News Hawthorn Racism Review - No player name speculation - opposition posters tread very carefully

[Strapping Young Lad]

Wrong. Hawks did what they had to do by the rules of the AFL.

Correct. For reference below, once the HFC had the report outlining serious allegations they were duty bound by the AFL’s protocol to hand over the report to the AFL integrity unit.

I will pin this post, as it seems to be a constant query.

 

[rjslcM]

Is it possible that there is too much credence given to indigenous sensitivities?

No decent person is going to endorse flagrant racism but when a club and an entire competition is held to ransom and unable to dismiss a claim as baseless out of fear of the optics I think we have gone through the looking glass.

A bit of balance and sanity it required even if that is perceived by a minority as insensitive and even racist. Otherwise the majority will always pandering to the tiny minority willing to use offense as a weapon

Yes, it’s possible. But it’s also possible that not enough credence was paid.

But we won’t know until all is revealed in the fullness of time.

 

[South of the Yarra]

Is it possible that there is too much credence given to indigenous sensitivities?

No decent person is going to endorse flagrant racism but when a club and an entire competition is held to ransom and unable to dismiss a claim as baseless out of fear of the optics I think we have gone through the looking glass.

A bit of balance and sanity it required even if that is perceived by a minority as insensitive and even racist. Otherwise the majority will always pandering to the tiny minority willing to use offense as a weapon.

Walk a day as an Aboriginal who is on the end of these ‘sensitivities’ and you may see things differently.

 

[Brishawk]

Is it possible that there is too much credence given to indigenous sensitivities?

No decent person is going to endorse flagrant racism but when a club and an entire competition is held to ransom and unable to dismiss a claim as baseless out of fear of the optics I think we have gone through the looking glass.

A bit of balance and sanity it required even if that is perceived by a minority as insensitive and even racist. Otherwise the majority will always pandering to the tiny minority willing to use offense as a weapon.

The law requires the club to provide a safe workplace that is equally safe for all employees. If one group of employees has cultural sensitivities to particular workplace practices, those sensitivities need to be accounted for. We should welcome this as an opportunity to learn from what we got wrong and keep doing what worked well. If we never get to the point where we actually listen and consider, we cant learn and we risk repeating the mistakes of the past.

 

[Kanga Commando]

Walk a day as an Aboriginal who is on the end of these ‘sensitivities’ and you may see things differently.

Fair point
Australia as a nation is about to find out whether “insensitive” carries with it punitive value. Assuming no finding of malice is made.

I think the precedence will be quite complex in many ways ( win, lose or draw ).

 

[Ned Ryerson]

Oh, Cyril making me far more than unhappy.
I'm heartbroken for him, the Club, and its supporters.
I'm desperate to hear their truth.
Let the world know I say.


Edit:

Oh, and you absolute tosser.
From Merriam to your ears.
Though I'm sure you'll reach out to them requesting they find an indigenous person in their lives to hear the truth of the matter....

indigenous adjective​

Indigenous or less commonly indigenous: of or relating to the earliest known inhabitants of a place and especially of a place that was colonized by a now-dominant group

FF, I’m a fan, and I know when you’re arguing on here it’s hard to see the forrest from the trees. But, I also know you’re a good egg, so I’m trying not to be patronising but when referring to the Indigenous communities here it’s a proper noun and it’s just a common show of respect to capitalise it. I’m all for arguing semantics and pedantry - but in this case deliberately spelling it without the capitalisation would put you in league with people I dare say you wouldn’t want to be in lockstep with.

 

[Ned Ryerson]

Is it possible that there is too much credence given to indigenous sensitivities?

No decent person is going to endorse flagrant racism but when a club and an entire competition is held to ransom and unable to dismiss a claim as baseless out of fear of the optics I think we have gone through the looking glass.

A bit of balance and sanity it required even if that is perceived by a minority as insensitive and even racist. Otherwise the majority will always pandering to the tiny minority willing to use offense as a weapon.

No - this is akin to saying women should put up with sexual harassment in the workplace because it’s always been around and it’s not up to men to change their behaviour but up to women to just learn to be around it.

I worked with a Christian person who made a complaint about people being blasphemous at work (lord’s name in vain etc). As an atheist I didn’t take issue with that - it was up to us to make that person feel more comfortable. It’s really not that hard to take people’s background into account as to how they want to be treated.

