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Bravado and “me, me, me” are destroying modern sport

Anthony Sharwood

by Anthony Sharwood

01 Feb 05:45am

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Filed under: Anthony Mundine, Compton Cricket Club, Cricket, Culture, Sport, Sportsmanship

42 comments

The world’s unlikeliest cricket club touched down in Australia yesterday. And boy, do they have a timely reminder for us all.

The Compton Cricket Club play a spot of street cricket opposite the author's house in Tempe, Sydney. And nobody sledges anybody. Well, not in a nasty way anyway. Pic: Brad Hunter.

The Compton Cricket Club is a group of reformed gangsters from the infamous violent South Central Los Angeles neighbourhood. I wrote about these guys for The Punch last September when four of them made a flying visit out here to raise awareness and funds for the current tour. Mission accomplished.

Self-described “ambassadors of peace and goodwill”, the Compton cricketers long ago turned their back on the wildly egotistical, chest-beating American sports culture which has rapidly become inseparable from the wildly egotistical, chest-beating global sports culture.

They’ve even just teamed up with the LA Police Department to gain new converts to the strange foreign game of cricket, in order to help break the cycle of gang violence in Compton. They are, as they sing in one of their excellent cricket raps, “at the popping crease for peace.”

How ironic, then, that the Compton Cricket Club touched down on a day when a member of Australia’s biggest cabal of sporting loudmouths teed off in typically distasteful fashion.

Normally, Anthony Mundine’s Dad Tony is a dignified character, but yesterday, he tore a page out of his son’s songbook. After Mundine clan hanger-on and occasional rugby player Sonny Bill Williams won a heavyweight fight against some faceless fat slugger, Mundine Snr ludicrously said Sonny Bill could be as good as Muhammad Ali.

What’s to be gained from this kind of boasting?

Ali, of course, made his name with a mouth as quick as his lightning right hook. Many of his quips, like “I’m so bad I make medicine sick”, were classic comic one-liners.

But his bravado and trash talk made him the harbinger of a generation of sports stars who combined outspoken lack of respect for their opponents with an over-healthy dose of respect for themselves.

When I first met Compton Cricket Club founder Ted Hayes in his Los Angeles apartment back in 2008, he gave me this fantastic quote about Ali.

If you act like a deity, then instead of being an example to children, and helping them to understand life principles, it becomes all about you. For example, you know who really ruined sports in America? Muhammad Ali. All that mouth. And for all that mouth he had, guess who can’t talk no more?

Fresh off the plane, Ted Hayes was again in top form again yesterday at a press event at the SCG

If cricket is taught correctly, it can change people. The problem with cricket today is it’s gone so professional, it’s all about money, it’s all about egos, it all about racism, it’s all about that garbage we don’t need. We want to bring back cricket in a such a way that it civilises the world. That’s our dream.

Ted Hayes is right about cricket’s corrupted soul. And he didn’t even mention the words “Pakistan” or “ICC”. But you could pretty much substitute the name of any other sport for cricket. Because few sports have navigated the age of ego with their souls intact.

Every day, the modern sporting world throws up examples of ugly bravado and the “me, me, me” attitude.

We see it in over-enthusiastic high fives and ugly send-offs.

We see it, albeit subtly, in sportsmen who refer to themselves in the third person.

But above all, we see it in a pervasive sense of entitlement. Today’s professional sportsmen believe they deserve it all, and act like spoilt brats if they don’t get it.

By far the most extravagant, repulsive example of entitlement in recent memory came last year, with NBA basketballer LeBron James’ televised one hour announcement that he was changing clubs from Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat – a move designed to help him win the title he felt he “deserved”.

“The Decision”, as the vulgar event was billed, was greed and rampant ego as spectacle. And it was a low moment in the history of sport.

For me, though, there was one even lower moment last sporting year. It came when my four year old boy wandered onto a suburban cricket field where teenagers were playing. As I ran onto the field to chase my son, one of the teenagers yelled “Get the f—- off the field!”

