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After nearly a year out of the public eye and five years since his AFL retirement, Ben Cousins resurfaced this week.
He has returned to Richmond to meet with CEO Brendon Gale, looking relatively fit and healthy. It’s the first time in a long time that Cousins has been in the media for the right reasons and although nobody really knows how he is currently tracking in regards to his drug addiction, we need to consider his future Hall of Fame status.
There is no doubting the fact that Cousin’s illustrious AFL career is more than worthy of a place in the Australian Football Hall of Fame, but whether he will get there within the next few years is completely unknown.
After being highly touted by clubs as a youngster and living with the pressures of being the son of a WAFL legend and Sandover Medallist Bryan Cousins, Ben’s rise to the top was simply breathtaking. He could have gone to any of West Coast, Fremantle or Geelong under the father-son rule, but chose to stay in Perth.
He began his career at the highly successful Eagles, who were coming off two premierships in the past four seasons and had assembled one of the strongest squads in the league. Cousins immediately made an impact, playing 20 games and being awarded the 1996 AFL Rising Star award for the games best young talent.
He was soon the poster boy for Western Australia and the AFL abroad. Within five years Cousins had won a Best and Fairest, three All-Australian team selections, 1999 Goal of the Year and had been appointed as captain of the club at just 23 years of age.
Cousins had a Brownlow in 2005 and a premiership in 2006. His legacy was turning out to be massive, but with success often comes complacency and Cousins certainly started to believe he was invincible. Poor decisions, mixing with the wrong crowd and drugs led to Cousin’s life spiralling out of control.
Over his 270-game stint at both West Coast and Richmond, Cousins achieved virtually everything that could be achieved: a Brownlow Medal, four Best and Fairest awards, six All-Australian jumpers, AFL Rising Star and an MVP award just to name a few.
It has been his of field antics and severe drug addiction that has overshadowed his career in recent years, which sensationally saw him deregistered from the AFL in 2008 for bringing the game into disrepute.
With a plethora of off-field indiscretions it’s understandable to see why Cousins is yet to have received the game’s highest non-playing honour.
It is important to know that when selecting potential candidates for Hall of Fame honours, the six-man selection panel must take into account a range of considerations including: ability, record, integrity, sportsmanship and character. A player is eligible for induction only once they have been retired for at least three years, meaning Cousins would have qualified for the past two seasons.
It does beg the question, should character be a consideration when it comes to the Hall of Fame? Is it fair that a player could dominate over a decade of football, yet still not be included in the Hall of Fame? Should the Hall of Fame purely be a celebration of outstanding careers as we look at the great contributions players, coaches and umpires have made to our great game or does character justifiably play a big part?
Cousins is not alone here. In the past legends such as Wayne Carey and Gary Ablett have both been forced to wait extended stints after controversies throughout the career, but neither men stooped to the ultimate low of being deregistered.
Carey’s actions should never be condoned, yet he had turned his life around completely by 2010, something Cousins is yet to prove after being arrested three times within two weeks in March this year.
Fellow 2006 premiership player and recently retired champion Chris Judd has been a notable advocate for Cousins’ Hall of Fame induction and in a 2013 interview stated: “I’m no expert. I don’t know who does or doesn’t get in. But I would have thought what he achieved on-field would be enough to earn him Hall of Fame status, under the proviso I couldn’t tell you what the criteria is for judging it.”
Judd has also gone on record in the past labelling Cousins as the greatest player he has ever played alongside.
On his playing career alone it is obvious that Ben Cousins’ ability, record and list of accolades would have him in the Hall of Fame in a flash, but the fact that he has the indictment of being charged with bringing the game into disrepute makes it hard for him to be selected.
Should dominance in the field of play collide with integrity and character of an individual off field when it comes to induction into the Hall of Fame?
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