ABC Grandstand's Unsung Sporting Heroes

by ABC Grandstand

  It was the Bulls’ golden age, and Luc was a part of it. He was there when Jordan made his spectacular return from his first retirement in 1995. He was there when the Bulls traded centre Will Perdue to the San Antonio Spurs for ‘The Worm’ Dennis Rodman. He scored sixteen points and grabbed seven rebounds on 16 April 1996, when the Bulls defeated the Milwaukee Bucks to claim their historic seventieth win of the season. He was there when the Bulls defeated the Seattle Supersonics in Game Six of the 1996 NBA finals to claim the team’s fourth — and Luc’s first — championship. He was also there in 1997 and 1998 when the Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz to win the famed three-peat.

  Put simply, the Bulls would not have won these championships without Luc.

  For some people, judging the success of a sportsperson comes down to stats. But if you judged Luc purely on numbers, his importance to the Chicago Bulls would be severely underestimated. In four and a half years with the team, Luc averaged nine points, five rebounds and two assists per game — hardly the numbers of a premier big man in the NBA. However, for those who were part of the team, Luc was a major piece to their puzzle and ensured that the Bulls remained a championship contender.

  Sure, there were times when Bulls head coach Phil Jackson wished Luc had more of a killer instinct and desire to win at all costs, like many of his teammates, but Jackson and those associated with this famed sporting franchise soon came to respect Luc for what he could do on the court — not what he couldn’t. And it couldn’t be denied that Luc was the perfect fit for the Bulls’ offence. He had excellent hands for a big man, a consistent jump shot and was able to get the ball to the right player at the right moment. He played his role to perfection and his teammates and coaches respected him for that.

  ‘It wasn’t by chance that we chose Luc,’ Jackson wrote in his foreword to Luc’s 1996 autobiography, Running with the Bulls. ‘Our organisation watched many tapes of him playing basketball and they showed Luc to be a player of promise … I saw him as an unselfish team player who would anchor the post in our sideline triangle offence and be a stopper at the defensive end, where he was fearless.’

  Jackson also wrote, ‘Luc has endeared himself to our team and Chicago with his honest, open style and his friendly demeanour, while maintaining his space on the court with determined play.’

  As a teenager during this time, I took a great interest in Luc and he was a huge reason why my love of basketball has grown to what it is today. He gave hope to all those basketballers who weren’t the best on their team. He made me realise just how important ‘role’ players are in team sports and he showed me that nice guys can finish first in a sport that is dominated by greed and giant egos.

  As a basketball fan I loved watching Luc and the Bulls play. It was the sport at its pure best, built on constant player movement, court spacing, intelligence and unselfishness.

  Having Jordan average thirty-two points per game also helped.

  The superstars make the highlight packages and are the players everyone talks about on the street, but without guys such as Luc, these stars don’t achieve the ultimate success in their sport. Jordan’s own records are unlikely to be broken anytime soon, but even he understood how important Luc was to the Bulls.

  Luc was the guy who went to work every day knowing he had to guard centres such as Shaquille O’Neal, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Alonzo Mourning. He was also the guy who was given the task of trying to disrupt and make life tough for Seattle’s premier power forward, Shawn Kemp, during the 1996 finals.

  Did he always get it right? No. But what he did was give the Bulls a presence. He was the guy who would put his body on the line, the guy who would take his bumps and the guy who was always there when it really mattered.

  Why is Luc Longley my hero?

  Because he didn’t take the easy route to achieve success. Because he persevered and succeeded in physically and mentally challenging environments.

  Because he proved that anyone can leave their mark on their chosen sport — while inspiring so many others — without taking what they have for granted.

  Jackson used to tell his players that their real success is not the reward, but rather the journey they take along the way. Luc certainly had his ups and downs during his NBA career, but the doors he opened for other Australian basketballers can never be underestimated and the legacy he left on the hardwood continues to be felt today at all levels of basketball.

  Norman May: the pundit’s one-eyed commentator

  by Jim Maxwell

  NORMAN MAY COULD spontaneously turn an insult into an ovation.