There’s been plenty of anecdotes shared on here about how a number of Indigenous people due to their different cultural background are different in their approach to things - so clubs absolutely should take that into account. As someone shared here who had worked in Indigenous commmunities, he said the ‘taking the piss’ out of someone type of humour wasn’t in their culture so if you were just having some banter you could actually hurt someone personally. Isn’t it better to be aware of this rather than needlessly insult your teammate? I’ve got mates who are white who are the same and we make sure not to go hard on them personally because they don’t enjoy it as much as other mates do.

 

[flinchfree]

FF, I’m a fan, and I know when you’re arguing on here it’s hard to see the forrest from the trees. But, I also know you’re a good egg, so I’m trying not to be patronising but when referring to the Indigenous communities here it’s a proper noun and it’s just a common show of respect to capitalise it. I’m all for arguing semantics and pedantry - but in this case deliberately spelling it without the capitalisation would put you in league with people I dare say you wouldn’t want to be in lockstep with.

Hokay. I can work with that.
Wasn't deliberately being douchey, as a part time writer that's how i use and spell (i)Indigenous when using as an adjective.
Am happy to be respectful to the idea I should operate differently in this moment and situ.

 

[HedgeFund]

So if the club is cleared, I dare say the HFC will be suing the ABC and other media outlets to the hilt?

For the 1000th time…..the ABC reported the FACT that a report had been tabled by Egan to the club which contained allegations by former players and partners.

There’s nothing in that which isn’t true.

The allegations themselves may not be true, but the ABC never reported saying that they were (of themselves) true.

 

[wanderlust1985]

I'm fresh to this conversation and not willing to wade through 300 pages of chat to see if this has been covered. so apologies if it has. I welcome the court case. I think it's important to have a comprehensive understanding of what happened so we can learn and move on. If there are legitimate issues then they should be addressed so the club can improve.

I have really not enjoyed the process so far and i blame the league and club for most of that. The scope of the Egan report was too narrow from the start which made it a list of unchallenged grievances. That report was then taken by the ABC at face value with not a lot of effort to fact check and provide a balance to the story (i'm usually a fan of the ABC so this was disappointing).

I suspect that the thrust of the allegations will be found to be true, that some members of the coaching staff pressured some players to not be parents and to distance themselves from certain members of their family. I also suspect it will be found that the coaches did this to all of their players regardless of their race.

Which raises a philosophical question. Should professional sport be treated the same way as any regular workplace? In a normal workplace, pressure from your boss on these issues would be entirely inappropriate. But professional sport is different, it's winner take all. People who win at professional sport make huge sacrifices to get there.

I suspect the hawthorn coaching stuff were ruthlessly focused on winning, and wanted players who had the same attitude. Is that a good way to coach? well we have evidence both ways. For the players in question it's been a monumental failure, most of them had short careers at the club, Cyril's career was shorter than it should have been. For the team as a whole though, we won four premierships with three of them being in a row

For a while our slogan was "pay the price". That wasn't just a slogan, it was an expectation of the players. Was this a good way to run a club? That's a philosophical question and sadly the racism angle is distracting away from that core issue

 

[Ned Ryerson]

Which raises a philosophical question. Should professional sport be treated the same way as any regular workplace?

Yes. Ask me another.

 

[wanderlust1985]

I don't agree. The goal of a regular workplace is to build something constructive for society, it's meant to be a win-win proposition for all involved. Professional sport isn't like that, it's win-lose. Coaching strategies can be tailored to the individual athlete (and clearly hawthorn didn't get it right) but at the end of the day, if a player isn't living up to the coaching expectations then they will get cut. The only question is how hard the coaches push the player before they cut them. That's the philosophical issue.

 

[Ned Ryerson]

This isn’t philosophical - it’s legal. It is a workplace whether you think the players are chattel that can be churned out as you see fit or not.

 

[wanderlust1985]

bigger picture... the purpose of the law is to provide a framework for the society in which we want to live. Participation in professional sport is an entirely optional career pathway and it's not going to be for everyone. If the goal of an athlete is to enjoy themselves and live a balanced life, there's club level football for that.

The result of this issue becoming legal is that players will be cut rather than being pushed to their full potential. Is that better for players in question? that's philosophical...

 

[Ned Ryerson]

bigger picture... the purpose of the law is to provide a framework for the society in which we want to live. Participation in professional sport is an entirely optional career pathway and it's not going to be for everyone. If the goal of an athlete is to enjoy themselves and live a balanced life, there's club level football for that.

The result of this issue becoming legal is that players will be cut rather than being pushed to their full potential. Is that better for players in question? that's philosophical...