I’m not in the “sportsmen are automatic role-models” camp. But I have no doubt that no teenage kid would have acted that way 30 years ago in an era of better-behaved professional sportsmen.

There are, of course, still the good eggs in sport. And I mean genuine good eggs, not just the token children’s’ hospital visitors and Queensland flood cleaner-uppers. Read Andrew Mcleod’s inspirational speech to the UN, and you’ll see what I mean.

Sadly, too many are following the example of the Mundine clan. And there are consequences. How many people would actually respect Anthony Mundine (who by all accounts is a good guy) if he ditched the egotistical crap?

How many more people – women in particular – would have taken pride in Australian cricket’s golden era if it wasn’t tainted by endless sledging?

And how many more fans would tennis star Serena Williams have if she stopped telling everybody how bloody superior she is?

Serena Williams is from Compton, by the way. It’s a shame she’s never met Ted Hayes.

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42 comments

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    • TChong says:

      06:19am | 01/02/11

      I think the CCC is great, but Ted Hayes does seem a touch too critical of Ali.
      A funny anecdote from crikets supposed Golden Age.
      One day while watching a match, ( early ‘90’s) against India/ Pakistan/ Sri Lanka-( cant recall which), a chap at work, from the same area as the team, freqently laughed, and looked embarrased whenever comments were aired
      by the visitors- they were sledging, slagging off, using profanities etc - against the Aussies, and most things Australian,-, picked up on the mike.
      The broadcasters missed what was said , but our mate didnt. Moral-
      All sides sledge, most of it harmless, but Aussies are not the only ones.

      Reply

    • C1 says:

      06:27am | 01/02/11

      Wherever the CCC are playing I would go and watch and would be more than happy for my children to watch.

      BTW - Chongy, he is right about Ali.

      Reply

    • MarK says:

      07:07am | 01/02/11

      I thought it was Mundine jnr that made the claim about SBW. I gave it no thought at all to be honest.

      Very out of character for the dad to do it. What a shame.

      Reply

    • KH says:

      07:43am | 01/02/11

      There are some good things about cricket - the best of which is the idea that there isn’t always a winner.  You can play a brilliant game for five days, and still come out with a draw, which is a good result.  In the course of a test match, a draw might become your goal.  I like that it is about skill and strategy, and for a test match, patience.  Now there is something a lot of kids can learn something from.  I can understand why the Compton guys think its a good thing.

      I think that the love of the ‘faux celebrity’ has ruined a lot of sports - magazine deals, ‘wags’ , being photographed at the opening of an envelope - its all a bunch of crap that is giving some people a bigger head than they might otherwise have, distracting them from their real task.  End the ‘celebritisation’ of sports persons and ignore the wags (who are for the most part, lets face it, talentless attention seekers)  and maybe the sports person will go back to doing what they do best - sport.  As for kids’ sport - some of the parents are the ones who have to be censured - the kids generally just want to play….........

      Reply

    • Markus says:

      08:29am | 01/02/11

      The whole obsession with faux celebrity and WAGS seems to have come into it as a push from marketers to encourage women to take an interest in sport (men could care less what dress Lara Bingle wore to the Alan Border Medal).

      I am all for women following sport, but when marketers are doing their utmost to turn the sport into a copy of New Idea, it makes a mockery of the actual sport, and alienates the real fans.

    • Justin says:

      08:48am | 01/02/11

      The big question is, did a visit by a bunch of LA gang members lower the tone of Tempe, or raise it?

      Peering down the hill, over the river from Earlwood, I’m guessing raised. :D

      Reply

    • Ant Sharwood says:

      09:15am | 01/02/11

      OK, so for those who are not from Sydney, what we are witnessing is classic suburb snobbery.

      Earlwood (John Howard’s childhood home) is indeed on a hill and overlooks Temkpe, which was once the site of a major rubbish tip.

      But whereas Earlwood now has numerous hideous ugly faux mansions with too many ballustrades and arches, and is in a traffic bottleneck, Tempe is rather beautiful nowadays. And Earlwoodians like Justin are secretly jealous.

