{"id":452875,"date":"2025-06-10T21:55:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T21:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=452875"},"modified":"2025-06-10T23:13:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T23:13:18","slug":"stars-hall-of-fame-speech-leaves-famous-dad-in-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=452875","title":{"rendered":"Star's Hall of Fame speech leaves famous dad in tears"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFLW<\/a> great Erin Phillips was inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame on Tuesday night, joining her father Greg in the esteemed group.<\/p>\n

Phillips\ufeff, a three-time Adelaide premiership player and two-time league best and fairest winner, joined Daisy Pearce to become the first AFLW players to be inducted, joining Debbie Lee as the female inductees.<\/p>\n

Greg played 86 games for Collingwood over a four year period but made a name for himself \ufefffor Port Adelaide's SANFL team between 1976 and 1993, also representing South Australia 20 times.<\/p>\n

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The former SA player was in attendance and could not hide his emotion when Phillips addressed her mother and father in her acceptance speech.<\/p>\n

\ufeff"To my mum and dad, I couldn't have asked for better parents to let me be who I wanted to be … Mum, you don't really ever get much credit … I thank you and love you so much," Phillips said.<\/p>\n

"To Dad… I can't imagine how hard it would've been to tell your 13-year-old daughter that she couldn't play the game that she loves anymore. And 27 years later, she's standing next to you in the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"Thank you for teaching me a game that I loved, and even though you knew it wasn't going to take me anywhere at the time, you still taught me anyway."\ufeff<\/p>\n

Phillips reflected on her journey as a woman in the game during her speech, recounting her experiences on the field.<\/p>\n

"I tried to fit in (with the boys playing), cut my hair short (and) had a really good 'mushroom' haircut as a young kid. (I) got mistaken for a boy constantly," Phillips said.<\/p>\n

"I remember a game actually, I ran out to centre-half forward, stood next to my opponent. I could see him scanning the field looking for something, and then he turns to me and goes: 'I heard you have a girl on this team, and I heard she's pretty good'.<\/p>\n

"I looked at him, and I go: 'Yeah, you're standing next to her!'… I gave him a hiding that game.<\/p>\n

\"Why<\/p>\n

"I never wanted to be a boy, I just wanted the opportunities that boys had \u2014 and that was footy. That was all I ever wanted."<\/p>\n

Phillips thanked her wife Tracy Gahan but also had kind words for Lee, who was inducted in 2021.<\/p>\n

"Debbie, you kicked down this door so others could walk through," she added.<\/p>\n

"(You're the) first female member of the Hall of Fame (and) I'm so proud to be by your side, and I can't wait to kick more doors down with you Deb."<\/p>\n

Other inductees included \ufeffSt Kilda great Nick Riewoldt, four-time Hawthorn premiership player Luke Hodge, former Melbourne captain Garry Lyon and South Adelaide ruckman Peter Darley.<\/p>\n

South Australia's Ken Farmer was elevated to legend status while John Leedham and George Owens were the historical inductees for 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFLW great Erin Phillips was inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame on Tuesday night, joining her father Greg in the esteemed group. Phillips\ufeff, a […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":452879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452875"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=452875"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":452882,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452875\/revisions\/452882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/452879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=452875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=452875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=452875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}