Interview: Confronting dyslexia sooner would have made me a better player, says Logan

Published on Friday 11 September 2009 22:58

THERE are perceptions and there is a reality, and sometimes the two can merge in such a way that it is difficult to know which is which.

Kenny Logan has lived most of his life under a sports and media spotlight that has ensured a widespread perception of the Stirling farmer as a garrulous, colourful, in-your-face sort of character. Far too in-your-face, indeed an irritant for some. For others he has become a darling of Scottish sport and culture through his appearances nearer the front of newspapers and glossy magazines, and after his latest incarnation as a ballroom dancer in Strictly Come Dancing.

But after facing up to the biggest battle in his life, discovering he had dyslexia and tackling it over the past decade, the former Scotland winger has decided to open up on the side to his character that few understood – the mixed-up, depressed, lost little boy that has been Kenny Logan for more years than he liked to admit.

A new book, entitled Just for Kicks, is adorned with the smiling Logan, the big chin that brought him teasing from rugby team-mates ensuring there can be no mistaking the personality. Inside, however, a less familiar character comes to the fore.

The book may run to more than 400 pages, but it is still merely a snapshot of 37 years that have taken Logan in many and varied directions, from being an under-achiever at school to an over-achiever on the rugby field; left a farm to run at the age of 19, with his father's death, at the same time as being offered the chance to turn professional in rugby, to losing his cousin and mentor in a freak accident; from dating Scotland's pin-up newsreader Kirsty Young, and the ensuing rollercoaster relationship, to falling in love with and marrying another television presenter in Gabby Logan and struggling to conceive. And then there was the more well-known 70-cap rugby career with its own ups and downs.

However, Logan admits he would happily have kept himself to himself had the publishers not insisted on him publishing an autobiography that 'does what it says on the tin', wrap up an entire life in one tome. What interested Logan was the opportunity to speak to fellow dyslexia sufferers, to their parents, through revealing how he hid from the condition, often literally, in toilets to avoid team meetings. Still, he nearly scrapped it halfway through.

"When I did the book I went through a difficult period," he recalls, his face and eyes instinctively dropping. "I really wanted to stop it. It was going through my childhood. It brought back the memories of being seen as thick, the battles trying to prove to people you were worth something, or that they could like you.

"That was a long time ago and I'd left them behind. I didn't see the point of talking about them, even to family or close friends. But now there is a point because if by going through it again, in print, I can connect with a kid going through something like that, or parents wondering why their kid seems to be hiding from things, then maybe I can help them get help and not go through what I did.

"I wish now that I had gone to someone and said, 'look, I can't read it', just faced up to the embarrassment, the stigma. It is different now. There is a lot of help out there and I've learned that your life can change brilliantly if you open up about it.

"It's not easy. I was never going to go to a teacher in high school and say, 'do you know something – I don't think I can read'. I didn't want to upset my mum or dad by making them think they'd brought an idiot into the world – everyone else is doing all right so you must be an idiot – so it's easier to cover it up.

"The more I talked, made fun of things, the more people accepted me and liked me, and didn't notice that I couldn't read or write. My report cards always said, 'Kenny struggles but he is funny and a nice lad'. Now it's a huge part of me that I don't actually know what I would have been like if I hadn't had dyslexia. One thing I do know is I would have been a better rugby player though, and that's where I have regrets; where I wish I'd admitted it and done something about it a lot earlier."

People who have worked with Logan, team-mates, coaches, business partners and others, have begun retracing their involvement with him since he first spoke openly about his dyslexia, and how much can be attributed to the condition.

When a home tutor his mother brought in, Deirdre Wilson, first introduced the word 'dyslexia' to Logan he was "16 or 17", and already focused on two areas – farming and playing rugby for Stirling County. With his mother doing the farm paperwork and the latter being a world where speed, power and courage were far more important traits than reading or writing, illiteracy issues were left behind at Wallace High School.

Rugby then hit a revolution. Logan had been wholly amateur when County rose from the lower depths of Scottish rugby to become Division One champions in 1995, and had 15 caps to his name. He played in the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and was courted by various English clubs with thick cheque-books.

He settled on Wasps, largely because the London club agreed that he could still run the family farm – his brothers had no interest in doing so – and travel south for games. And on his career went, at a wild pace on and off the field, with Wasps becoming the champions of England and Europe, and Logan's image rocketing across the media.

But the dyslexia never went away. He laughed off suggestions he was stupid, grew sharp in word-play. When asked to fill in a form for potential British and Irish Lions, for what became the first Lions Test series win in South Africa for 23 years, his eyes flicked up and down it, and understood very little, and it was left blank.

No-one asked why. Logan does not know whether he just wasn't considered good enough, or coaches believed he was disinterested. Many certainly believed the latter at various points in his career.

