Jack Watts is handsome, 6’5″ and aggressively white. By conservative estimates, Watts earns probably four times what I do, despite the fact we’re both fairly average at our jobs.
We live in a society that’s built for a Jack Watts-type to not only succeed, but dominate.
I’m watching Jack Watts play the Anzac Eve game. After a goal late in the first quarter, he threatened to break the game open with speed, precise kicking and lateral movement. In typical Watts fashion, he disappears from the game almost immediately after. He finished the game with just one tackle.
I feel sorry for Jack Watts. Yes – tall, beautiful, blonde, private school Watts. It seems ludicrous that I should feel anything but resentment for this man, this caricature of privilege.
I don’t quite understand my feelings. I’m not usually the magnanimous type.
Maybe it’s because Jack Watts is a football player in the same way Delta Goodrem is a singer. In the same way a Savoy is a cracker. In the same way a Kraft Single is cheese.
Melbourne drafted the Savoy number one in the 2008 draft. Years later, we dump on the Dees for not picking what is now the consensus choice – Nic Naitanui, number two in the draft and the undisputed Pizza Shapes of players.
Comparing the relative merits of the two now, with the benefit of hindsight and a chasm of flavour between them, is unfair and tedious.
Melbourne simply messed up.
A quick dip into the 2008 draft reports is a race warriors’ buffet in confirmation bias. If you were looking for an uncomfortable, problematic side to football, you could certainly find it. Codified language dominates every profile.
Nic Naitanui had a ‘cool name’, ‘freakish’ ability, ‘a head full of dreadlocks’ and ‘a marketing department’s dream come true’. Watts was “very intelligent”, “a widely respected character” with “very very good hands”.
I’m sure Melbourne’s selection of Watts over Naitanui wasn’t remotely about race. But examining the phrasing of those reports convinces me that the reporting of it definitely was.
The fact that nine years later, we’ve embraced Naitanui as one of the more successful stars of the game shouldn’t make us believe we exist in some post-racial utopia.
Even in 2017, as an ethnic person, there is nothing more infuriating than watching the effortless success of your white mates on Tinder.
It does make a kind of sense to defend Jack Watts. Despite his height and his natural abilities, Watts was drafted into a failing administration, a revolving door of coaches and several list turnovers.
He has never had the stability to develop into the player he was touted to be. It’s no coincidence that none of Carlton’s three No. 1 picks (Murphy, Gibbs and Kreuzer) has eventuated to be the best player in their respective drafts.
It does make sense to write him off, too. Jack Watts is symbolic of our deepest fears- unrealised potential, public scrutiny and a rapid fall from grace. To reject Watts is to exorcise that voodoo from your own life. Jack Watts is not inspirational. Jack Watts is cautionary.
Even though I am a person of a wildly different background, an immigrant who came to this country (thanks to a 457 visa), who knew nothing but public schools and has average height, I realise that football has a way of bridging gaps, of empathy and of humanising almost any character.
It’s not that much of a stretch to imagine the pain of unrealistic expectation, of reframing your own aspirations, or the rejection of a community your career is built around.
Jack Watts will probably go down as a general failure. But isn’t that more in line with our own human experience? Most of life is failing. Surely we have more in common with Watts’s narrative than Nat Fyfe’s – an unrelatable man-horse who plays football.
Watts sells a line of clothes – ‘Skwosh’. Specifically, little patterned shorts (watermelons, pineapples, toucans etc.) You can get them for eighty dollars on the internet. I have no experience with Skwosh because (1) they’re little shorts and (2) they run you eighty dollars.
Skwosh is advertised as ‘the next best thing to swimming naked’. This is on the surface, ridiculous. Swimming naked is horrible for men – things that aren’t propellers become propellers etc.
I can only imagine when they drag my body out of the muddy Yarra, it would be embarrassing to be found naked. Obviously. But I’m willing to be empathic and understand the words of men from a different culture.
And I agree with Jack Watts, my brother.
Yes, to be found wearing shorts with watermelons on them would be slightly worse.
Correct
Guest
Way to go off on a tangent. You should be more appreciative of the APS. If it wasn't for Melbourne Grammar and Scotch, there might not be Australian Rules football. Huzzah!
Pasta Bob
Guest
Dear sportswriter, Not a good idea to bring race into describing a footballer. With that said and with the shade and hate you threw at Watts, you are a bum.
Dean
Guest
People who have no interest in football shouldn't write about it. Rocks in your head if you don't know that he rucked the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters after Spencer went down. Dreadful article.
