instituted in 1987) in order to prevent wealthier clubs from circumventing the restrictions of the salary cap and salary floor.
Jesaulenko had pay disputes with Carlton in 1977. Subsequently, he tied his ongoing presence at the club to then-Carlton club president George Harris. At the end of the 1979 season, despite the premiership, Harris was ousted from his position as President of Carlton Football Club, and Jesaulenko walked out on Carlton and resigned from the club.
St Kilda
In a deal managed by trucking multimillionaire (now billionaire) and St Kilda club president Lindsay Fox, Jesaulenko moved to the St Kilda Football Club in 1980. While initially appointed as an on-field player only, Jesaulenko was then appointed playing coach when the incumbent St Kilda senior coach, Mike Patterson, was sacked by Fox after Round 2. He played 23 games and kicked 20 goals for the Saints in 1980–1981 and stayed on for a further season as senior coach. Jesaulenko retired as a player after Round 8 on 16 May 1981. He was the last person to serve as captain-coach in the VFL; however, Malcolm Blight was a player-coach at North Melbourne until Round 16 of the same season but was not captain during this time.
Later years in football and coaching career