Every single career is entirely optional - it doesn’t mean you exchange your human rights for it because supporters want to win on the weekend. Human beings aren’t NPCs - being that I know people in the system and their families, and have seen how all get treated when a player is injured I’m not exactly going to join your philosophical musings. Premierships shouldn’t come with a human toll and they certainly don’t have to.

 

[TONYC3163]

Every single career is entirely optional - it doesn’t mean you exchange your human rights for it because supporters want to win on the weekend. Human beings aren’t NPCs - being that I know people in the system and their families, and have seen how all get treated when a player is injured I’m not exactly going to join your philosophical musings. Premierships shouldn’t come with a human toll and they certainly don’t have to.

This.

 

[brad sue well]

Hokay. I can work with that.
Wasn't deliberately being douchey, as a part time writer that's how i use and spell (i)Indigenous when using as an adjective.
Am happy to be respectful to the idea I should operate differently in this moment and situ.

Respect FlinchFree. Thanks Ned.


I am not Mr Popular here so will say this for a different post… doing the same thing to an Indigenous person is different for a non-Indigenous person. I am not at all a fan of Clarkson as a person (Fagan was his boss, Newbold President) but he was to be commended for employing an Indigenous Liaison Officer at the time. Ahead of his time. He did it more than once. Possibly from the soft cap? Since, it has become mandatory. Eddie Betts had to beg Gillon to do this, despite internal AFL staff seeing its importance. This role is to provide off-field support and be an in between person for off field matters. This recognises a difference, it sees it as a legitimate and necessary profession. It is essentially social work. An ILO is linked to Indigeneity, an interpreter and link of AFL and Indigenous peoples. Leon Egan didn’t make the grade at HFC(The Age article), I wonder how he felt at that time as an Indigenous person at HFC. Years later John Turnbull coped it for those who know his stories.

This above shows a deliberateness, an awareness.

Why bypass it time and again?

 

[wanderlust1985]

Every single career is entirely optional - it doesn’t mean you exchange your human rights for it because supporters want to win on the weekend. Human beings aren’t NPCs - being that I know people in the system and their families, and have seen how all get treated when a player is injured I’m not exactly going to join your philosophical musings. Premierships shouldn’t come with a human toll and they certainly don’t have to.

You're welcome to your view. For 99% of society I agree with it. I make an exception for professional sport.

This isn't about the supporters, it's about the athletes themselves. Their goal isn't to compete and make up the numbers, their goal is to win. To achieve that goal requires being better than every other athlete. It requires prioritising their sport above all other areas of their life. If an athlete isn't willing to do this, they will be overtaken by other athletes who are hungrier, willing to sacrifice more. It's not nice but it's not meant to be. Professional sport is the modern combat.

I'd like our society to be mature enough that coaches can have these tough conversations with their athletes. Some athletes will respond well to tough love, others won't. Athletes should welcome this as they are supposed to have the same goal as their coaches. To win.

If legal considerations prevent coaches from having tough conversations,then coaches will respond by cutting the player who isn't succeeding and moving on to another player. Those are facts, it's a cut throat endeavour.

 

[Ned Ryerson]

You're welcome to your view. For 99% of society I agree with it. I make an exception for professional sport.

This isn't about the supporters, it's about the athletes themselves. Their goal isn't to compete and make up the numbers, their goal is to win. To achieve that goal requires being better than every other athlete. It requires prioritising their sport above all other areas of their life. If an athlete isn't willing to do this, they will be overtaken by other athletes who are hungrier, willing to sacrifice more. It's not nice but it's not meant to be. Professional sport is the modern combat.

I'd like our society to be mature enough that coaches can have these tough conversations with their athletes. Some athletes will respond well to tough love, others won't. Athletes should welcome this as they are supposed to have the same goal as their coaches. To win.

If legal considerations prevent coaches from having tough conversations,then coaches will respond by cutting the player who isn't succeeding and moving on to another player. Those are facts, it's a cut throat endeavour.

Mate, tough conversations happen in every bloody line of work. I’ve had managers have tough conversations with me about performance, I’ve likewise had to do it with people I’ve managed. A good mate of mine is in the army and his form of a tough conversation he has with recruits makes the private sector look like a walk in the park.

Tough conversations, performance expectations etc still exist in professional sport and will continue to. Coaches crossing the line and interfering with a player’s personal life is way, way over the line though. Even Burt has admitted one of the lesser accusations happened and said that he and Clarko probably crossed a line. Nothing about this is saying coaches can’t have expectations of players - this is about normal employment boundaries and coaches knowing where those are.

