Early Life
Cousins was born in Geelong in 1978, to parents Stephanie and Bryan, a former player for the Geelong Football Club. When Cousins was 18 months old, his family moved back to Perth, where he was raised with younger siblings Matthew, Sophie and Melanie. He played junior football for the Bull Creek-Leeming Junior Football Club, and for his private school, Wesley College. In his last year at Wesley in 1995, Cousins was recruited to join the East Fremantle Football Club's senior side in the WAFL, and played for both his school and East Fremantle throughout the season.
While Cousins was still at school, three AFL teams competed to draft him under the Father-Son Rule: Geelong Football Club, West Coast Eagles and newly formed Fremantle Football Club. Cousins' father Bryan played 238 games for Perth in the WAFL and 67 games for Geelong in the VFL, during the 1970s and 1980s. Geelong's recruiting manager, Stephen Wells, said, "Ben barracked for Geelong and we tried everything to get him here". However, Cousins preferred to remain based in Western Australia and chose West Coast in October 1995.
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