(FATHER Dennis) is a keen Rugby fan from School days. Naturally, I would have liked the Wallabies to win last weekend. But bigger issues than winning sometimes emerge from sport. Although they lost the Wallabies had their heroes whose running, passing and kicking styles and haircuts will surely be imitated by younger boys in Rugby-playing Australia. And no doubt they will come under scrutiny as role models. It is natural to assume that gifted sportsmen and women influence the behaviour and attitudes of children, and so demand that they be good role models.
Most conversation about role models focuses not on what we should expect of them but on their failures. When players are found drunk, stoned, abusive to referees, speeding in cars or harassing at parties, they are deemed bad role models.
Good role models are defined by what they don’t do. They are never in the media for the wrong reasons, offer no opinions on public issues, do not criticise the administration, the press or sponsors, are ferocious competitors who lose their identity in their commitment to the team. They are good corporate men and women.
Some sportsmen, however, confer on role models a much richer meaning. Adam Goodes and the rugby hero of the hour David Pocock, for example, refuse to separate sport from life. They attend closely to the ethical dimensions of the big issues of their day. They call out unethical behaviour when they meet it on the sporting field and make a strong critique of their society.
Goodes exposes racial prejudice and abuse among Australian Rules crowds, and Pocock homophobic language among rugby players and supporters. Pocock, in particular, covered over sponsor’s signs on his shoes, suspecting them to be made by exploited labour. He joined other prominent Australians like Bernie Frazer and Peter Doherty in signing an open letter demanding a moratorium on new coal mines at Maules Creek.
Pocock and Goodes are compelling role models because they refuse to divorce sport from the other areas of life. They model integrity between personal life, sporting role and public convictions.
Whether we agree with them or not, they embody their convictions. Such models of integrity are clearly an enormous gift to society. (Thanks to Fr. Andrew Hamilton SJ)