 

[Brishawk]

You're welcome to your view. For 99% of society I agree with it. I make an exception for professional sport.

This isn't about the supporters, it's about the athletes themselves. Their goal isn't to compete and make up the numbers, their goal is to win. To achieve that goal requires being better than every other athlete. It requires prioritising their sport above all other areas of their life. If an athlete isn't willing to do this, they will be overtaken by other athletes who are hungrier, willing to sacrifice more. It's not nice but it's not meant to be. Professional sport is the modern combat.

I'd like our society to be mature enough that coaches can have these tough conversations with their athletes. Some athletes will respond well to tough love, others won't. Athletes should welcome this as they are supposed to have the same goal as their coaches. To win.

If legal considerations prevent coaches from having tough conversations,then coaches will respond by cutting the player who isn't succeeding and moving on to another player. Those are facts, it's a cut throat endeavour.

Sport has absolutely the worst record of considering the interests of athletes.

Abuse in Sports | The Army of Survivors

ABUSE IN SPORTS Abuse in youth sports can take several forms, but all involve a power imbalance, usually the power of the coach, athlete guardian or a parent over the athlete. The following information should help you identify the different forms abuse or neglect can take, though it is not a...

thearmyofsurvivors.org

Abuse is widely accepted as part of organized sports culture but it should not be tolerated

A sports culture that does not tolerate abuse of any kind needs to be cultivated to ensure that the benefits of participating in sports are achieved.

theconversation.com

Supporting gymnasts to find their voice

www.gymnastsforchange.com

And i could post 1,000s of articles and studies on this topic. These are just some of the first that come up. This is not a world anyone is going to tolerate now.

Edit: the fallout we see from ‘toughen up’ approaches to coaching is extremely high rates of depression among other issues. This article cites a study of around 50% of athletes surveyed suffering. That stat alone should tell you how bad professional sport is at looking sfter the interests of athletes.

Toughen up snowflake! Sports coaches can be emotionally abusive – here’s how to recognise it

Sports training often involves exposure to challenging situations to boost performance. But this can cross the line into emotional abuse. Here’s how to recognise when that happens.

theconversation.com

 

[DogDaySonny]

So, the question, as noted when this first broke, is: were Clarkson & Co equal opportunity a-holes?

 

[wanderlust1985]

Mate, tough conversations happen in every bloody line of work. I’ve had managers have tough conversations with me about performance, I’ve likewise had to do it with people I’ve managed. A good mate of mine is in the army and his form of a tough conversation he has with recruits makes the private sector look like a walk in the park

In your opinion. What is the correct manner for a coach to deal with an athlete who is not meeting performance expectations and the coach believes this failure is due to the athlete's personal life and choices?

 

[Ned Ryerson]

In your opinion. What is the correct manner for a coach to deal with an athlete who is not meeting performance expectations and the coach believes this failure is due to the athlete's personal life and choices?

Not my area of expertise - and the complaints listed don’t relate to performance related discussions but bizarre intrusions into the personal lives of players that I don’t think any coach should be involved in under any circumstances.

 

[TONYC3163]

In your opinion. What is the correct manner for a coach to deal with an athlete who is not meeting performance expectations and the coach believes this failure is due to the athlete's personal life and choices?

Have appropriate conversations, offer support and advice, explain consequences re performance, not be in senior side, delisting etc. otherwise don’t cross personal boundaries.

 

[Ned Ryerson]

So, the question, as noted when this first broke, is: were Clarkson & Co equal opportunity a-holes?

This is my wondering also. Burt confirming one of the stories shows that lines were clearly crossed. Was there a well-meaning but patronising element of ‘well the Indigenous boys can’t look after themselves so we’ll help sort things out for them’ - or would they cross the lines for most young players. Clarko clearly oversteps with players (the carolling debacle, getting Birchall a dog without his consent etc) so potentially it was more wide spread. This is what I’d like to know more about.

 

[wanderlust1985]

So, the question, as noted when this first broke, is: were Clarkson & Co equal opportunity a-holes?

I think it's highly likely they did this to all players. The court case will answer the questions.

I think hodge is on record talking about his personal experience as a younger player. From memory, he said the coaches at the time steered him away from his more destructive mates. He admitted to being a little shit at the time and with the benefit of hindsight was appreciative of the coaches efforts.