      By the way Justin, the Compton cricketers play at Gough Whitlam Oval (technically Tempe but on the Earlwood side of the river THIS SUNDAY). I’ll be there. Come and say hello.

    • Justin says:

      09:49am | 01/02/11

      Whitlam Oval Sunday sounds good. Who are they playing & rough time?

      You’re right about the faux mansions though, but the traffic’s a doddle if you know the rat runs (Canterbury Councils speed hump, roundabout & “traffic calming” obsessions aside). I’d recommend avoiding John Howard’s childhood home these days (it’s a KFC) - the Oporto up the road is the best in Sydney.

      Anyway, that Ikea is really going to put Tempe on the map (no, literally - you’ll be able to see it from the moon by the looks of it).

      BTW, we’ve got teenage sporting a***holes here too. My wife & I were walking around Earlwood Oval with our 1 yr old one evening & were nearly drilled by a soccer ball. No one could fail to see a modern monster pram.

    • Lara says:

      12:34pm | 01/02/11

      Relax with your own bravado Justin, you live in bloody Earlwood not Point Piper

    • Justin says:

      02:09pm | 01/02/11

      Point Piper (& the Eastern Suburbs for that matter) is over-rated.

    • JdR says:

      09:00am | 01/02/11

      There is professional sport which is put on to entertain.  And for those folks, if they want to act like other paid entertainers - then that’s ok with me.

      Then there is the sport we should all play ourselves.

      Australian society’s problem is the cross over between these.  When I was chugging around a touch footy field having a good time, and there’s someone (on my team or the opposition) acting like he’s going to earn $10k more if he wins the game than if he loses it, then it’s all very wrong.

      We need to break the links then.  For me, I found a sport that isn’t on television, and its better for that.  Nobody to emulate but ourselves.  For parents, unless you genuinely think your kid has the talent to become a professional entertainer via sports, then steer them into a sport that isn’t on television.  You can still turn on the TV and be entertained.

      Reply

    • Adam Diver says:

      09:19am | 01/02/11

      Don’t forget the administrators, people who stick to rules regardless of the application.

      More than that I have an issue with insurance, why does one even need to be insured to pay the sport? Surely thats the responsibility of the individual?

      Last week I wanted to play an unregistered player in a game of touch, an old school friend who had be o/s for a while. We forfeited the game due to being unregistered (which is fine don’t want to cheat), but then he was not allowed to play due to insurance.

      I am not playing to take out some no-name competition and win a towel or something, I just want to enjoy the competition with some friends, why do we lose our purpose so often in life?

    • Markus says:

      09:41am | 01/02/11

      Not sure I share your sentiment on the sport we should play, as I love playing sport for the competition.
      For 80 minutes a week I get to yell, hit people, and play to win at all costs (within the rules, of course). Then at the end of that 80 minutes, I can pick myself up, shake my opponent’s hand and share a beer, while being able to look forward to repeating it all a week later.

      I wouldn’t trade that for anything, but to each their own.

    • Flutz says:

      09:08pm | 01/02/11

      You actually can see touch competions on the tele (OK, not week in week out, but they do telecast the National Championships each year).

      And Adam - speaking on behalf of Sports Administrators, of which I am one, if we don’t fully enforce the rules we can complaints and threats of lawsuits.  If we do fully enforce them then we get accused of being too heavy handed - we can’t win.  As to the subject of insurance, it wouldn’t be an issue of we hadn’t gone the way of the USA with the majority of people suing at the drop of a hat - regardless of the extent of any injury sustained the majority of people who play social sport will sue the club or association for any injury sustained.

    • Wagga Magpie says:

      09:12am | 01/02/11

      Seems ironic that it takes a group of visiting Americans from the ‘hood to tell us how to play cricket with a sense of morality.

      Is the ‘keeper in the photo wearing oven mits?

      Reply

    • Budz says:

      09:56am | 01/02/11

      Haha, he certainly is!

      PS. The Roos are better!