  The story goes, and there are many, that after an All Blacks rugby romping demolition of New South Wales Country at wintry and wet Wade Park in Orange in May 1960, the frozen commentators adjourned for refreshments. The local watering hole was a pub called the Vatican, blessed by a publican named Kelly.

  As the medicine flowed, a refreshed pundit lurched towards Norman, telling him that he was the most one-eyed commentator he’d ever heard.

  Sensing trouble, Norman withheld his right fist and instead flicked his glass eye straight into the antagonist’s glass, remarking, ‘You’re very observant.’

  The bar rollicked with laughter and applause and hostilities were avoided.

  Norman May is an unsung hero to every Australian athlete selected for the Olympic and Commonwealth Games from 1964. By dint of his tireless fundraising efforts, particularly in the years prior to government funding in the 1980s, athletes have been sustained and supported.

  Norman, or Nugget to those that so nicknamed a short, squat kid when he was growing up in Sydney, lost his right eye in an accident at the age of six when play-pal Alan Reynolds shot an arrow into it. Hence the glass eye. He needed a new one every two years until he was twenty. Despite this impairment, Norman became a versatile sportsman.

  Norman excelled as a surf life-saver, winning three Australian championships in R&R (Rescue and Resuscitation), and teams racing. He represented Sydney High School in cricket as a leg spin bowler, and was chosen in the combined Great Public Schools firsts. He also played rugby union for Randwick.

  Norman eventually fell into sports commentary in the 1950s, when he was offered a job while travelling on a bus. A beach inspector at the time, he was on his way from his home in North Curl Curl, on Sydney’s northern beaches, to Manly, when fellow passenger Dick Healey, the ABC TV sports editor before his move into State Parliament as the member for Wakehurst, asked, ‘What are you doing on Saturday fortnight?’

  ‘Nothing,’ replied Norman.

  Healey shot back, ‘Come to Dee Why. We’re covering the surf life-saving carnival on television. Will you be the expert commentator?’

  So on 9 February 1957, Norman began as a casual ABC employee. He sat with ABC sports commentator Bob Richardson on the roof of a boatshed at Dee Why beach. Apparently the sun shone so brightly on their television monitors that they couldn’t see the pictures. After calling for a blanket to block the sun, they dripped with perspiration for four hours. It was an encouraging debut, leading to Norman’s eventual full-time ABC employment in 1958.

  Apart from surf life-saving, Norman did some swimming commentary, and Sir Charles Moses, the ABC general manager, was so impressed that he asked Norman to do the first televised rugby union coverage, in April 1957. It was at Chatswood Oval, calling the second-grade match between Manly and Gordon, alongside Mick Cremin, the former Wallabies fly half. Healey’s and Norman’s eventual sidekick on Sydney Club Rugby, Cyril Towers, did the first-grade match.

  As a surf life-saver he was at Torquay in Victoria in 1956, competing as a swimmer. He went to Melbourne to watch the Olympics, in a pub, on a seventeen-inch black-and-white television.

  By 1964, Norman was the swimming commentator at the Tokyo Olympics, calling Dawn Fraser’s memorable third gold medal victory in the women’s 100 metres freestyle. It was the first of twelve Olympics and thirteen Commonwealth Games that Norman May called until his final appearan
ce in Delhi in 2010.

  More on that, and the famous call of ‘Gold! Gold to Australia! Gold!’, at the Moscow Olympics in 1980 as the story unfolds.

  Much of the early fundraising for the Games during the 1950s and ’60s was akin to meat raffles at the pub on Friday nights because the Menzies government didn’t contribute money, or create the kind of system now well established through the Australian Sports Commission and Australian Institute of Sport.

  In 1963, Norman met up with Sid Grange, then vice-president of the Australian Swimming Union and an Australian Olympic Federation board member. Grange had a strong history of service with swimming and was a significant personality in raising money for the Games.

  Norman recalls that one of their earlier fundraising initiatives was a foot race at a park in Sydney, featuring three prominent female sprinters. The three athletes would finish in the order of their current rankings, out of respect.

  That night, as Norman entered ABC Sport’s well-known oasis, the Gladstone Hotel on William Street, after presenting Sporting Highlights on 2BL radio, he saw the local bookie, Freddie, putting up a market for the race. Freddie was offering 9–4 on for the three placegetters, so Norman bet his pay packet, about thirty pounds, on a certainty. Norman felt like Al Capone, just stealing the money and, with his inside knowledge, he duly collected.

