Ben Cousins has been selected to play for the Richmond AFL club.
Story and Video here from my colleagues at WA Today ( Fairfax Digital/Radio )
I’m not a joiner, but I will become a member at the Victorian club to show both; support for their bold action, and send a message to the Eagles and AFL that they should not expect a Christmas card.
Listen in to sports tonight on local radio 6PR from 1700hrs local
( 1000 UTC/Greenwich ) to hear the full story.
Remember, Ben has been battling an illness, has not been convicted of anything and yet has been villified and isolated by big sections of the Media, AFL and various Club administrators.
I trust these big tough aussie men who run these shows will abandon their own children if they get hooked on drugs and make sure they can’t continue their careers. They may also realise their institutionalised booze drinking is a drug addiction and sack themselves.
Many of them will be waiting for Ben to fail so they can crack a tinnie and say ” told you so!”
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journalist broadcaster and educator, social justice advocate and family man
Tony is a journalist, broadcaster and educator based in Perth, Western Australia.
Tony's professional background includes senior positions in radio and TV newsrooms and current affairs in Australia, Asia and the Middle East, several tours as Middle East and South East Asia correspondent, and decades of community advocacy at home.
Business, community and political leaders at state and federal levels have been ongoing clients for media consulting, with a special range of courses for newsmakers involving "devil's advocate" interviews to practice key performance and crisis management for radio and TV.
Tony has been Senior Ambassador for WA Children’s Week for the last two years, judge of the State Youth Media Awards for six years and is committed to making a difference in his local and global communities.
While lecturing in media at Murdoch University, Tony was rated in the top 10 per cent of teaching staff ( 2002/03 )
Currently Sessional Lecturer in Radio for Notre Dame Univeristy.
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G’day, folks 🙂
In my opinion, the saga of Ben Cousins versus the AFL carries two ominous lessons. First, the hazards of huge money for footballers and, second, the ignominy of not developing a countervail.
In a bygone era in Perth, when we eagerly awaited Saturday afternoon and everything that the WAFL (Western Australian Football League) had to offer, footballers didn’t get paid much for their services. Football was still a game, not a business. Football was fun. In no way did it impinge on the serious task of a longterm livelihood. A player might be on crutches on Monday morning, but he’d still turn up for the early-morning lecture at ‘uni’.
In those days it was quite common for a player to announce mid-season that he was quitting football in order to concentrate on his studies. Football was fun, and exciting, but it was never allowed to assume an unjustifiable significance in a young man’s life.
Money changed all that. I’ve not heard any AFL player declare that a degree was a more valued prize than a Brownlow. The young man was now a willing conscript into a system that seduced him into abandoning prudence. Without so much as a sigh, self-esteem had been replaced by something sinister.
Like any slave whose every need is met in abundance he depended entirely on his master. That faint voice of prophecy, with its insistent urging of a countervail, just got swamped in the roar of the crowd. It was like hearing the Johnny Cash song “Don’t take your guns to town, son”.
When the AFL started to “pull rank” Ben’s (and anybody else’s) instant response should have been the reverse of that immortalised by Sir Winston Churchill. Like any wise employee, Ben should have had “up his sleeve” that inconspicuously-nurtured “second string” to whip out. The AFL should never have been in the position of subjecting Ben to its inquisition. The AFL should have been left standing flat-footed, their mouth gaping, as a more skilled opponent snatched the ball that they thought was theirs by right.
That countervail would have kept Ben’s self-esteem incandescent with the love of life and the power of one. And if I’ve learned anything from those wonderful times when the WAFL was king it’s that the very best thing you can do for a mate in trouble of any sort is to keep their self-esteem up there in the stratosphere.
Johnny Cash sings “Don’t take your guns to town, son”: http://www.kurrattan.net/audio/mp3ss183.htm
Eric Carwardine, in Perth, Western Australia