Jim Stynes’ death has taught all of us what it actually means to realise one’s talent. Normally I would use this space to write an irresponsible snark about sport, like something about Brett Lee being sponsored by Metamucil, or Paul Gallen taking off his socks to count to twenty. That sort of my thing.
But I wanted to take a brief break from the snark this week (I’ll get back to it soon enough, don’t worry), because there are times when sport really does make you think, about more than tackle counts and run rates.
This week the great Jim Stynes died, and that’s the sort of thing that’ll stop you in your tracks. And it did make me think, about life and death and family and football.
In the sporting world there is always a great emphasis on ‘making the most of your talents’.
The sportsperson who is seen to have maximised his or her abilities, to have squeezed every last drop of potential out of themselves, is revered. In comparison anyone who is seen to have wasted talent, to have been gifted extraordinary potential but failed to live up to it, is reviled.
Men like Justin Langer, Ray Price, and Brett Kirk are admired to a great degree not because they were seen as enormously talented (although in reality they were), but because they got the most out of themselves.
Conversely, the likes of Mark Philippoussis or John Daly are looked down on as men who wasted their talent, who were offered the world and turned it down out of arrogance and laziness.
And so the greatest virtue in sport is to have made the most of your talents. And that means out on the field. The hard work, dedication, sacrifice, pain and courage required to reach the sporting pinnacle… that is what is valued most of all. That is worthy of admiration, of adulation and emulation.
And when it comes to making the most of your talent it would be hard to argue with a man who travelled halfway around the world as a teenager to play an alien game. He went on to not just succeed, but be named the best player in the country and to set a record for consecutive games that may never be exceeded.
You couldn’t deny that this All-Australian Irishman, who just four years after costing his team a grand final berth through ignorance of the rules, deserved the highest individual honour the game could offer. As Rohan Connolly wrote, he “changed the face of ruckwork in the modern game” despite being raised in a different code, in a different country, with a different ball.
The bare, unadorned facts of his playing career are quite enough to laud Jim Stynes as a titan of sport, a man who really did fulfil his potential, and then some.
And so it is truly amazing that, upon his devastating, cruel, untimely death, it seemed as if his playing career wasn’t even the first thing people wanted to speak about.
It is wondrous that, while acknowledging a phenomenal and unlikely career on the field, so many of those who knew him found that the most remarkable aspect of Jim Stynes was what he did off it.
The man was a colossus on the football field: how great a man was he that so many people didn’t even find this the most impressive part of his life?
And that’s what I think making the most of your talents really means. I think Jim Stynes knew he was fortunate, to have the talent he did, and to get the opportunities he did, and he knew that if he was really to maximise his potential he would use his talents, his opportunities and fame, for more than just sporting glory.
He’d take the chance he’d been given, and use it to make the world a better place, to increase opportunities for others less lucky than him.
What Jim Stynes knew, I reckon, is that to really make the most of your talents you have to make sure that the world is a better place for having had your talents in it. You have to take the opportunities your talents have offered you – not just for personal success, but for the betterment of society.
When you are blessed with great sporting ability it gives you the chance not just to become a great sportsman, but to raise awareness and provide assistance to others in ways that people without those abilities won’t be able to.
Jim Stynes got that. There are a lot of other sportspeople who do too and maybe they don’t get enough credit.
It would help us all to remember that as admirable as it is to push yourself to the limits of sporting achievement, it’s men like Jim Stynes who truly, and completely, make the most of their talents. They make sure they’re the greatest force for good on this earth that they can be.
It’s terrible that Jim Stynes got only 45 years on the planet: it’s wonderful that he filled those years so wisely and so well that most of us can only hope we might do half the good he did, even if we get twice the time to do it in.
Vale and thank you Jim Stynes, for showing us not only that there are more important things than sport, but that sport can do so much to bring those things into the light.
And all power to all those sportsmen and women who have followed his lead, on and off the field.
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