Understanding the Indefensible

Filed in AFL by on May 30, 2011

The rugby league world has been awash in the past week with rumours of a tryst between Wests Tigers' star Benji Marshall and the wife of a teammate. All involved at the Tigers have been both quick and strong in their denial of the rumours and until there is evidence or a confession to the contrary, all parties should be presumed innocent. Nonetheless, the rumour did dredge up memories of the previously proven (or confessed) indiscretions of many a famous athlete. None of this behaviour is to be defended or condoned of course, but are there links that at least help us to better understand it?

The examples of such behaviour are countless and varied. Wayne Carey and Brendan Fevola provide two of the most famous recent examples in the AFL. Manchester United star Ryan Giggs and Chelsea (and England) captain John Terry do likewise in the EPL. Sonny Bill Williams (in a toilet cubicle) and Matthew Johns (in a group sex story which resulted a media storm years after the event) highlight that the NRL is not immune. Shane Warne’s philandering ways are well documented, while Tiger Woods may take the proverbial cake on this front.

The scenario is not confined to one or two sports and thus we can rule out the culture of certain sports relative to others as the key determinant of this behaviour – it clearly runs deeper than that.

ESPN's 'The Sports Guy' Bill Simmons wrote a fantastic piece covering the Tiger Woods apology for his (multiple) marital indiscretions in early 2010, with three related sub points in particular resonating with me.

The first point was that the behaviour of many famous athletes in respect of extramarital activities was really the height of hubris – the athlete felt that they were above the normal rules of human decency and could do as they saw fit, when they saw fit to do it.

The second was that Tiger (and no doubt many other famous athletes) are lauded wherever they go and therefore never really develop the part of their brain asking the question: "How can I win over the person I'm talking to right now?", because they've won the person over by simply being there.

The final piece is that when Tiger suggested that he didn't get to live by different rules to the rest of the world, Simmons disagreed, suggesting that the public enable much of the behaviour of famous athletes. Of course, the points are intertwined, but I think there's a logical sequence to consider when trying to understand the mentality of a famous athlete.

Suppose for a moment that you were a massive North Melbourne fan in the 1990s and you were standing at a bar when Wayne Carey sidled up alongside you (note: if you can't stomach Carey, substitute being a huge fan of any other sports star who has such indiscretions on his card – the specifics of the example don't matter). Anyway, the bartender notices Carey and gravitates his way, even though you were clearly at the bar first. Carey knows this too but refuses to acknowledge this and makes his order. What do you do?

If it were any other stranger, you might make the point that you were here first and some common courtesy is in order. But if it’s one of your favourite sports stars? It would almost certainly be a completely different story. If he spares you maybe one or two minutes of time for some small talk and maybe an autograph or photo, you'll happily wave him through – hell, you'll probably end up paying for his round (if the bartender hasn't already said that all his drinks are on the house).

As a member of the public, you have just enabled him to behave in a manner that simply doesn't wash when it comes to the rest of the community. Granted, the divergence is only a small one in this example, but snowball effects have a tendency to begin with something small.

Flipping that last scenario around a little to look at it from the perspective of the athlete – at what point did Carey have to make a legitimate effort to win you over in that exchange? He knows that token efforts, combined with his fame and social standing, will see him through.

To be fair, the demands for his time and attention simply don't allow a deep and meaningful conversation with everyone who crosses his path, and a quick photo, autograph and bit of small talk often has to suffice. All of that is fine. Just know that he enters every such exchange knowing that the other person has all but accepted him before anything has happened. The default setting is that he has just made the other person's day simply by giving them the time of day.

The normal lay of the land (many fewer people passing through your life, each of whom you have to win over from scratch) simply doesn't apply to famous people. To win you over, all they have to do is avoid a silly mistake or completely unacceptable treatment. And if you don't like them, that's no biggie – there are plenty of other people out there who would kill to hang around with them. As long as the line of potential replacements remains long, they are likely to consider you ‘disposable’, for want of a better phrase.

There's a stereotype about very well-to-do 'trust fund' kids and how a life of everything being served up on a silver platter creates complacency and a sense of entitlement. While such a theory may hold true in many cases, the sense of complacency and sense of entitlement for famous people can be just as bad, if not worse, as it starts to invade social norms.

This brings me to the issue of hubris. Famous athletes can be given the sort of attention usually reserved for 'The Most Interesting Man In The World' from the Dos Equis beer advertisements without needing to exhibit a single high calibre social skill. They are sublime at footy, or at cricket, or at some other sport, and that's enough to get them through 99 per cent of life. Combine this with the sort of competitive streak and self-belief that they can still win from almost any game situation and it makes some athletes the types that you would never let your significant other go anywhere near.

