Australian Football

Garry 'Buddha' Hocking was an extremely dynamic and fiercely aggressive on-baller who put in tremendous service in the Geelong engine room for 274 V/AFL games from 1987 to 2001. He won the Cats' best and fairest award in 1991, 1993, 1994 and 1996, and was an AFL All Australian in the same years. No one tried harder than Hocking to push Geelong to an elusive premiership, but the best he could manage was to play in four runners-up combinations.

For much of his career Hocking suffered from knee problems, but he remained a highly damaging and influential player for the Cats right to the end. At the end of the 2003 season, Garry Hocking took over as senior coach of West Australian football's youngest league side, Peel Thunder, where he was confronted by arguably the greatest challenge of his career so far in endeavouring to transform the perennial easybeats into a competitive combination. However, his two season stint yielded consecutive wooden spoons and no measurable improvement in the team's displays, and once the 2005 season was over he was replaced as coach by Chris Waterman.

Hocking later coached the Geelong Falcons under 18s team, and in 2010 joined Port Adelaide's AFL coaching staff. He was caretaker coach for the Power for the last four rounds of the 2012 after Matthew Primus lost the role and remained as an assistant when Ken Hinkley took on the job at the beginning of 2013. Hocking coached Port's SANFL side in 2014 and 2015. 

In 2001 Garry Hocking was named as first ruck-rover in Geelong's official 'Team of the Century'.

Author - John Devaney, with updates by Andrew Gigacz