Tom Hawkins was a month shy of his 20th birthday. 

It was mid June 2007, and teammate Darren Milburn was about to celebrate his 200th game for the club. In those days, an honour board used to sit just above Hawkins’ locker, and he remembers looking at it often. This week, on the eve of his 350th game, Hawkins said what that board represented to the club and its players and their families has stuck with him after all these years. 

“I think I was taught early on in my career that milestones are really big games for both the individual and for the club to celebrate,” he said on Tuesday.  “I've always loved playing in them.”

“In my first year Darren Milburn played in his 200th game and I remember looking at the board which sat just above my locker in the old locker room and it was players that have played 200 games for the Cats and there weren't that many on there and subsequently over the last 17 years there's been a lot added to it but there was always such big emphasis on the milestone games so I can't wait.”

Tom Hawkins’ career is remarkable for so many reasons. 

He was the big kid in Finley, a town of 2600 people in the Riverina region of New South Wales, some 350km from Geelong via the M31. Back then, as the son of ‘Jumping’ Jack Hawkins who played 182 games for the Cats between 1973 and 1981, young Tom was always going to be Geelong supporter. 

But, as he told everyone who asked, Hawkins jnr had bigger plans. Much bigger. 

“It's what I wanted to do as a kid,” he said. “I often would tell whoever asked that what I wanted to do it was to play AFL football and to play for the Cats.”

Eventually, via the 2006 draft, Hawkins would make his way to Kardinia Park, landing in the Cats lap with the #41st pick as a Father/Son selection via Finley Football Club, Melbourne Grammar and Sandringham U18s. 

The AFL, especially for the big forwards, had changed rapidly in the years between. The days of the big, glamourous full forward were in their death throes, but many saw Hawkins as someone who could step into the breach left by Tony Lockett, Jason Dunstall et al, but despite his imposing size, Hawkins took time to make his mark on the game. 

There were moments. The first person Geelong supporters think of when the 2011 Grand Final comes up is Hawkins. Still a kid, albeit a very big one, he had wrestled the key forward post from Cameron Mooney that season and with James Podsiadley going down in the second quarter, all eyes turned to Hawkins. 

Three third quarter goals, and the momentum of the game firmly with the Cats, Hawkins, in 25 minutes of football had repaid all the faith the club, its coaches and its fans, had in him.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing after that, especially when ongoing back issues had some questioning his long term future in the game, as the ghosts of full forwards past crowded the still young full forward. 

“There was a time,” Geelong coach Chris Scott recalled this week, “I can't remember exactly when he was having those back issues.. Tom was struggling a little bit physically, but it also occurred through a period of time when I think there was a sense that the game was changing. 

“And that maybe that the days of the big strong key forward were numbered, certainly the way the greats of previous generations played, the Dunstall’s and Lockett's, and maybe the game was moving further and further away from that style of player. And while Tom was having back issues at the same time, that kind of made a bit of sense that the game might get harder for him and not easier.”

But the Tom Hawkins story was only just getting started. 

He would adapt his game, but in many ways, he doubled down on what he knew he did well on the football field. 

“I've never lost sight of the fact that my strengths are my strengths and they've been able to keep me in the game for a long period of time,” he recalled. 

“As you're probably well aware, I'm not very fast, I run last in our time trials every year, so I focus on those things that make me a good player and that's my ability to read the game and teammates and move my feet and win one on one contests, and I think I've doubled down and really understood what makes me a good player from week to week. 

“There's been some physical changes, I've adapted, as all players do when they're in the game for periods of time, they adapt mentally where they can handle the workload a bit more. I think for the most part I just didn't get caught up in the fact that I can't do some things on the footy field and narrow it into what makes me a good player.”

Three premierships, 349 games and 786 goals later, Hawkins has, remarkably, succeeded expectations, but his real legacy is around selflessness, and his 291 goal assists, third in the game's history, represent not only the Hawkins way but it has become, in many ways the Geelong way. 

“I think ultimately it comes back to how I started footy and the lessons I've learnt from my parents over the years, they've very selfless people and I think I've always just believed in if there's people in better spots than you, they deserve the ball”, he said. 

“I get just as much enjoyment out of other people kicking goals as I do for myself hitting the scoresheet. Long may that continue, hopefully.”