    • BK says:

      09:32am | 01/02/11

      I always felt sorry for Joe Frazier. He was everything that Ali pretended to be but wasn’t. Frazier was the son of a sharecropper and bootleg grog seller, who left home, because the landlord felt entitled to whip him. He saw more racism and poverty than any of us can understand. Ali grew up in a working class environment, but was never that disadvantaged by the standards of his day.

      Ali was full of crap. He probably has influenced the current generation of egotistial jocks.

      Reply

    • rufus says:

      11:22am | 01/02/11

      I admire Ali. He refused to kowtow to the white supremacy that was still everywhere in the US in his heyday. He refused to be drafted into the army to fight the immoral and unnecessary Vietnam War. I’m not aware of Frazier taking any of these stances. And although Ali greatly disparaged Frazier in pre-match hype, (I’m gonna get the gorilla in Manilla) he made it clear he greatly admired the man as a fighter (‘He’s a helluva man, god bless him!’).

      Frazier, though a great fighter, was not quite as good as Ali and gained his champion’s belt when Ali was suspended after refusing the military draft. He took a bad beating from Foreman to lose his champion’s belt. He was not known to hold any political views or to use his champion’s status to help anyone else. Ali’s taunts provoked a hatred in Frazier that remained long after retirement.

    • Marvin Hagler says:

      03:21pm | 01/02/11

      sorry Rufus, but it wasn’t Ali who made those decisions, it was his ‘masters’ the Nation of Islam.  Find and read a book called “Ghosts of Manila”  It provides an amazing insight into the backgrounds of and relationship between Frazier and Ali.
      Note: Even Sugar Ray Robinson told him to accept his draft bacause there was no way known he would actually be sent to fight

    • BK says:

      03:51pm | 01/02/11

      Rufus

      Ali did exactly what rich white journalists wanted him to do. He shared their politics. They couldn’t stand Frazier, because he was black, but not that interested in race politics.

      BTW Ali was ineligible for US military service, because his IQ (40) was too low.

    • Sean says:

      11:37pm | 01/02/11

      That isn’t possible, BK. If Ali’s IQ was 40, he’d be severely mentally retarded. He wouldn’t be able to take a bath by himself or clothe himself.

    • Carz says:

      09:37am | 01/02/11

      I don’t have a problem with “professional” sportspeople, male or female, per se. What I do have a problem with is the ridiculous amount of money thrown at young men, mostly, for being able to hit or throw or kick a ball. This gives them no incentive to plan for later in life when they are not able to play their chosen sport professionally anymore. When I was growing up athletes of all kinds had real jobs and were paid a lot less for playing their chosen sport. Now it is all about the money and the salary cap and who can buy the best team. Time to go back to tthe start and pay all professional players from a sport the same slaray (eg, rugby league - $25 - 50K).It would cut out a lot of the crap and maybe give them an incentive to live in the real world.

      Reply

    • Markus says:

      10:14am | 01/02/11

      I do have a lot of respect for Rugby Union in this regard, and the work it puts into ensuring players are equipped for work after their career.

      It partly came from a lot of Union players coming from private schools, and partly out of working with limited resources (playing 2nd fiddle to NRL and AFL, so had to hold onto every player they could), but a lot of elite rugby players finish their careers with qualifications as doctors, architects, and business owners/managers.
      Players from country areas are also being provided with tertiary rural qualifications (veterinary, farm management etc).

    • Justin says:

      10:45am | 01/02/11

      Hmm, rugby Union is steadily coming back to the field since professionalism. Quade Cooper, Kurtley Beale, the Western Force clowns with the Quokkas on Rotnest Island, any Super Rugby player that tours South Africa & seems electro-magnetically drawn to the night clubs & stoushes with taxi drivers, even wild nights out in Canberra (how is that possible?).

      While the players have traditionally been drawn from the upper-private school system & universities, that’s changing (as are those schools & unis). These days an average union player can head to Europe & do way better than an above average league player - that’s why a lot of those leaguies are becoming union players over there (Gower, Rooney, Money Bill, Fire Up Bitch, etc.).