  Illegal SP bookies were prominent until the TAB began in 1964, and Freddie was typical of the bookies operating in pubs. Many also ran businesses that were a front for the more profitable trade. Des Renford, a butcher, who later became famous for record-breaking swims across the English Channel, was one. And it was swimming that would eventually make Norman famous.

  Australia’s participation at the 1980 Olympics was marred by boycotts. As a protest against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, more than forty-five countries, including the United States, boycotted the Games.

  Malcolm Fraser’s government pressed for an Australian boycott but after a split vote, the AOC decided to attend. Some federations pulled out anyway, notably equestrian, hockey and sailing. Champion sprinter Raelene Boyle and swimmer Tracey Wickham were other significant withdrawals. From the original selection of 204 athletes, 122 attended.

  Public opinion was divided, emotions ran high, and the ABC ran a survey through its popular current affairs program, This Day Tonight. Fifty-two per cent wanted the team to go, and forty-eight per cent didn’t.

  In the lead-up to the 1980 Games, John Coates, who today is president of the Australian Olympic Committee, was directing the appeal for funds in New South Wales. Well-known sports stars such as Johnny Raper, Reg Gasnier, Brian Taber, Des Renford and Bev Whitfield went bush. They helped raise funds from country communities who connected with the importance of sport.

  At the Lithgow Workmen’s Club Marjorie Jackson, the ‘Lithgow Flash’ who won the gold for the 100 and 200-metre sprints at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, returned for a fundraising event. As a youngster Jackson had trained at night at the unlit local oval with car headlights blazing to help out.

  As the 1980 Games unfolded against the background of boycotts, and with the memory of Australia’s dismal showing at the 1976 Montreal Games, where Australia won just one gold medal, Norman called a few bronze medals at the pool. After five days of competition, there was still no gold.

  In the 4 x 100 metres medley relay, the Australian four of Mark Kerry, Peter Evans, Mark Tonelli and Neil Brooks were given some chance of a gold medal.

  Led by Mark Tonelli, the swimmers had been rebellious in the Games’ lead up. Tonelli and Kerry were expelled from the 1978 Commonwealth Games for violating a curfew during a training camp in Hawaii. In 1980, Neil Brooks walked out of a training camp, alleging that the coaches were neglecting him. Peter Evans stopped during a training session and refused to do extra mileage, stating that ‘work is a poor substitute for talent’.

  Tonelli had fought for the athletes’ right to compete after Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who was also patron of the Australian Olympic Committee, had put political pressure on athletes to join the Games boycott. Evans and Kerry were equally adamant about competing. Kerry had said, ‘The biggest statement we could make was to go to Moscow and show the world. If there was a total boycott, fine, but trade was still going on. It was disgusting. Why should the athletes be made to suffer?’

  Since the medley’s debut at the 1960 Olympics, the United States had won every final comfortably, so their withdrawal opened up the event. Sweden, Great Britain and the Soviet Union were fancied, but Sweden was disqualified in the first heat. Australia finished second to the Soviet Union, who had decided to rest their first choice quartet in their heat.

  Australia still qualified second overall, and Tonelli named their foursome the ‘Quietly Confident Quartet’, because they showed a lighthearted self-belief as the teams marshalled for the final.

  Australia was running fourth after Mark Kerry’s backstroke leg, a body length behind the leaders, the Soviet Union. Then Tonelli swam a personal best by two seconds in the butterfly leg. In the breaststroke, Peter Evans swam 63.01 seconds, the fastest breaststroke time at that Games. Neil Brooks, the seventeen-year-old from Perth, had never beaten 51 seconds for 100 metres freestyle.

  Let’s rejoin the call that became famous on ABC Radio.

  ‘Twenty metres to go, it’s Kopliakov ahead of Brooks. Australia has a chance for gold. Fifteen metres and Brooks is catching. Now they’re level!’ You can hear Norman’s enthusiasm and energy spilling out with the atmosphere of an expectant crowd surrounding him.

