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Australians, it is said, love free thinkers and larrikins. More than that, we love an irreverent footballer, one who doesn’t respect the rules of the establishment. Except of course, when the establishment is us, and the footballer says stuff we don’t really want to hear.
Much of the recent fallout involving Harry O’Brien at Collingwood has been kept in-house, as Collingwood Football Club tries to their assist a player who is clearly troubled by personal issues. Yesterday, it was revealed that O’Brien suffers from depression and “a long and very complicated history of sexual abuse.”
O’Brien has been in the headlines for weeks since his strident attack on Eddie McGuire in May. The Collingwood president was taken to task by O’Brien for racist comments he made about Adam Goodes. Since then, O’Brien has fallen out with his coach Nathan Buckley over teammate Paul Seedsman’s nickname ‘Lez’, apparently a reference to the so-called ‘lesbian’ nature of Seedsman’s haircut.
But while Collingwood seems to be supporting their young star, the situation has illuminated the shallowness of much of our sports media, who have happily perpetuated the circle-jerk boys-club mentality of our macho sporting environment.
Instead of addressing the bigger issues, we’ve seen journalists instruct O’Brien to “pull his head in”, make the choice between “freedom or football”, and even use that tired old moral equivalence trick to undermine his stance, irrelevantly reporting that he once sledged Tom Hawkins.
One has to wonder what possesses columnists to draw conclusions like these. Perhaps they feel that their overtly blokey commentary will grant them kudos from similarly blokey players and officials who couldn’t care less about social issues? Or perhaps they simply don’t feel that footballers should voice an opinion outside of the upcoming fixture on the weekend or the need to take it one week at a time?
What is most likely is that they just don’t get it.
We should encourage players like O’Brien to publicly voice their opinion. Adam Goodes was rightly praised for his understanding and his tolerance when subjected to racism in May, but O’Brien’s more pointed attack at his own club president was equally important.
Reconciliation over issues regarding racism is about more than simply making white people feel better.
Too often, the media’s treatment of sportsmen and women who voice their opinion on social issues does nobody any favours. Consider this Sportal columnists’ assertion that “competitive sport and promotion of social harmony do not always work together.” Or the braindead comment from the Herald Sun’s Mark Robinson – “[The nickname in question is] not really funny in print, but this is a footy club.”
Anybody who has been around male-dominated footy clubs knows that there is a lot of truth to Robinson’s statements that clubs are like this. But this doesn’t validate his argument, far from it. In fact his conclusion that O’Brien should simply “harden up” is looking at it the wrong way round.
Just because the culture of a footy club is a certain way does not make it right. That line of argument is self-justifying: we have to accept something being a certain way because it is a certain way. It only reinforces poor behavior.
Thankfully, Robinson’s initial article has since been taken down. It takes a special kind of ignorance to offend the Herald Sun. His later article admitted that we need to show empathy for the troubled star.
Still, it doesn’t change the fact that Robinson originally implied O’Brien was being precious over the offensive nickname. For O’Brien, after speaking out so publicly against racist slurs, he presumably felt it would be hypocritical to tolerate jokes that belittle gay people instead. Discrimination is discrimination, and for all its mystique, a football club remains a professional environment.
Standing up against things like this is just as important as the stand against racism, and there is a vast distance to go in addressing Aussie Rules football’s cultural homophobia.
Eddie McGuire reckons that he loves having “personalities” in the dressing room. Let’s hope O’Brien can find a way to deal with his personal issues, and comes back stronger than ever. But not that he starts to maintain the footballing party line.
Far from just wanting him to get on with football, I hope he continues to speak his mind. Go for them harder, Harry.
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