    • Tim says:

      11:36am | 01/02/11

      So who should get the money from the players endeavors Carz?
      The administrators? TV executives? Sponsors? Owners?
      Sport is big business these days, why shouldn’t players get their fair share?
      Comments like this just reek of jealousy to me.

    • Eric says:

      12:54pm | 01/02/11

      What about the ridiculous amount of money thrown at young women just for looking pretty, Carz? Do you object to that as well?

    • Carz says:

      05:33pm | 01/02/11

      ” What about the ridiculous amount of money thrown at young women just for looking pretty, Carz? Do you object to that as well?”

      Actually Eric I do object to that, and to the fact that it rarely sets them up for a long term career. However, this article was about sports and the whole “me, me, me” thing, not models or other young women paid to “look pretty.” Sorry to deprive you of the opportunity to have yet another rant about the evils of women and feminism.

      @ Tim, how about into developing their sport and opening up opportunities for more people to enjoy it. Or maybe ending the reliance of some sporting clubs on the proceeds of poker machines. Or maybe, shock horror, they could reduce ticket prices and make the sport a family event that can be enjoyed by even more people.

    • Thommo says:

      09:47am | 01/02/11

      Golf & Tennis purses are a big problem as well. They just encourage individual rewards. We should ban sponsorship of large events.

      Reply

    • Shifter says:

      04:10pm | 01/02/11

      Not to mention ‘appearance fees’.

    • Justin says:

      11:04am | 01/02/11

      If you make it to the elite level of a sport, chances are you were light-years ahead of your schoolmates in the sport at school & were fawned upon by fellow students, teachers & coaches. You did a few things wrong at school & were allowed to get away with it - you were deemed too important for school pride to be severely punished. Just make sure you turn up Thursday arvo or Saturday morning & you’ll be sweet. I saw this at school with a now former NRL player.

      You would’ve made junior rep teams &, again, you would’ve been better than your team mates, so you would’ve been given more slack.

      Then, you get picked up by a club & who are you surrounded by? Older blokes who all trod the same path. The senior players when they arrived took them out for big nights & showed them what they could get away with, so now they’re showing you. You’ve effectively been surrounded by other guys who have never left the circle - these are groups of guys in their late teens & twenties that are effectively in the same pattern as they have been since 14-15. They haven’t grown up, but now they have the ways & means to access all sorts of vices.

      If you were a 15 yr old bloke & had a stack of cash, a perfect fake ID, all the adulation in the world & had girls throwing themselves at you, what would you do? And would you record it on your phone? At 15 that probably seems like a good idea as you can then back up your bragging with your mates.

      And that’s what they do, because they’re effectively cashed up, horny teenagers.

      Reply

    • Anita says:

      11:22am | 01/02/11

      The players from the Compton Cricket Club should be really proud of themselves and the example they are setting. (As for the wicket keeper wearing oven gloves - that’s the most endearing thing I’ve seen in cricket for years)

      Reply

    • Ernie says:

      02:18pm | 01/02/11

      Your swipe at Lebron James is IMO unwarranted. At the end of last season James was what is known in the NBA as a free-agent. That means he had no contractual agreement to play for a particular team, therefore giving all 30 teams a chance to make an offer in an attempt to secure the biggest superstar since Jordan. Ofers from New York and Chicago were well in excess of the offer made by Miami as they were also trying to secure Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh (which they did successfully). In short, Mr James traded a larger pay cheque for a chance at the Championship, which to me, makes your remarks about him irrelevant.

      Reply

    • Justin says:

      02:44pm | 01/02/11

      It wasn’t the move, it was the televised one hour announcement special on TV.

    • Nate says:

      02:54pm | 01/02/11

      Ernie, the issue with LeBron wasn’t his changing of teams, but his self-centred, egotistical attitude where he somehow felt he “deserved” a championship.

    • Markus says:

      02:55pm | 01/02/11

      The remarks as I read them had nothing to do with him deciding to move to a team in the chase of an elusive championship.

