(with apologies to Mr Dickens)

Some years ago, at the height of the fallout over Gary Ablett Snr’s drug and booze-fuelled involvement with the death of Alicia Horan, I wrote to The Age condemning the Coroner's criticism of Ablett as a role model. In that letter, I made the point that Ablett would not have consciously taken on the mantle of “role model” later assigned to him by some (see below).

The same, however, cannot be said of Heath and Rhyce Shaw and Alan Didak. By the time these young men entered the ranks of AFL players, society’s expectations of the privileged few were crystal clear. I heard someone say, in the aftermath of their disastrous binge, that they’d been “hung out to dry”. I would contend that this is a misreading of the situation.

The facts are that these young men are considered elite athletes. Their club, their club’s supporters and the football world in general are entitled to expect that they act the part. By all means get blitzed on Mad Monday, but during the season we should be free of reports of drink driving, public urination and the like involving AFL-listed players.

If these young men, incidentally being paid pretty substantial amounts of money to be elite athletes, are so wedded to boozing through the season, let them play in a suburban or country team where their mates will be doing the same thing.

Times have changed; expectations have changed. AFL clubs need to ensure that club cultures also change.

==========================================================
Letter to the Editor, The Age, 31 March, 2001:

Two high-profile AFL figures have been pilloried during this last week. One gained his profile through his business acumen and standing in the community. The other gained his profile exclusively through physical prowess. The community has, unfairly in my opinion, this week expected the same rectitude of both men.

The coronial report handed down on Thursday has seriously overstepped the mark in censuring Gary Ablett for failing a responsibility as a community hero and role model. The Coroner has mistakenly decided that public acclamation automatically confers the ability to make fine moral judgements. Nothing could be further from reality.

Ablett's status in our community derives solely from his ability to play Australian Rules football. His former manager, speaking on the 7:30 Report, described his life skills as "basic". His relationship with an adoring public has always been more-or-less one-way.

The football clubs who recruited Ablett did so based on his footballing abilities rather than his life skills. Whether they or his management should have so protected him from life is another issue and one that the AFL Players Association in particular seems keen to address. The footballing public marvelled at his deeds on the football field, not at his ability to live a fine, upstanding private life.

It is troubling then that a responsible government official should apparently be so caught up in the hysterical fan worship of Ablett that responsibilities and roles he neither wanted nor was prepared for are arbitrarily assigned to him.

The other figure, Carlton President John Elliott, has been a part of the business and political establishment and might reasonably be expected to understand the import of his comments and actions. By undertaking the office of President of an AFL football club he also freely and knowingly accepts responsibilities as a 24-hour-a-day symbol of the club. It is a matter of record that he treats these responsibilities with scant regard.

Elliott is rightly asked to account for his actions. He is clearly responsible for them even if he chooses to thumb his nose at orthodoxy. While the death of Ms Horan is indeed sad, it is grossly inappropriate to saddle Ablett with responsibility for the actions of another adult.
Neither Elliott nor Ablett are good role models. The difference is that one achieved his position understanding the consequences.