Dylan Stephens has four supporter bases spread across three states, but there’s nothing like his personal fan club at Red Cliffs Primary School in Mildura.

From principal Rod Beer and Year 5-6 teacher John Warburton down, everyone at the school of about 180 students is a huge fan of the school’s No.1 man.

Mr Beer and Mr Warburton speak in such glowing terms of their prodigy it will embarrass Stephens, but given his quickly established regard at the Swans it will surprise nobody.

Principal Beer is even a life-time Swans fan and a 2020 member who was telling Stephens he wanted him to play for the Swans as soon as his obvious talents and his want to be an AFL footballer emerged.

The strong connection between the 2020 Swans debutant and his former school was discovered by chance recently, when the Swans website sent a letter to the school via the general email address on the school website hoping to learn some interesting background.

Not expecting much, the website team was thrilled to get a personal reply from the principal the following day, with photos from his days at the school.

“Nice to hear from you … we are all very excited about Dylan’s wonderful efforts with his footy career. We are all very proud of him,” he wrote, adding “he couldn’t be at a better club”.

Mr Beer told how  Stephens, who has played six AFL games so far in his debut season after being the club’s first pick in the 2019 National Draft at #5 overall, was always going to be an AFL player.

“As a very young child he was focussed on his fitness, often running lap after lap of the oval during recess and lunch. His football talent was evident right from the start – he was playing in our senior (grade 5-6) team when he was in grade 3 and not even half the size of the others.

Stephens’ split supporter base stems from a three-state education. Born in Mildura, he joined Red Cliffs Primary as a prep student and stayed there until a stint in Melbourne in year 6, when his family moved south for business reasons.

He returned to finish his primary schooling at Red Cliffs and attended Red Cliffs Secondary College before completing years 9-12 on a football scholarship at the prestigious St Peter’s College in Adelaide.

Hence his supporter bases in Mildura, Melbourne, Adelaide and now Sydney.

St Peter’s is a school with a long, rich and varied alumni that includes ex-South Australian Premiers John Bannon AO, Don Dunstan AC QC, David Tonkin AO, Sir Henry Barwell KCMG, Sir Richard Butler, Sir John Downer KCMG KC and Sir Frederick Holder KCMG, ex-WA Premier George Leake CMG, ex-NSW Premier Tom Lewis AO, ex-Australian Defence Minister Ian McLachlan AO, ex-SA Supreme Court Chief Judge Sir George Murray KCMG, ex-Adelaide Lord Mayor Sir Arthur Rymill, and anaesthetist Dr Richard Harris, 2019 Australian of the Year.

In the entertainment world there has been Robert Hicks, screenwriter and director of Shine who was twice nominated for Academy Awards, singer-songwriter Greg Champion, Neighbours stars Sam Clark and Tim Phillipps, while many will also know of winemaker and America’s Cup skipper Sir James Hardy OBE.

AFL CEO Gill McLachlan and broadcasting brother Hamish are St Peter’s Old Boys with 2020 Brownlow Medal favorite Lachie Neale, ex-Test cricketer Phillip Lee, GWS star Phil Davis, ex-Southern Redbacks cricket captain Nathan Adcock, Olympic long jumper Henry Frayne, Olympic swimmer Hayden Stoeckel and Olympic water polo player Rod Owen-Jones.

Plus, there are three Nobel prize winners and two recipients of the Victoria Cross among countless others, but the two St Peter’s Old Boys who have been most relevant to Stephens are Swans CEO Tom Harley and Swans teammate Will Hayward.

The pair have been guiding hands at different ends of the football spectrum after Hayward, 26 months older than Stephens, played football with him at school.

Stephens and Hayward are now just six lockers apart in the Swans SCG changing rooms, with Stephens inheriting the #3 guernsey from ex-captain Jarrad McVeigh and Hayward in #9.

While Red Cliffs Primary School doesn’t have quite the same off-spring, the small country school has helped produce two well-known Australian politicians. Ken Wright OAM, was a politician at regional and state level for 30 years from 1961-92, including stints as Mildura Lord Mayor from 1966-67 and 1968-70 and as the State member for North Western from 1973-92.  John Forrest was the State member for Mallee from 1993 until his retirement in 2013.

While Red Cliff people say Stephens has the capabilities to do whatever he likes – even politics – he is all about football now.

After dominating for South Australia at the Australian Under 18 Championships and playing senior football with SANFL club Norwood last year, all while doing year one of a commerce degree at Adelaide University, he made his way to the Swans on a day that people at Red Cliffs Primary remember fondly. It was 27 November 2019 – AFL draft day.

“We were on school camp in Ballarat and everyone was gathered around watching the draft on a mobile phone while the students enjoyed an all-you-can-eat dinner at the local Pizza Hut,” recalls Mr Warburton.

“There was great joy when his named was called out,” he said, before adding with a laugh that personally he would much preferred it if Stephens had gone to North Melbourne.

Mr Warburton described Stephens as “a terrific young man, always well-behaved” and “a wonderfully humble role model for other kids”.

“When it came to any sort of distance running he would finish a long way ahead of everyone else and he’d stand at the finish line encouraging and applauding others as they came in. He still holds the record for our Senior 10-20-50-100 game we play on the oval, scoring 2,700 points before he had to retire.

“Dylan had so much energy and he never seemed to get tired. He would have liked to be outside all the time, but he was also a very good student and he understood he also needed to work hard on his schoolwork. He knew he needed a balance and he always did.”

While the school looks forward to one day welcoming Stephens back home, he is doing his utmost to live up to the school motto of “Do Better Than Yesterday”.

While the AFL season has continued through the Coronavirus pandemic Red Cliffs Primary School, which opened in 1921, is operating under Covid restrictions. About 30 students attend the school each day and the other 150 do remote learning at home.

But whenever the Swans are on television the audience will always include a large slice of the 2500-strong population of Red Cliffs, a fruit growing area 20km south of Mildura.

And invariably there will be a crowd at the Hattah Roadhouse on the Calder Highway 45km from Mildura, which is owned and operated by Stephens’ parents Rob and Ollie.