      It was more to do with the fact that he is clearly so full of his own self-importance that not only did he schedule an hour long conference to announce his decision (and have equally self-important tools like Kanye in attendance), but had the audacity to even call the whole circus ‘The Decision’. THE decision??

    • Ernie says:

      03:28pm | 01/02/11

      Fair enough. But did James go to ESPN and say let’s have a one-hour televised special about “The Decision”, or did they come to him knowing if it went ahead it would be the most watched hour of television for the year? Maybe the Lebron reference could be changed to mention greedy American TV exec’s?

    • Brett says:

      09:20am | 02/02/11

      Ernie you miss the point of the Lebron decision. He was free to go anywhere, no one in their right mind (except Cleaveland) resent him of that. But in holding back his decision and his thoughts from the GM, he effectively destroyed Cleaveland (now the worst team in the NBA, possibly history of NBA). They had sacked their great coach because Lebron didn’t liked him, and they had no chance to prepare for Lebron leaving, or get a better deal for him in the sign and trade. After he had effectively run the franchise for 7 years, with management at his beck and call, he not only walked out, but threw a grenade through the door on his way out, The leaving was fine, the classless and detrimental way in which he did it, was disgusting.

      Plus Lebron is a choker and may never win a championship, he is the least clutch star on Earth, followed by Bosh. Unless Wade plays 8-14 perfect games from conference finals on, they won’t win.

    • St. Michael says:

      03:29pm | 01/02/11

      Anthony Sharwood asks—rhetorically—“What’s to be gained from this kind of boasting?”

      But it’s not a rhetorical question.  In boxing, if not in other fields, the gain is straightforward: it enhances your rep and gets you better fights quicker.  History proves it, because Ali used it successfully.

      People with a little background in sporting history know Ali actually wasn’t the first to use the trash-talk technique in public forums.  That honour belonged to Gorgeous George (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgeous_George) , a wrestler who preceded Ali by a number of years.  But Ali took the technique and successfully applied it to boxing.

      When Ali first met Gorgeous George, George had turned himself into the “villain” of wrestling, and sneeringly pronounced he wouldn’t get beaten by an opponent.

      As Ali himself said: “I saw 15,000 people comin’ to see this man get beat. And his talking did it. I said, ‘This is a gooood idea!’” In the locker room afterward, the seasoned wrestler gave the future legend some invaluable advice: “A lot of people will pay to see someone shut your mouth. So keep on bragging, keep on sassing and always be outrageous.” (Source: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1114630/index.htm )

      Trashtalk and puffing himself up like a frill-necked lizard allowed Ali to fight serious contenders a lot faster than he otherwise would have had to.  He didn’t have to build up a reputation built on a history as a brilliant fighter; he goaded enough top-tier boxers to fight him and as a result drew crowds so large that the industry turned him into Tiger Woods.

      The reason Mundine et. al. use the technique is because it works, albeit not as effectively as Ali since everyone is now doing it to a greater or lesser extent.  Simple as that.  And if you’re dumb enough to go and watch the fight or discuss it, you play into the technique.  And you enable the whole sorry problem.

      Reply

    • Markus says:

      03:55pm | 01/02/11

      Thanks for confirming the reason as to why I don’t watch boxing. It has more in common with pro wrestling than it does sport.

    • Brett says:

      09:29am | 02/02/11

      Yet Ali enticed and fought top tier fighters for titles. Mundine just boasts and then fights gutter dwellers or old guys coming out of retirement. He has rarely faced a good boxer or any of the few talented fighters in his weight class.

    • Mary Monica Roche says:

      06:54pm | 01/02/11

      Your comment:
      modern sport is like modern movies.
      Its plots, its characters,its heroes, its lessons, its villains and its messages are recycled over and over and over again .
      modern sport and modern movies have become old boring trivia who, like the Liberals, are not worth noticing let alone worth thinking about.

      Reply

    • Hugh Snelgrove says:

      07:27pm | 23/05/11

      Man lets just play criiiiiiiiiiiiickkkkkkkkkut!

      Reply
 
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