HAWTHORN Assistant Coach Brendon Bolton is back from his USA and Canada study trip and is ready to share his knowledge with his fellow coaches.

Bolton visited the Stanford University facility for student athletes, NHL team Vancouver Cunucks, NFL team Seattle Seahawks and Ohio State University with former Box Hill Coach, now head of the Development Academy, Damian Caroll in mid-October.

They spoke to fellow coaches, head coaches, high performances managers and other key people in the football departments of each organisation to gain insights into the way each are run.

The pair also had the opportunity to learn from various areas of the clubs and appreciate their values and philosophies in the hope of implement some of those at Hawthorn.

At Hawthorn, there is a strong emphasis placed on culture and the work-life balance of its players, in particular where it is encouraged to undertake study and interests outside football.

It was the clear focus too, of the sporting organisations Bolton and Caroll visited, which allowed them to challenge their expectations of the players at the Club.

“Overall, there was a really strong philosophy about culture and people – it was about making sure they built better men, better fathers, better sons, that was their main focus,” Bolton told hawthornfc.com.au

“It just emphasises what the expectations are here for us – you can’t just go and take what they use but rather emphasise where it works for us.”

A standout was the amount of time the players or athletes spend studying, something Hawthorn has focused on heavily in recent years.

A number of Hawthorn players undertake university studies – Luke Breust and Ryan Schoenmakers are currently together completing Commerce degrees, Kyle Cheney has just begun a Nursing course and Isaac Smith and Sam Mitchell are currently completing their MBAs.

Jack Gunston, Brian Lake, Luke Hodge, Brent Guerra, Matt Suckling, Alex Woodward, and International Scholarship holder, Kurt Heatherley all recently completed their Diploma of Management.

Jordan Lewis is an apprentice plumber, Jarryd Roughead and Liam Shiels are completing a TAFE landscaping course and Jonathan Ceglar is a qualified electrician.

Smith, who enjoyed a rich vein of form in the second half of the year attributed his improved performance to his ability to keep a clear mind off the field by using his studies.

“As we know in all professional sports, it can be all encompassing and your mind is really narrow in that you just go out to play but what this does is provide balance, which is really healthy,” Bolton said.

“Having balance as a footballer really helps the outcome on the field.

“What was particularly interesting was in the College systems was the expectations they have in terms of time because they’re student athletes, some of them are doing degrees or double degrees plus playing a really high level of football - it can be in excess of 50 hours.”

What Bolton learnt too, was the importance of accepting the person, footballer, athlete as a whole.

Now, with increased scrutiny on the AFL and its players an important factor inside each of the 18 clubs is their ability to accept and nurture the whole person.

“It’s about investing in the person as well as the footballer and understanding that there is life outside of football and showing a real interest in that,” Bolton said.

“It’s also about concentrating on how they’re feeling and thinking and not just approaching it like our players are robots and machines who just go out and perform. That became really common and what was the strong culture amongst all of those organisations.”

Bolton and Caroll are just two of Hawthorn’s coaching staff who have headed overseas on study trips, with Coach Alastair Clarkson and High Performance Coach David Rath heading to the UK shortly after the Grand Final and Assistant Coach Brett Ratten also heading to the United States.

Ahead of the 2014 season, the group as a whole will sit down, discuss and collate the information gathered and hopeful implement measures that will give the Hawks the edge next year.

“It opens your mind and gets you out of the tunnel vision when you do things in a regimented way from week to week,” Bolton said.

“What we did when we were away was brainstorm lots of little things we’ve seen that we think we can apply here – not just in the coaching area but all facets of our club life.

“At the moment, it’s still about making sure we have all our ideas collated and then start sharing them with people so we can see what then we could potentially apply to the Hawthorn system.”