At 15, Xavier Ellis packed his bags and moved from his hometown of Lakes Entrance to become a boarder at Melbourne Grammar, where he bunked with Geelong forward Tom Hawkins. "It was a bit intimidating moving to the city. We had football in common and from then on it was like living with your best mate, without parents always looking over your shoulder. We still catch up regularly, which is good despite him playing football for one of our main rivals."

Hawkins wasn't the only future AFL player Ellis met during his time at Melbourne Grammar, with current teammate Cyril Rioli his opponent in a school football game against Scotch College. "Cyril was a year below me but I did manage to play against him on a couple of occasions. I remember one time he took a mark on the ground and I stood on the mark and he went through my legs and took off out the other side. From that moment I realised that Cyril was a pretty special player."

Ellis was recruited by Hawthorn with pick three in the 2005 NAB AFL Draft - the same year he decided he wanted to play football at the highest level. "When I went to Ireland with the under-17 Australian side, that's when I realised I wanted to play AFL. I never actually thought I'd be anywhere near good enough to play AFL but I went to Ireland and played OK. I thought, 'If this is the best 30 kids in our age group, if I work hard enough then I should slip into the top 90 picks in the draft in my year'."

At 17, Ellis spent his first year at Hawthorn completing his year 12 VCE studies. "I guess my first priority was always on my school work and school commitments, but deep down inside I just really wanted to play AFL football. In terms of juggling, once I'd done as much as I could do at school then it was sort of free time to do what I wanted at Hawthorn."

A broken foot during his final year at Melbourne Grammar meant that Ellis barely touched a football in 2006. So when he finished year 12, university was the last thing on his mind. "I never had ambitions to go straight into uni. Having had a year off footy for school, it was time to flip the coin around and have a year of pure footy and try to get my foot in the door and settle down living away from boarding school."

Now into his fifth season with the Hawks, the 22-year-old has found time for more studies and is completing an executive certificate at Monash University along with teammates Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge and Jordan Lewis. "It's four subjects and once you pass it's a direct feed into your business masters degree. It kind of cuts out your undergraduate studies, so for us - while it's a bit of a shortcut - it's ideal. Sam's the outstanding student and then there's myself, Luke and Jordan who are the quiet boys up the back just listening. Our lecturer is actually a Hawks member and she's not too keen on the Hawks boys doing group assignments together ... thank God too, because with Jordan, Luke and I, I'm not sure what we'd get done."

The defender's 2009 season was interrupted by foot and ankle injuries, but he took the opportunity to work on his golf game; just don't bring up his handicap. "I just usually play on Thursday, our day off, with a few of the young fellows around the footy club. The best golfer at the club would have to be Matt Suckling and the worst would probably be me or Beau Muston. We were playing for a box of Pro-V golf balls, which are the most expensive on the market, but I soon worked out I wasn't going to win so I pulled the pin on that wager."

While many players entertain the idea of heading into the media after their careers, Ellis thinks he would be better suited to event management, despite starring in a segment named X's Insiders on Hawthorn's television program HawksActive. "On X's Insiders I just interview the people at the club that not too many supporters would be familiar with, like doctors, physios and the CEO. I don't mind doing it, but in terms of seeing those blokes on The Footy Show, that's definitely not my go. But HawksActive TV is good. I don't think the media is for me. The boys at the footy club probably think I'm too opinionated for the media."

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.