IT WAS Friday, June 24, 2005, and I was on the way to training when I got the call from my builders at home. "Nathan, you better come back, something's happened. Mac's been run over." It was my dog. He had been hit by a car and killed.

When I got there, I lost it. I was filthy it had happened, upset and, for a moment, inconsolable. My wife Tania and I didn't have kids at that stage and Mac was it. I was shattered with his loss.

The next day against Sydney, I was returning to football from hamstring surgery that had taken place 12 weeks earlier. It was already an emotional challenge to get my head in the right space for the game and this didn't help. To make matters worse, Tania was overseas.

I placed a call to the team manager and said I'd miss the final team meeting but would be there in time for training. Physically I was there for training but mentally and emotionally I wasn't. The boys were none the wiser at the time, although they said afterwards it was a rare quiet day on the track for me.

That afternoon, I buried Mac and called Tania to tell her what had happened. She would always ask me how he was and I couldn't lie to her. Of those two tasks, I don't know which was the more difficult.

The game came and went and in the process I was able to separate my personal life from my football life for the time necessary to perform. I was able to turn it into a challenge and although we lost the game by one point (which only added to my distress) I got through and contributed well to the team's performance.

I've used this story to highlight the challenges that every professional sportsperson encounters in their careers.

Every footballer you see take the field this weekend has personal issues. Some are normal day-to-day issues but some are bigger than that, such as illness in a player's family, a fight with his girlfriend, moving house or the death of a loved one. When these are added to the professional challenges, such as the expectation to perform, overcoming injuries and form fluctuation, sometimes it's too much to bear.

We view our football heroes as more than human, and they are portrayed as such in the media. The players have been dehumanised and are assessed like robots — they are expected to present on field in optimum physical, mental and emotional condition every time they play. But that simply isn't possible.

We overlook the fact that they share the same frailties of mind, heart and spirit that exist in all of us.

We demand that, in the three hours of the weekend when they play a game of football, they become something more than human. Every week, no matter what the obstacles: injured, scarred, hurt, confused, upset, emotional, tired. Suck it up, get over it and just get the job done.

And that's exactly what the challenge is for a footballer every week. The most consistent performers are the ones who can leave their personal baggage in the locker and get the job done for those three hours. It's a tough skill to learn but pivotal to success over a long period.

A recent example was Chris Judd's return to Subiaco. Judd would have been experiencing all sorts of emotions in the lead-up to, and throughout, the game. The physicality he endured and dished out on the night was high but he never lost focus on the job at hand.

His ability to handle that situation and get the job done was an indication of why he has been such a consistent player over his career.

Then there's Alan Didak and the issues that surrounded "that" night last year. When Dids played the game against Hawthorn the week after those revelations, it seemed to me that he was affected by the incident and the fall-out from it. Try as he might, he couldn't disassociate his on-field and off-field existences.

Fast forward to this year and Dids has performed in the past month despite the prospect of testifying in court looming large on the horizon. His coping mechanisms and strategies worked for him. There's no substitute for experience to develop this skill.

Invariably, the more mature the player the less fluctuation in his performance, and that stems from his ability to compartmentalise his off-field issues when playing the game.

Fundamental to all of this is the place football holds in a player's life. Every player has different motivations and these can affect the way each deals with adversity.

When people go through a trauma in their lives it can force them to reassess their priorities. For some players, football becomes more important and they throw themselves further into it, as I always did. For others, it may mean that the game loses its appeal and the passion and drive they need to succeed wanes.

Neither response is right or wrong. More often than not, it is an instinctive, unconscious reaction. Some people are cut out for these demands and others are not. That's why professional sport is such an unforgiving business.

I look at Brendan Fevola and Shane Warne as examples of athletes who seem to perform at their best when the pressure is on and the focus is greatest. It's part of their make-up — they thrive on the attention.

In Fevola's case, his challenge is to perform consistently without being the centre of attention. He'll get that chance as the year progresses.

When you watch your team this week, keep in mind that the players have a life outside of the packed stadium you watch them perform in; a mum and dad, a wife and kids, a girlfriend, a dog.

And when you cut them, they bleed; when you taunt them, they hurt. Yes, they get paid well to handle these stresses but they're not the robots you might think they are. They just look like them.