On sex, drugs and rotten role models
By Paul Kent
October 04, 2007 07:57am
HE was a father, a husband, a drug abuser and good-time charlie.
He was all of the above and the reason was simple. He was one of the boys.
If anyone is looking for an explanation for Chris Mainwaring's death, allegedly caused by drugs, it was because he was not just an ex-footballer; he was one of the boys.
A man who learned his life skills cocooned in the weird half-world where men are too often paid like men and treated like something more but so often allowed to act like boys.
They are indulged for as long as they keep producing on the football field.
One of the boys . . .
There is no greater endorsement in the changing room.
To be considered one of the boys grants you entry into the private world of orgies and drug binges.
Of footy molls on call for whenever one of the boys picks up the phone or perhaps the visiting team hits town or even if they happen to bump into them at the nightclub where they are often happy to offer their favours to boy-men who should know better.
If anybody has got any blow or Es to make it a real party, well, the boys are usually pretty happy about that, too. Such is the world in which they live.
Not all of the boys behave that way, let's make that point now but many more do than we are willing to admit.
Footballers nowadays exist in this strange half-world, stuck somewhere between adolescence and adulthood.
It is not unique to them but the difference between them and, say, actors and rock stars, is that they don't earn enough money to afford to totally shield themselves from Joe Public so, occasionally - but more and more frequently - their indiscretions break into the public domain.
Then the response is simple, always the same. The club closes ranks, blames the media.
The gullible football fan adopts the argument, saying whose business is it anyway?
They're role models, the media say, so they have a responsibility. You say they're role models, the clubs return fire, but every child's role model should be their parents, not these men.
It is a load of rubbish and a direct and often successful attempt to divert the argument away from the true problem.
First off, there should be a simple rule of thumb: you get asked to sign an autograph, you are a role model.
Kids don't ask their parents for autographs or stick posters of mum and dad on the wall.
Next off, it is time for clubs to take greater responsibility for the care of their players - and, most importantly, it must be overseen by the leagues they play in. The AFL and NRL must take responsibility for their athletes instead of leaving it, primarily, to the clubs to discipline their players.
The ARU has already begun down this road. It is not enough to let clubs oversee the disciplining of their players.
Clubs have a vested interest; primarily to keep their players happy to keep them performing at their peak on the weekend, because a winning clubs keeps everybody in a job.
Disciplining them according to society's standards detracts from that. The player can get upset with the club, no matter how misguided his hurt is.
So clubs invariably side with them, penalising them as little as is publicly acceptable.
This distorted treatment is why players are often genuinely confused when they get in public trouble.
They hate the media because they have often seen their team-mates do exactly the same without penalty but now they are being fined because the media made it public.
The rules change - and they can't understand why.
Clubs are taking players away from home younger and younger. Almost immediately these players are shown a world of privilege and uncommon freedom, nearly always before they have earned it.
Older players see this unearned privilege themselves - a young team-mate able to pick up a girl not because she fancies him but because she recognises the team badge on the shirt he is wearing.
What these young players are missing, and clubs are making no effort to teach, is life experience. They experience little of the struggle that develops most young men.
They go from zero to hero in one short step and too often, as we are seeing, they have trouble keeping speed.
Nice cars, no mortgage, girls on call, and nearly always somebody willing to hand over a tablet for nothing more than the privilege of hanging around.
It is not normal . . . unless you're one of the boys. So, when trouble looms, too often they are ill-equipped to handle it.
It is time to treat the cause and not the symptom.
The clubs, and the leagues, must be more answerable.
Chris Mainwaring is the tragic example of a man with too much privilege. A 41-year-old father, still hitting the drugs, enough to cost him his life.
He couldn't stop his lifestyle because it is what he has always known. You have to ask, where did it begin?
