Calsher Dear admits he’s still quite nervous ahead of the remaining rounds of the 2023 AFL National Draft.
The 18-year-old is the son of the late 1991 Hawthorn premiership player and Norm Smith Medallist Paul Dear, who passed away in 2022 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Beaumaris and Sandringham Dragons product Dear has been told by the Hawks that he will be selected as a father-son in this year’s draft but says the nerves remain.
“Not exactly, I’m still pretty nervous,” he said on SEN’s Sportsday when asked if he was feeling comfortable.
“But I’ve got a better understanding than most, I guess.”
Dear describes himself as an “athletic key forward” who “can also do my work on the ground, not just in the air”.
He has no preconceived ideas of where he will be taken when the draft resumes on Tuesday night.
“I don’t really have any expectations. Anywhere I’m really happy with, I’m not too fussed about it,” he added.
The 195cm forward first met with the Hawks last pre-season but it only became apparent more recently that the club was serious in drafting him as a father-son prospect.
“The first time I would have met with them was in pre-season and that was such a great experience because I hadn’t played any real elite pathway footy yet,” Dear added.
“I was just starting my pre-season with Dragons and to be asked to go and do a week with an AFL club was daunting but it was so cool at the same time.
“Even then I still really didn’t have any expectations for the year, didn’t really know how I’d go and as the season went on had a couple of meetings with them here and there.
“It would have been two and a half weeks ago they came around and told me they were going to nominate me, which was just unreal.”
The Dear family is well aware what it takes to be drafted after Calsher’s older brother Harry was taken by Adelaide in the 2014 draft.
That experience doubled with the knowledge of his late father, who played 123 games for the Hawks, has prepared Dear for his own journey.
“I’m the youngest in my family so I’d always be going to my brothers’ games and dad would always be kicking the footy with me,” he said further.
“I’d be so eager to start and couldn’t wait until I played. As we got older he’d start driving standards a bit more.
“I saw all the work Harry put in to get picked up. Harry and dad kept me level-headed and made me know that the opportunity just isn’t going to come to me, I have to work for it just as hard as anyone else.”
Calsher Dear will learn his draft fate when the ensuing rounds recommence from 7:30pm AEDT on Tuesday night.