Even if it were at a simple public autograph session or other promotional event, I would recoil in horror if my partner were to suggest that she were meeting a Shane Warne or a Tiger Woods – two athletes famous for both immense sporting achievements and a black book of phone numbers that would put mere mortals to shame. Neither man got where they did in life by accepting defeat without a fight. Are you sure that they'll shrug off a 'sorry, I already have a boyfriend/ husband' comment from your significant other and move on immediately? A belief that you can do as you please with little to nothing in the way of consequences is a dangerous thing.

The infamous cases of Wayne Carey in the AFL and John Terry in the EPL add another dimension to the equation – the more famous member of the team bedding the wife of a less famous (albeit in the examples given, still illustrious) teammate. These cases pose a slightly different equation, as the partner in question has already spent plenty of time around the team and assimilated (for want of a better description) into the lifestyle of being partnered to an athlete.

Nonetheless, the most famous players are the ones who get the greatest 'star' treatment. They are also the ones who (a) are most susceptible to the complacency/ sense of entitlement curse but perhaps more importantly (b) are the ones who may be looking for a 'challenge' – the thrill of the chase, if you will.

I imagine that the likes of Benji Marshall, Sonny Bill Williams et al could go out for a night on the town and take home the vast majority of girls in whom they showed an interest. But what if, as uber-competitive athletes, they occasionally grow tired of things being so straightforward for them and hanker for a woman who offers them a real challenge? How many such women exist if you're a famous athlete? Outside of similarly famous women, the answer will often (sadly) turn to women already in relationships. Even worse, the attached women that they interact with the most are often the partners of teammates.

Wayne Carey and Kelli Stephens would have spent plenty of time in each other's company before the lines of human decency were crossed. Ditto John Terry and the then-girlfriend of Wayne Bridges, and no doubt countless others that never reached the public spotlight. Fame, hubris, uber-competitiveness and the desire for a challenge can be a potent cocktail for a sporting team and the relationships between players (and in the worst cases, each other's partners).

A distinction can be drawn at this point between the situations faced by athletes in team sports and individual sports. Beyond the greater level of time spent with other people’s partners in a team-based setting, the ramifications of such affairs are nigh in impossible to contain to the parties directly involved when thinking about a team environment.

How must Glen Archer have felt when he stumbled across Carey and Kelli Stephens together? How could he look Carey in the eye after that? How could anyone at the North Melbourne club look at Carey the same way afterwards (likewise at Chelsea in the case of their leader John Terry)?

To many of the innocent third parties caught up in each malaise, it must have been like when you tell a child that Santa Claus doesn’t exist – a heady mix of confusion, sadness and a sense of betrayal – only if they then saw Santa Claus at their local shopping centre a couple of times each week thereafter. You can never look at him the same way that you once did. Your view of how that person fits into your world has irreparably changed. The toothpaste simply will not go back into the tube.

At the end of the day though, how much has the off-field behaviour of Carey, Woods, Warne, Fevola, Chelsea player et al affected their legacy? Not much.

Fevola's career has deviated off the rails for reasons beyond his unfaithfulness. Warne continues to land in ‘happy snaps’ regularly with Liz Hurley by his side, his reputation certainly showing no signs of tarnish. Williams and Johns each took a reputation hit at the time, but appear to have brushed off any longer term ramifications, at least from the public eye perspective.

Woods took a significant hit by virtue of having built a corporate image around his own…. ummm… virtues as a human being and role model. Yet I think it would only take one major championship win where he overcame adversity to put him back in the good books of most golf fans.

Carey's legacy took a decent hit because of the standing of Anthony Stevens at North Melbourne more than anything else. Yet I cannot think of another footballer off the top of my head clearly superior to Carey in the past 20 years.

All of this comes back to the public enabling thing – we not only allow athletes to behave in ways that differ to the rest of society, but a few top notch on-field performances help to push any indiscretions to the back of our collective mind.

Famous athletes are well aware of how 'the game' operates in this respect. Many, indeed the vast majority, still choose to live their off-field lives in a manner consistent with the expectations of the rest of society, which is great. Nor does any of the previous discussion excuse the behaviour of any athlete who has an affair – as someone who lost their wife to another man shortly after our wedding, I've got nothing but vitriol for anyone who strays in a relationship.

But the next time news breaks of a famous athlete in an affair (possibly even with a teammate's partner) and you're wondering what can drive them to behave in such a way, just remember the potent cocktail.

Athletes are rarely treated in the same way as 'ordinary' members of society, and a small proportion of them will not handle this cocktail well and assume that this disconnect applies to all aspects of life. Such is the way of the world.

Thanks to Jamie McDonald/Getty Images Europe for use of the photo

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  1. Keyboard Rambo says:

    The only mistake these blokes made was getting hitched.