  ‘Brooks and Kopliakov. Who can win? Brooks is just a fraction in front, stroke by stroke to go. Fifteen metres from a gold medal for Australia. Fifteen metres, ten metres now! Brooks in front. It could be Australia’s gold. Five metres. Four. Three. Two. One! Gold! Gold to Australia! Gold!’

  Brooks swam 49.86 seconds to touch out Sergey Kopliakov by twenty-two hundredths of a second. Brooks’ split was the fastest in the relay. After the swimmers dived into the pool in celebration, Tonelli said, ‘After all the hassle, and being my athletes’ mouthpiece, we’d come through and done it.’

  The thrill in Norman’s voice, and the precision of his countdown, added to the drama and suspense, culminating in the sheer jubilation of Australia’s unexpected victory. It was riveting radio, an affirmation of Norman’s commentary skill.

  Whenever Norman has appeared at subsequent Olympic fundraising events, this famous relay race, either by replay, or often live re-enactment, has been performed. He says that the call was one of the highlights of his career, and laughs at the suggestion that it is remembered simply and incorrectly as, ‘Gold, gold, gold.’

  Norman says that the most important thing is ‘to sound excited, but be in full control. Make a note of the best splits beforehand, to keep an eye on likely records and make sure not to miscount the number of laps!’

  The fundraising momentum increased into the 1984 Olympics, with over seventy functions held, including a trek to the Waltzing Matilda Centre at Winton in outback Queensland. Winton is famous for the birth of Qantas, dinosaur fossils, sheep, cattle and Banjo Paterson’s poem about the swagman, Waltzing Matilda, written on a visit in 1895. As Norman observed, ‘There’s not even a sculpture or statue of Banjo in Winton.’

  Dean Lukin made the trip, and went on to win the super heavyweight gold medal in 1984, Australia’s only gold in weightlifting. Late at night in Los Angeles, as commentators gathered for refreshments, Norman reckoned Lukin had won, because in the evening highlights shown on US television, weightlifting wasn’t shown. That one-eyed act was a signal to the unbiased Norman May that Lukin had beaten the fancied American, Mario Martinez.

  Beyond 1984, Norman’s fundraising efforts were superseded by Commonwealth support and the creation of the Australian Sports Institute, but he continued to go up-country and interstate with sports stars of the day to MC fundraising events. In today’s terms, Norman assisted in raising over three million dollars; to Olympic and Commonwealth Games ath
letes who competed between 1960 and 2000, he is their unsung hero. His commitment and dedication have been officially recognised by the awards of an Order of Australia in 1983 and a Member of the Order of Australia in 2009. Heroic and hard-working, Norman has answered the call.

  Saluting Hubie: the kid from Karridale

  by Bob Biddulph

  HUBIE MCDONALD WAS an outstanding Australian Rules player, who played for Karridale in the Augusta-Margaret River Football Association in Western Australia. At the tender age of eighteen, he won the Best and Fairest award for the league and a seemingly glittering career awaited in the West Australian Football League. But in 1939, like so many young men, Hubie’s sporting dreams were cut short when he enlisted in the army, serving first in the Middle East and then in New Guinea, where he suffered horrendous injuries. The fact that Hubie ever recovered to play in the local competition was a minor miracle and on and off the field he left an indelible mark on the local football scene that reverberates to this day.

  Born in July 1920, Hubie was the second eldest of the six McDonald boys. Together with their five sisters, they more than filled out their ‘group settlement scheme’ house at Karridale, Western Australia, to which patriarch Tom had brought the family in the early 1930s. The four-room house had front and back verandahs added on to accommodate the burgeoning family, and there was a long kitchen table on the back verandah that could seat twenty people — which it often did, as there were frequent visitors to the sociable McDonald clan.

  The McDonalds alone could field nearly half a team, and the kick in the backyard became a fierce competition that developed all the boys into fine footballers. Hubie, Terry and Aussie were teammates in Karridale’s first premiership team in 1937; this was the first of four flags in a row for the ‘jarrah-jerkers’. Hubie then took himself off to the big smoke in 1939 to try his luck with the Claremont Football Club, playing two league games in his first season in what was a premiership year for the Tigers.