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So, Steve O’Keefe became heavily intoxicated, made several stupid, tasteless, and inappropriate comments to various guests at an official Cricket NSW function.
For this he was fined $20,000 and suspended from playing in the domestic one day series. As widely discussed, this was not his first offence, having incurred a $10,000 fine several months earlier after an altercation with police outside of a Sydney pub.
Naturally, it seems as if it all Steve’s fault right? I mean, he is the one that became so intoxicated that he couldn’t control himself. A simple summing up of the remarks floating around social media and forums is that the man clearly “can’t handle his booze.”
Legendary Australian players have gone down in folklore for their ability to consume vast amounts of alcohol in one sitting, and still retain control of themselves. David Boon’s consumption of 52 cans of Victorian Bitter during the flight to England for the 1989 Ashes series is listed in many contemporary publications and websites as one of the “greatest ever” moments in the history of the series.
‘Boonie’, as we had come to know and love him, scored 21 Test hundreds, seven of which came while facing our traditional rivals England. Yet for all his undoubted class and ability with the bat (and he even has a Test wicket to his name as well!), most Australians remember him solely for that one act of binge drinking on a plane.
Heck, he even made a lucrative post-cricket career out of it doing advertisements, first for VB, and then getting pilfered by Canadian Club who wanted Boonie’s ‘drinking man’ image for their own product.
I even have a big, inflatable, David Boon in my home (actually he is in the shed), leftover from that VB campaign.
Maybe it is just me, but I am a little saddened by the fact that someone who accomplished so much in his life – far more than I ever will – is being remembered for something so little. That such a sublime stroke player, and one of the best first drop batsmen ever to put on the baggy green cap (wouldn’t we love another Boon in the team right now?), is being remembered for something as mundane as drinking beer!
For me, it is reflection of the role that alcohol plays, not only in our sporting community, but, in a larger context, within Australian society as a whole. If you can drink vast amounts of alcohol in one session and not totally lose control you are a ‘bloody legend’. However, if you can’t, or don’t, then it becomes some sort of indication of your lack of status as a ‘man.’
Unfortunately, not only have I seen it with my own eyes, I have been on the receiving end of it. I openly apologise if there is something I am clearly not getting here, but I fail to see the point of participating in a sport if the only real objective of it involves getting together afterwards to drink yourself stupid.
I know remarks will involve concepts of ‘mateship’ and ‘bonding’ and ‘tradition.’ What I would like to know is why those things require alcohol?
Can’t we be mates without the drink?
This returns me to O’Keefe, Cricket NSW, and the Steve Waugh Medal function. The question I am going to ask here is was there really a need to even have alcohol at this event in the first place? A more pertinent issue is, was there a reason to have so much alcohol served at this event that someone could get as drunk as O’Keefe did?
The ultimate question I am asking here is how is really to blame? It is O’Keefe for drinking to much and saying stupid things while drunk, or Cricket NSW for continuing to embrace and encourage drinking culture?
Clearly, O’Keefe may potentially have some issues surrounding alcohol that this incident has finally revealed that he needs help with.
However, by putting all the blame on O’Keefe, and heavily punishing him for it, Cricket NSW, and by proxy, Cricket Australia, have absolved themselves of all blame. Is that entirely fair?
Yes, O’Keefe made a complete arse out of himself, and probably destroyed whatever was left of his cricketing career in the process; which in itself is quite sad. As we saw in India, on his day he is absolutely brilliant. So, in that sense, Australian cricket suffers from losing a potential match winner in its team.
O’Keefe may have pulled the trigger and shot himself, but it was the drinking mentality of Australian sporting culture being perpetuated by Cricket NSW that put the gun in his hand.
Cricket Australia’s high performance manager Pat Howard is quoted at saying that CA is taking a ‘zero tolerance’ approach toward O’Keefe’s actions. I call BS on this, because if they were really taking a zero tolerance approach to this they would be banning alcohol at all official CA functions and events. This does not seem to be happening.
Sadly, O’Keefe is not an isolated incident, just a high profile one. A study in 2013 found that 22 per cent of Australians had been the victims of verbal abuse from someone who is drunk. That is one in five of us.
In Australia every year 5,500 people die as a direct consequence of alcohol consumption and a further 157,000 people are hospitalised. That is 15 people a day dead and 430 people a day in hospital.
Alcohol is the single most damaging drug Australia, far and wide in excess of the ‘ice epidemic’ everyone seems to be panicking about right now.
Maybe it is time for Cricket Australia, Cricket NSW, and indeed all of us, to think about what role we play in sustaining that trend. CA and the others need to seriously consider the serving of alcohol at events.
Maybe those of you reading should consider it too. Try having a ‘dry’ function for your local team or club and see how many people that claim to ‘love’ their team show up. Who knows, we might all be pleasantly surprised.
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