Kaniel Outis
Guest
Correct: The government should put no money into these schools. If parents want to send their kids to these schools that is their right, however these schools should not be funded by the government. In reality they are public schools as they receive public money. If they were truly independent schools, as they purport to be, they would not receive one cent of government money. They may be referred to as public schools in their own ruling class and upper middle class circles, but we in the working class refer to them as private schools, even though they are in fact public (for the reason outlined above). Another problem is when new suburbs are built the only schools built are private schools (sic). Australia has one of the highest rates of private education in the world. More and more footballers are coming from such schools, given their elite government funded sports programs. These schools also poach academically gifted kids from the state system. Personally I think we should be like Finland, where all schools are government run. State schools don't discriminate whereas private schools do. It is quite understandable that in the broader community there is a heap of resentment towards these schools, especially after Kennett took away people's local primary and high schools to further advance, so called private education. Brighton Grammar can hardly be seen as a poor struggling school. It is located in the third wealthiest suburb in Melbourne, where Anglicans still out number Catholics, according to census data. Brighton is one of the least multi cultural suburbs in Melbourne. You must excuse me but I have no sympathy for Brighton Grammar as it is a school for the elite privileged few.
Chancho
Roar Rookie
Love the Delta/Savoy/kraft single analogy, but I think you erred with the 'he's anglo-saxon, I'm not' juxtaposition
Spur
Guest
I think a big reason that Melbourne drafted Watts over Natanui was the go-home factor they feared might occur with NicNat -- spend years developing him, see him become a gun, and then he wants to go home, just as Judd has just done wit West Coast.
Correct
Guest
Dear boy, Public Schools is also a term applied to the 11 member schools of the Associated Public Schools of Victoria. Brighton is a member but is generally considered one of the lesser schools as it only joined the APS in the 1950s. The concept of Watts being a poster boy for the Melbourne FC establishment doesn't hold water because he is ex-Brighton Grammar - a "Tonner" as they call themselves. Probably more suited to St.Kilda FC actually. If he had gone to Melbourne Grammar, that would fit closer to the stereotype.
JamesH
Roar Guru
You could argue it, but you would be wrong. Naitanui wins games off his own boot and is critical to his side. He is elite. An All-Australian (when fit). Watts is 'merely' a very good player, and would have been a great get later in the first round. His only real failing was being the no 1 pick.
Paul2
Guest
Is Watts 6'5? I didn't realise he was that tall. p.s. Pizza shapes suck
Josh Mitchell
Roar Rookie
How dare you speak about Delta that way!
Shane Rene
Guest
You're living in the past mate. He finished top 5 in Melbournes best and fairest last year, kicking 38 goals from 22 games spending 70% of games in the forward line. He has some of the best evasiveness in the competition for a player over 190cm, is one of the best kicks in the competition and the best at his club, is rarely tackled and makes clever composed decisions with the ball in hand. How did he fade out of the game against Richmond? In the third quarter he shrugged a tackle and hit a target inside fifty when Melbourne needed it most. During this he was playing out of position in wet conditions and generally used the ball well.
Antony Pincombe
Roar Rookie
no they are not!!!
Antony Pincombe
Roar Rookie
Oh dear. It seems for a boy who grew up with racism that you haven't learned much. As you certainly have presented us with one of the most racist little pieces of the year. Don't please tell me that just because you are Asian you can't be racist. I used to hear this from a Greek friend of mine every time she would call an Asian a 'Slope' on stage. I would get so angry with her. but more importantly Jack Watts was really good Anzac Eve after having to play in the ruck. He was a trooper. He did what needed to be done. But earlier he was really good anyway. His movement of the ball was super. He rarely wastes a kick. I am not a Melbourne supporter by the way. I find your whole article offensive, racist and demeaning.
Robbo
Guest
This is a stupid and ill-informed article. You obviously didn't watch the game and you must have been in hybernation for all of 2016. I would suggest that you are lucky to earn 1/4 of what he does with this rubbish!
Raimond
Roar Guru
This is the perfect opportunity to say that Nathan Jones is still the best player at the Demons, by far.
Pope Paul VII
Guest
yeah makes him sound like he gets the KKK gear out.
Darren
Guest
Well, you were right about one thing in the article. You are fairly average at your job...
Geoff Schaefer
Guest
A good article Ken. Too many people here trying to read too much between the lines.
Andrew Young
Roar Guru
A lot to like about this; an interesting and humorous insight into a difficult to understand player...
Cat
Roar Guru
No such 'right' exists in this forum.