IT was November 24, 2006. If the Port Adelaide Football Club had the right to gazette a public holiday, this would be the date to celebrate year after year after year.
At the draft tables at Football Park, West Lakes sat a Port Adelaide crew spoiled by choice in the so-called "super draft" - and they were working with their equal best pick (No.5) since the club's inaugural draft concessions had expired.
There was the allure of the local - the tall James Sellar at Glenelg; and there was an even more promising prospect at another beachside locale in Victoria.
In Torquay, there was as much unease - and anxiety - in the Boak household as there between the Port Adelaide and Geelong tables in the old SANFL function room.
Port Adelaide made its call: "Travis Boak, Geelong Falcons."
"I was so excited," said the teenager Travis Boak. "I got picked up by Port Adelaide - and I was so excited because it's nearly every kid's dream to get drafted by an AFL club.
"I was over the moon ...
"And mum was behind me and straight away yelled out 'No!' and just started crying, which sort of made me feel bad."
Chicki Boak had wanted her son to stay near home at Torquay by going at No.7 in the 2006 AFL national draft to Geelong - the club that six years later sent a delegation of coach, captain and superstar to Adelaide to boldly pitch a homecoming deal.
"Then my sisters started crying and my girlfriend was crying ...," added Boak of the emotions that overcame his family with the thought they were to lose the man about their house, a title he had carried after the death of his father Roger with cancer the previous year.
"I just sat there thinking, 'What am I meant to do? This is my dream'."
Now 18 AFL seasons later - with the celebration of his 350th game milestone on Sunday against Richmond at the MCG - it is impossible to not (yet again) reflect on how Boak was torn away from an emotional scene at home to move to a challenging landscape at Alberton.
And then there is the defining commitment Boak made to Port Adelaide at the end of 2012 when he cast an everlasting image by walking solo along the jetty at Grange contemplating his future under a darkening skyline ... while his team-mates went to their cars after a beachside training session hoping they had not lost their new spiritual leader and eventual captain. It was a scene that became symbolic of all that was enveloping the troubled Port Adelaide Football Club.
This time Boak was in control of his destiny ...
He chose to stay at a financially troubled club that was having its future manipulated by decision makers in conflict at both AFL House in Melbourne and SANFL headquarters in Adelaide.
So Boak is the ultimate definition of LOYALTY in an era of full-time football when the "one-club player" theme is challenged by free agency, godfather offers and Chris Scott, Joel Selwood (the player Geelong took first up in the 2006 national draft) and Brownlow Medallist Jimmy Bartel coming to town - like a "brass band", as Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas put it.
He symbolises all that team-mate Jackson Trengove sought to instil in the locker room at Alberton when the financial crisis at Port Adelaide during the darkest chapter from 2010-2012 could have created a player exodus to wreck the club on the field.
Boak probably had more reasons to go. He remained true to the noble characteristics that also define him as beyond the football field - as a mate, as a humanitarian strongly devoted to the fight against childhood cancer. Loyalty.
Boak has redefined PROFESSIONALISM at a time when the term is overshadowed by long-term, multi-million dollar deals in a league awash with billions. His commitment to find that extra yard - be it the pre-season training adventures in the US - has kept him not just in the game but relevant at 35 in midfields now loaded with powerful 20-year-olds.
Boak has put COMMITMENT, ATTITUDE and DEDICATION to his form of professionalism that has served as a benchmark guide to a new generation of footballers at Port Adelaide. This becomes part of his living LEGACY to a career that continues to defy those who seek to predict its final moment.
Such professionalism has made Boak incredibly DURABLE in a game that is brutal to body and mind. His 350th game comes from the 386 that Port Adelaide has played since the start of the 2007 AFL season.
No other player from the top-10 draft calls of 2006 remains in the game as a player today.
From his league debut against Essendon - on June 17, 2007 at Football Park - there is a storyline of DIGNITY and DECENCY.
The Port Adelaide recruiting team that believed in using the invaluable No.5 draft call in 2006 on a kid from Victoria rather than the tall lad from Glenelg were more than good judges of talent. They made a superb call on CHARACTER. Not once has Boak embarrassed himself or his club in a game loaded with so much over analysis of every move made and any word uttered by an AFL player. He commands hard-earned RESPECT from all his rivals, not just for the way he plays but the way he presents himself on and off the field. The tributes are far from "stock standard"; they are spoken with deep admiration for a player - and man - who has many wishing they could carry his boots, let alone follow in his footsteps.
Boak is more than the "generational player" every AFL recruiting manager seeks with a top-10 draftee. He is the symbol that a football club lives from for many generations.
Captain. All-Australian, three times. Club champion, twice with the John Cahill Medal in 2011 and 2019. Three Showdown Medals, also spread over an eight-year timespan that highlights the high level at which Boak had maintained his football across almost two decades.
The football record does speak for itself across 349 senior games.
But there is much more to be learned from Boak's loyalty, professionalism, dignity, decency and character that commands respect not just today amid the celebration of his 350th AFL game.
That draft day in 2006 could have played to many scripts. Boak started his dream. Port Adelaide made a dream call. Together, they have lived moments beyond each other's dreams.
