This week’s guest on episode 4 of Behind The Roar, is Wests Tigers Life Member John Skandalis.
You can listen and watch this week’s episode of Behind The Roar, available on Apple, Spotify and also YouTube
‘Skando’ is Wests Tigers through and through, described by CEO Justin Pascoe as being ‘part of the furniture’.
He’s been with the club in various roles for about two decades as a premiership-winning prop, a strength and conditioning coach, and more recently as a corporate sales executive.
Episode 4 of BTR takes a deep dive into the world of a former professional rugby league player who has carved a career that he loves, with a club that he loves, long after hanging up the boots.
Skandalis talks openly about how, to this day, he still yearns to play rugby league but how the ‘body says no’.
He also talks about the challenges facing this year’s NRL team, after a disappointing start to the season, but is supremely confident success will come.
“Although we’ve lost our first two games, the team has put itself in a position to win those games, but it’s going to take time for them to gel,” he says.
The good times will come, we’ve just got to hang in and keep working hard.
John Skandalis
“We had a similar rebuild back in ’03 and ’04 with plenty of new faces and look what happened in 2005.
He talks about some of his most memorable moments in the game, like when Tommy Raudonikis handed him his first-grade debut against a Panthers team coached by Royce Simmons.
Another big moment of course was the ’05 premiership win under coach Tim Sheens, and 'that' try when Benji Marshall 'skipped away' to send Pat Richards in to score.
He also recounts the day he lined up against Newcastle enforcer, Paul Harragon, and ‘wanted to rip his head off’. Unfortunately, ‘Chief’ wanted to do exactly the same to Skando.
The NRL dream didn’t come easy for Skandalis. His family home burnt down when he was just out of nappies and his mother passed away when he was a teen.
He readily admits he ‘went off the rails a bit’ when being raised by his Greek father George, who was doing his best as a single parent.
It’s an inspiring story that should give hope to anyone travelling a bumpy road. He talks about how rugby league became a pillar of strength during some tough times, and how those close to him, helped him realise his dream.
On a lighter note, Skando tries to justify the many ‘business meetings’ he organises at Brisbane’s famed Caxton Hotel, which just happen to fall around Origin time each year.
And how his role in corporate ‘networking’ has improved his golf handicap. “Work smarter not harder,” he says. Yep, tough for some.
He also describes how much the club has transitioned from when he made his Magpies debut in 1996, to now.
“When I started out, we might have had about ten people on the staff,” he says.
These days, we have so many good people in specialist roles doing really good work.
John Skandalis
Reinforcing how much the game and the business has changed, is a story Skando tells about how Magpies home games were promoted in the late nineties.
“Tommy (Raudonikis) would drive up and down Queen Street in Campbelltown in a sponsor’s Cadillac spruiking our next home game on a megaphone."
There’s also the day Skando and his teammates copped an almighty spray from coach Tim Sheens on a cold and miserable day in Wellington. Skando says sprays from Sheens were few and far between but this one has stayed with him for a lifetime.