"It was frustrating knowing that people thought I just didn't want it enough, or didn't care. That wasn't the truth. My mum gave me a Scotland Grand Slam jersey from 1984 when I was nine, and I never took it out of the wrapper, because I said I wouldn't wear one until I was playing for Scotland. It's still in her loft.

"It was always a big target, so I don't think the dyslexia or what I went through in my personal life somehow gave me the drive to play for Scotland. But I do feel I could have been better at it. I wanted to win with Scotland more than anyone. But when I was with Scotland, we'd have lots of team meetings, and instructions handed out, and I was deliberately turning up to meetings late, hiding in the toilet, and getting bollockings. Anything where I thought we'd maybe have to read instructions or write something I'd find ways to avoid.

"Another part of dyslexia is your brain gets too full with different messages, and so you get confused very easily and can't concentrate. You can't process the information properly, and you get frustrated or your attention wanders. I would spend hours alone trying to work out what things meant, going over and over them, and still not getting it, or thinking 'forget it, just play'.

"I'd come out the next day full of talk pretending I was great, I knew the moves and we were going to win, and just hoping that when I got the ball and ran, other people would support me. It wasn't so great sometimes when I had to kick goals and my mind was full of rubbish, and I'd miss some pretty straightforward kicks at goal. That's a regret and never going on a Lions tour is another, testing myself at a higher level and getting the confidence from that, and that's why I'm convinced I'd have been a better player if things had been different."

It has been said many times that Kenny Logan could talk for Scotland, and he reveals in the book how his constant chatter once earned a 48-hour ban from speaking in the Scotland camp. He was given a board to put round his neck and write on if he had anything to say. He wrote 'f*** off', which earned more laughs from team-mates and shakes of the head from coaches.

"Being talkative must be part of me anyway, but I definitely pushed it a lot further to cover up the fact I wasn't getting things. I tried to create this bubble to protect myself and not let people know I couldn't read and write, by talking all the time and making folk laugh."

The life-changing point came when his new girlfriend Gabby Yorath caught him out pretending he could read, and not only put an arm around him but said she would go with him to get help. She saw through his protests and made it clear that if he didn't go, she would force him, and as a former Commonwealth Games gymnast with a strong will she refused to let it lie.

At the age of 27 he moved into a world of dyslexia support he never knew existed, and took on a new programme called 'DORE', which focused on stimulating the cerebellum in the brain.

"I once phoned Gabby up and screamed at her 'I've got my vowels! I know what they mean!' She said 'Kenny, I'm just going on air'. 'I don't care' I said, 'I've got my vowels!' You and people reading this won't get that because you learned that as a kid in primary school, but that was huge for me."

Overcoming dyslexia is clearly no 80-minute challenge, not something a slick pass, quick feet or powerful tackle can solve. Logan was still carrying out daily exercises to improve his brain function in his hotel room during a 2003 Rugby World Cup campaign where he and Scotland were attracting media flak.

Players, however, were commenting on his improved concentration and ability to grasp moves first-time, and Jim Telfer, a Scotland coach, said publicly that the winger was in the best form of his life. It was ironic as he had chosen this point to retire from international rugby. He was 31 and his body was starting to feel the effects of an increasingly-physical game, but he was also desperate to go out at the top with supporters and the media saying he was good, and deserved to play for Scotland, which had not always been the case.

He stayed another season at Wasps, with another Premiership and European double, and then finished his career with a less satisfying year back at Glasgow. A familiar face on the London business and sporting scene, he has since moved deeper into sports marketing and events, and will oversee 'Logan's Challenge', termed a 'People's Pentathlon', in Strathclyde Park on 24 October, a unique event that pits mind and skill tests alongside running, cycling and tackling an assault course, to raise funds for the children's medical research charity 'Sparks'.

He enjoys reading, albeit slowly still, to his twin children Reuben and Lois and feels happier in himself. He reflects openly on mistakes made, people offended, ventures that didn't go to plan and how he feels like a new man with new horizons, but the thread of dyslexia re-appears as he laughs with obvious pride at how well he can now text and e-mail – "OK, the spelling needs work, but it's coming".

He accepts that sceptics will remain, unable to correlate the outspoken, brash, naive and sometimes none-too-clever media darling with the warmer, but vulnerable fighter laid bare now. All of these aspects make up his personality, but we will never know how much one influenced the other. He just shrugs.

"People see me as flash or a mouth, loving the TV spotlight," he added. "Fair enough. I never wanted to embarrass myself dancing on TV, but I enjoyed it, and I never thought I'd write a book either.

"People have their own images of me and it won't all be wrong, but hopefully the book makes people realise that what they see publicly is just a small part; that there's a lot more to me. And if it helps ten or 20 mums and dads or children deal with dyslexia a bit better than I did, then it will have been worth it."