This is an edited extract from 'The Things That Make Us' by Nick Riewoldt with Peter Hanlon (Allen & Unwin, $39.99, onsale now).

I’ve always been a bad loser. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. It’s okay to hate losing, for it to bore so deep into you that you never forget the hole it leaves. That you’ll do everything to make sure the feeling is different next time. It’s when losing strays into the sphere of blame and excuses that it gets ugly. When you’re thinking, ‘I lost, but it’s not my fault. It was his fault.’ Or, ‘I had a cold.’ I’ve never been one for excuses, but I’ve been a bad loser. It comes down to competitiveness.

Without doubt it’s been a trait that’s made me, but equally it’s made me vulnerable at times, isolated me. When I retired, journalist Mark Robinson made a comment that I’d played with ‘a resting bitch face’ for seventeen years, been wound up like a top, but when I announced that I was finishing up people finally saw me smile. He had a point. That competitiveness has been there as long as I can remember, even before that day when I cracked the shits because Dad didn’t put me on the ground, and I went down the big Parliament Street park slide and sat brooding at the bottom.

It’s not just about losing—it’s measuring so much of your self worth by how you do things, and feeling inadequate when you haven’t done something as well as you know you could have. I’ve had games where we’ve won and I’ve played okay, but I might have shanked a shot at goal or made some other basic mistake. That night I wouldn’t be able to sleep. It made me feel dirty, and I’d want to keep talking about it until someone said, ‘Don’t worry about it, you still played well.’ I’d search for something to help me cleanse. The whole week, I’d just feel dirty.

It got to the point when we were kids that Alex and Maddie wouldn’t even play Mario Kart or FIFA on PlayStation with me, because I just couldn’t handle losing. I’d throw the controls, break stuff. I look back and think, ‘What an idiot.’ Carrying on like that because I’d lost a meaningless game. I didn’t have a clue what real loss felt like. Alex reckons there was a mercy streak underneath the competitiveness, that I’d let him win sometimes, but I can’t remember at what. Maybe the odd video game, but certainly never anything physical. Dad’s competitive; so was Maddie. Mum reckons she’s always felt sorry for Alex, who was surrounded by people who would do anything to win, while he was happy just to be playing the game.

We grew up making up games—you couldn’t just throw a frisbee, it had to be frisbee golf. Tennis would be American or Canadian—two against one so everyone was involved. If we were playing golf, I’d say stupid stuff when Alex was about to chip or putt like, ‘A thousand bucks if you get it in.’ We had one of those miniature houses in the backyard for James to play in, and I once bet Alex a grand he couldn’t put a footy through the window. He put it straight through, but I reminded him that he owed me $2000 from the bond on a house we’d shared way back. ‘You still owe me a thousand.’

When I lived with Kosi (Justin Koschitzke) and Joey (Leigh Montagna), they stopped playing backyard cricket with me because I took it too seriously. I’d try to bat all afternoon. If we ever had a hit at the club, when it was my turn to bat, Schneids (Adam Schneider) would say, ‘Oh, here we go—it’s a Test match now!’ He’d get in my head about how seriously I took it, and straight away I’d be thinking, ‘Stuff you, Schneids!’ And I’d try to slog it and get out. He’d laugh, and I’d be like my head was about to pop off. He’s good at winding blokes up, Schneids.

Alex reckons you knew when a game with me was over—when I’d had enough, I’d hit the ball over the fence, in the water, wherever it couldn’t be found. Schoolwork was different—I tried really hard, I was a good student, but I wasn’t competitive about it like I was with sport. I was dux of Robina Primary School which went up to the end of Grade 7, and I did the hard subjects at secondary level— physics, chemistry, maths. But we had some freaks at All Saints Anglican School. In Queensland back then you got what was called an Overall Position, or OP score, which was on a scale of 1–26. A score of 1 was the top 1 per cent, and we had a dozen kids get that. I got an OP6, which equated to just over 90 per cent. Solid. It’s not a 99. I got the marks I did because I worked hard.

Dad talks about taking me and Michael Osborne, who went on to play for Hawthorn, up to state underage training in Brisbane, at least once a week from under-16 through under-18 level. I’d make Dad drive back to the Gold Coast with the interior light on in the car so I could study. Mum reckons wanting to succeed at everything I do is in my DNA. She’ll tell people I wanted
to be a marine biologist. I reckon I only said that because I thought it sounded cool. With academic stuff, it’s either right or wrong, whereas in sport there are degrees to how you perform. If you’re an A student you’re generally going to get an A.

You’re not going to have that day a batsman has in cricket, where no matter how good you are you can cop a great ball and you’re out for a duck. The fact that there’s nothing you could have done about it never made me feel any better. I was playing First XI cricket for the school when I was in Year 8. We played a big game one day against a touring school; it went for the whole day on a Friday. There was a big crowd around the oval at lunchtime and again after the last bell when I came out to bat. I was so pumped up, playing in front of everyone. And I got a first-ball duck. Cleaned up, bowled. I felt a humiliation that I couldn’t shrug off. Walking off, I wanted to be anywhere else; I just hated it. I couldn’t see beyond a foot in front of me; I just wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out. It didn’t matter that I was a thirteen-year-old playing against seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds. All I felt was embarrassment.

A couple of years earlier, in late primary school, there had been an athletics carnival in which another kid and I were level on points for the age champion award going into the last race. We cooked up a plan to dead heat so we’d both be age champion. It was the 200 metres, around the bend, and I was so anxious and apprehensive at the start. Nervous about not doing well. And this other kid got me on the line. I cracked it. We’d tried to manufacture the result and I still lost. I was furious. There’s no question the way I’m wired has made me hard to be around at times.

In 2003 we played North Melbourne in a Saturday afternoon game and hung on to win a close one. It had been pre-arranged that everyone would come back to Kosi and my place and have a few beers. I hadn’t played well, so even though we’d won I made up a story, said I was crook in the guts, and went to my room. I don’t even know how many people were there, because I didn’t come out all night. I didn’t want to be around anyone. I was filthy on myself, embarrassed. And we’d won. I know behind my back they would have been saying stuff denigrating me, and fair enough. For a while I was like, ‘What do you want me to do? Isn’t it a good thing that I’m pissed off?’ The feedback was that it’s okay to be critical of yourself, but it’s harmful to be so consumed by your own performance. Especially when we win—it’s just a bad look. That period didn’t last long; I got better at channelling my competitiveness. But along the way it made life more difficult than it needed to be.

Nick will be launching the book at Readings Bookstore in St Kilda on Monday. Click here for a full list of book signings around the country.