When Alan Rudkin passed away last year I thought of Lionel Rose and touched wood. Same deal the other week with Henry Cooper. Any mention of boxing the last 40 years and I’ve thought of Lionel Rose.
I didn’t need to read why he was in the headlines this time. “I’m here for a good time, not a long time,” he used to say like it wasn’t all that important in the broader scheme. I was a bit surprised he’d made it to 62 – twenty years ago he was long odds to make 52.
It’s confounding, the passing of the mega-famous. The day Frank Sinatra died – and there was nothing sudden about it, he’d been crook for years – the queues snaked out of the record stores and into the street.
That’s not easily explained but maybe there’s an apprehension there about buying into biographies of the living that are out of date the day they’re published?
I hope that’s how it works anyway and that now Lionel Rose’s last chapter is written more will take the time to immerse themselves in his story. You couldn’t make it up but as the broader context and details merge and their knock-on effects are surveyed, you’ll wonder if it isn’t.
Sport has made all sorts of inroads into the national psyche but he opened up superhighways. With him in its corner even boxing looked socially progressive. We could turn our noses up at a lot of things about sport but no one could turn their nose up at Lionel Rose.
He cut the template for our sporting role models and it’s been an impossibly hard act to follow. No one will ever come from as far back in the pack, work as hard, achieve more, be more gracious in victory and defeat, give as much to as many and have as much time for other people as Lionel Rose.
Our high-profile athletes have been behind the Lionel-Rose eight-ball ever since.
Riding the emotional rocket with Lionel Rose – I’ve always thought that the epitome of being born in the right place at the right time. The Apollo missions were enthralling but Fighting Harada wasn’t waiting on the moon, he was in Tokyo.
When the time came we huddled around the wireless and crossed our hearts, fingers and prayed that if Lionel couldn’t land a left hook he would at least survive. He did better than that – two out of three Japanese judges ain’t bad – and Australia’s centre of gravity shifted.
He changed literally millions of minds. Freedom rides and arcane feel-good legislation were all well and good but the game-changer was “What about Lionel Rose?” and some cold hearts and closed minds were opened up to some very different interpretations of where indigenous Australians fitted in.
It was as stark as that – most of the 1960s were much like 1950s and then along came Lionel Rose and we jumped straight into the seventies and we were a different people.
“Lionel Rose: Australian” wasn’t the first book I ever read but it was the first one I bought with my own money. It wasn’t about the boxing – the descriptions of life for a kid on Jackson’s Track are still with me. After Jackson’s Track, Fighting Harada was comedy relief.
I met him once. I didn’t know it was him until afterward. I’m glad I didn’t know beforehand because I went away thinking that whoever that bloke was I would gladly spend more time around him. Had I known it was Lionel Rose he wouldn’t have got a word in.
Had I known, would I have told him that my old man and I used to cruise around Marco Polo Street in Essendon where Jack Rennie’s gym was for hours on end in the off chance we’d catch a glimpse of him? I don’t know.
But I’d have made sure he knew I wouldn’t have judged him had he gone to South Africa but when he said no, I thought that was gutsier than him taking on Harada and Rudkin at the same time. There were no ticker-tape parades on offer for that one, just much harder times personally.
That was his hallmark I suppose. He didn’t make speeches about climbing un-climable mountains or beating unbeatable foes, he just flashed a grin and went and did it.
Whether he’d been any good or not, there was a humility and humanity there that made him a great sportsman. Ornament barely begins to describe him.
What’s your best bet? For great odds on all your favourite sports check out PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.
It’s a pretty good time to be a Tasmanian sports fan right now. After years in the sporting wilderness with not much to celebrate,…
Olympic swimming legend and Australian Sports Commission boss Kieren Perkins has warned that "someone will die" if a multi-sport event that allows athletes to…
In 2015 when heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko, the fighter regarded by many as the ‘Greatest of all time’ in the sport,…
Join Australia's most vibrant online sports community and you have the chance to win $1000. The Roar is the perfect blend of sports reporting,…
Here is a review of our boxers who made a splash in the world rankings over the past year.
After intense debate at Roar HQ, we’ve selected the 23 most controversial moments for 2023.
