Alex Jesaulenko

Alex Jesaulenko
Personal information
Full name	Alex Jesaulenko
Nickname(s)	Jezza
Date of birth	(1945-08-02) 2 August 1945 (age 71)
Place of birth	Salzburg, Austria
Original team(s)	Eastlake (CANFL)
Height / weight	182 cm / 84 kg
Playing career1
Years	Club	Games (Goals)
1967–1979 1980–1981 Total	Carlton St Kilda	256 (424) 023 0(20) 279 (444)
Representative team honours
Years	Team	Games (Goals)
	Victoria	15
Coaching career3
Years	Club	Games (W–L–D)
1978–1979 1980–1982 1989–1990 Total	Carlton St Kilda Carlton	42 (35–7–0) 64 (13–49–2) 34 (18–15–1) 140 (66–71–3)
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1981. 3 Coaching statistics correct as of 1990.
Career highlights
Carlton premierships 1968, 1970, 1972 Carlton premiership captain-coach 1979 Carlton leading goalkicker 1969–1971 Carlton captain 1974–1976, 1978–1979 John Nicholls Medal 1975 St Kilda captain 1981 All-Australian team 1969, 1972 AFL Team of the Century Carlton Team of the Century Australian Football Hall of Fame inductee 1996, Legend 2008

Alex Jesaulenko /dʒɛzəˈlɛŋkoʊ/ (Ukrainian: Олександр Єсауленко, transcribed Oleksandr Yesaulenko, [ɔlɛksˈɑndr jɛsɑuˈlɛnkɔ], Russian: Александр Есауленко, [alɪksˈandr jɪsɐuˈlɛŋkə]) MBE (born 2 August 1945 in Salzburg, Austria) is a former Australian rules footballer and coach who represented Carlton and St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL) from the 1960s to the 1980s.

He is regarded as one of the game's greatest-ever players and is an official Legend of the Australian Football Hall of Fame. He immortalised his reputation in the game by taking the Mark of the Century in the 1970 VFL Grand Final. In 2009 The Australian nominated Jesaulenko as one of the 25 greatest footballers never to win a Brownlow Medal.

Jesaulenko was born in Salzburg, Austria. His father, Vasil, was Ukrainian and served as a German policeman during World War II. His mother, Vera, was born in Russia, and had survived the horrors of seeing her father shot dead by German soldiers and having her first child, whom she first gave the name Alex, taken away from her when she was in a German prison camp. The child was not heard of again until over fifty years later.