Let's watch our language and keep the fascism out of sport

 

In my most recent blog I became a bit sentimental while reminiscing about great school coaches who are no longer with us.

In the process I made the mistake of saying, while talking about Athlone Boys’ High’s headmaster of the 70s and 80s, Buddy Hurd, that Athlone ruled the roost in boys sports in the early 1980s. I guess I was guilty of the old sin of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story, but I was talking about great fallen warriors really, not about who might or not have been the top sports school in Joburg in 1980 and 1981.

Anyway, I was put straight, in strident terms, by one of the trumpet blowers of the school who, he said, actually ruled the roost. It turns out that while Athlone had the top rugby team in those two years (which many regard as the only thing that counts) and were tops in water polo and swimming, that was all. So, I was told that I wrote nonsense and made a statement that was wildly misleading. That may be true, although it confounds me that someone can get hot under the collar about things that happened 40 years ago, and which weren’t really important even then.

I got into a bit of a Twitter debate around the issue (always a mistake) and a word was used in a reply to me that made me realise that the real purpose of school sport is not understood by all. It was pointed out to me that his school “caned” Athlone in athletics in the 1980s. These days, when we should be vigilant about toxic masculinity, that’s a significant way of putting it. Caning is corporal punishment, it’s about the big man making the little one bend down in front of him and beating him on his backside.

That’s not a great image, and it really shouldn’t be used in relation to winning in sport.

Sport, after all, is part of the holistic education that so many schools claim they are providing in their quest to produce (in the case of the boys’ schools) better men, husbands and fathers. They love to  call their products gentlemen. A gentleman, I would think, is kind, generous and empathetic. If a school isn’t making the teaching of those values a big part of their sports programme then they should shut it down.

A gentleman doesn’t agree with corporal punishment, not literally nor figuratively.

I remembered writing about this stuff a few years ago, so I dug around and found a blog I posted in 2018 in which I had a go at schools that allow their rugby teams to win games by 70, 80, 100 points - there was even one 220-0 score – and then brag about it.

There were some right-minded people who commented on that story and they said what should be obvious: allowing a rugby game between children to go to over 100 points is an abomination. It does no-one any good, not the winners nor the losers, and worse, it encourages the mothers of those humiliated (and probably physically battered) players to withdraw them from the game.

Here's what I wrote at the time:

Now, if you think poorly coached and unskilled rugby players aren’t also important you need to take a breath and think about it. In the first instance, the quality of any elite side depends on the numbers below, reduce the base of the pyramid and the apex will be lower. Those involved in sport as part of the educational process have a duty to make their teams as good as they can be, but they also have a responsibility to the greater game. It’s also a matter of self-interest. What are they going to do when there is no-one left to play against?

 

And their duty to their players includes developing their character – there’s no profit in breeding braggarts and bullies, and scoring more than a point a minute is purely that: it’s bragging and it’s bullying.

 

Some question the value of helping out those strugglers – teach them the lessons of standing up against a superior force and taking their punishment like men, they say. How else will they learn?

 

It really shouldn’t be necessary to point out that that’s the language of the fascist, of the colonial master and the child-beating parent. Is it really what a fine educational institution wants to be saying?

 

I could have added that it’s also the language of the cane-wielding schoolmaster.

So, I got sentimental and exaggerated the achievements of Athlone Boys’ High during a very brief glorious period of its history. I was caned for it.

Here’s hoping that in the post Covid-19 era schools re-evaluate what they are trying to achieve through their sporting programmes.

 

We will miss the great coaches

 

Last week we heard of the death of Christo Meyer. He was well-known in schools rugby circles, particularly on the West Rand. He attended Monument and went on to teach there, and coach the 1^st rugby team.

He later became the principal of Bekker School in Magaliesberg, before stepping down and becoming a teacher again, at Noordheuwel. That’s when I met him, on the committee of the then Transvaal Schools Rugby Association. That body had two parts those days – league and non-league (English medium) schools and I was a representative of the latter.

The two associations would get together for provincial affairs and Christo and I served on the Craven Week selection panel for years. He was also the force behind what was called the Roodepoort Rugby Club Coca-Cola series, a third term “stayers” tournament that somehow kept the name “Coke Series” long after the West Rand branch of ABI – the local bottlers of the soft drink – stopped sponsoring it.

Christo was one of those school teachers who dedicated a significant part of his life to setting up opportunities for children to play sport.

His passing made me made me think of some of the others, coaches and administrators who remained involved for long periods of time, and who made a difference to many young lives.

I can think of literally dozens down the years that I have been involved, first as a teacher and then as a reporter covering sport at schools. Many of them are still putting in the hours at schools across the land. If it wasn’t for lockdown they would be out there today coaching, refereeing, umpiring, organising extra practices whenever there was a spare moment and, all the time, taking an interest in the children in their care.

Sadly, many of them are no longer with us. A few years ago we lost Norman McFarland, probably the greatest thinker about schoolboy rugby, who coached the 1^st team at King Edward VII school for many years.

A few years before that John Hurry, who coached cricket at King Edward VII School for over 40 years and mentored in his time a virtual who’s who of future provincial and international players, passed away.

Theirs are stories that are, no doubt, told over and over whenever those who they once coached meet up.

There were others. Men like Buddy Hurd. He was principal of Athlone Boys’High in the 1980s when that school ruled the roost as far as boys’ schools sports in Joburg were concerned. He famously made the Athlone swimming team train on the spring day in 1981 when it snowed in Joburg – he had reportedly told them that, come rain, snow or hail, “training is never cancelled”. So it wasn’t, although he never kept them in the water for very long, of course.

I remember the late Bill Lamont, who would hurl a stream of insults at the swimmers he was coaching, but in a such way that they loved him and stayed in the sport long enough to move up to the senior squad where Bill’s wife, Mo, more often than not turned them into provincial and national stars. His protégés were there in numbers at his funeral, comforting each other with the stories of those days.

Going back some years, I remember the late “Oom” Koos van Staden. A rugby coach and selector with an extraordinary eye for talent. He became an SA schools selector later and gave many a future professional player his first recognition as a potential star.

Closer to home were two extraordinary gentlemen, also both no longer with us, that I had the pleasure of working with at Highlands North Boys’ High. Russell Kitto and Derek Tarpey would both have admitted that they did not have the time or expertise to be great coaches, but they both produced highly successful teams and high achieving sportsmen and women.

Neither was afraid to ask for help and advice from the experts, but their success came from the sheer strength of their personalities, and from the genuine care and affection that they gave to the children they were in charge of.

Christo Meyer was one of those. He will be missed.