Obituary: AFL world mourns passing of John Kennedy Sr, amid revelation legendary speech was almost lost to footy
As the footy world mourns the passing of Hawthorn godfather John Kennedy Sr, Jon Ralph discovers his legendary “Don’t Think, Do” speech almost never saw the light of day. Read Glenn McFarlane’s tribute and the full speech.
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The greatest line in VFL-AFL history would have been lost to the game forever if not for an ageing collector and a box of film in his Brighton garden shed.
John Kennedy Sr’s status as one of footy’s great orators will be forever linked to his magnetic and powerful “Don’t Think, Do” speech.
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Yet as former AFL Films boss David Barham said yesterday, that 1975 speech in Hawthorn’s Grand Final defeat to North Melbourne was only unearthed decades later.
As Barham was executive-producing the “100 Years of Australian Football” documentary for football’s 1996 centenary, he put out a call in the AFL Record for any unearthed footage.
He had no idea what might come forward and after a number of false leads he was running out of patience when an older gentleman called in.
“This person from Brighton rang up and said, ‘I have got 35 canisters of film in my garage. I have got Tom Hafey, Ron Barassi and Kennedy’s speeches in the mid-1970s. Do you want to have a look at them?’,” Barham told the Herald Sun on Thursday.
“I said to Barney, who ran the AFL library, go to this address and see this bloke. Barney picked them up and they were rusted, crappy cans that had been rain-damaged sitting in his garage. So I and a long-term friend Greg Smith went to a film place to scan the film and sat through two days of it. For the first 34 cans, there was zippo. Nothing. Just black screen and occasionally it would flicker and we would sit up.”
“The 35th can began with some of his home movies and we thought, “Will we even keep going?” Then all of sudden popped 40 minutes of Kennedy’s speeches.”
AFL Films purchased the films for the league for the AFL’s football library, at $2000 “the bargain of a lifetime, according to Barham.
Barham called Kennedy Sr and asked him to verify the speeches given the audio didn’t always perfectly marry with the vision captured.
In that famous clip
“I said, “John, we found this film of you,” and he said in his deep voice, “No, no, no, no, David, that’s not right”.
“So I put it on for him and he sat at the end of the table for 10 minutes and put his head into his hands, and I thought, ‘Gee, he is upset’. And then he just looked up and said, ‘I can’t remember I did that, I can’t remember I said that, but it’s true, that’s me’.
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“So that’s how we found it. It’s my proudest achievement, to find that and contribute to the history of the game and the AFL library.”
“When I started building the library we started keeping every game but there are only two hours of World of Sport that have been kept. That’s madness so we started keeping every game from 1991 or 1992. That library would be worth a fortunate now and it’s a fantastic achievement for the history of the game but it only happened in the early 1990s and it all came about because they said, ‘Let’s build a library for $30,000’.”
OBITUARY: KENNEDY’S SPEECH ‘BORN OUT OF DESPERATION’
—Glenn McFarlane
A small boy in a Hawthorn jumper rushed expectantly to the towering figure of John Kennedy – the legend, not the statue – at Waverley in the days leading up to the 2008 Grand Final.
The kid wasn’t seeking an autograph from the man who was then approaching his 80th birthday.
“Excuse me, but would you say ‘Do Something’?” the boy pleaded.
Kennedy obliged, his usually booming tone for once drowned out by the noise of the Hawthorn throng at training.
The boy stood silently, seemingly disappointed.
Sensing this, Kennedy switched instinctively into coaching mode again and offered back a more theatrical “Dooooo Something!”
A smile broke out across the young fan’s face as he hurried off to tell his father about his brush with the man who helped shape the destiny and the DNA of the Hawthorn Football Club – and transformed them from easybeats to the envy of the competition.
Kennedy, who died Thursday, aged 91, was made an official Legend of the Australian football Hall of Fame earlier this month.
But those who knew him, and understand his exalted place in the game, insist he had unofficially held that title for decades.
There are tangible reminders of Kennedy everywhere.
There’s the statue of him at the club’s Waverley base – with trademark gabardine overcoat, fingers pointed, seemingly willing his team onto success.
There’s the audio recording of his halftime 1975 Grand Final address – the ‘Don’t Think, Do!’ speech that the young child implored him to mimic more than three decades later.
There’s the three premiership cups he helped to win as Hawthorn coach as well as the other flags that his vision helped to inspire in the years after.
There’s also the family connection to the game. His son, John Jr., played in four flags in the 1980s, and his grandson, Sydney’s Josh, plays his 250th AFL game on the same day as John Sr. passed away.
David Parkin, who played his first game under Kennedy in 1961 and took over from him as coach in 1977, said he was unlike any other person he had met in footy.
“This man set a culture of preparation and performance like no one else I have ever met in my life,” Parkin said.
“He was the most influential person in so far as what Hawthorn stands for, and what it is still able to achieve today.”
Kennedy played 164 games for Hawthorn in an era when wins were infrequent and premierships unheard of. He won four club best and fairests.
He was an inspirational coach who not only coached three premierships (1961, ‘71 and ‘76), but forged close relationships with his players even if he focused more on the team than the individuals within it.
He also coached North Melbourne during the 1980s.
Then, in retirement, he became the AFL’s chairman, leading the commission through the tumultuous ‘90s which sowed the seeds of 21st century growth.
As a young teacher during the 1950s, Kennedy dropped into a dairy farm at Porepunkah, near Victoria’s alpine region, to get some milk while on a camp.
There, he met the love of his life, Dulcie, who died in 2017.
When Parkin heard the news of Kennedy’s passing, he thought: “He’s with Dulcie again now.”
Described as a ruckman who was “all bones, knees and elbows”, Kennedy didn’t win a game in his first season at Glenferrie Oval in 1950.
“Opponents would come up to you after a game and say, ‘You’re not a bad side, just a couple more players and you will be there’,” he told this reporter in 2008.
“I got tired of that after six months. I thought, ‘we have to win games to earn respect’.”
It wasn’t until 1957 – 32 years after joining the VFL – that Hawthorn played its first final – but Kennedy had grander ambitions when he took over as coach in 1960.
In his second season in the role, Hawthorn won its first VFL flag – in 1961 – after Kennedy helped to transform the game with a daring approach to fitness and attack that saw his team dubbed Kennedy’s Commandos.
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“We had them training over near the Yarra River, swinging across ropes and adding a bit of variety to it all,” he said.
A decade later, the Hawks defeated St Kilda in the 1971 Grand Final, after coming back from a 20-point three-quarter time deficit.
Kennedy’s third premiership, in 1976, came a year after one of the most traumatic moments in the club’s history.
Captain Peter Crimmins had been overlooked for the 1975 Grand Final after being struck down by testicular cancer.
The match committee decided against playing him in the game, with Kennedy admitting they were fearful a knock could affect Crimmins.
“Peter wanted to play. The committee was divided. He didn’t play. We’ll never know what might have happened if he had played,” he said.
It was in that game – the ‘75 Grand Final – that Kennedy made his “Don’t think, Do” speech.
“It was born out of desperation,” he recalled.
“We had some academics in the team who did a lot of thinking, so I, more or less in exasperation, said ‘Don’t think, Do!’.”
Modestly, he pointed out his best known speech came from a game in which his team lost heavily to North Melbourne.
There was no extra incentive needed a year later.
Crimmins was near death when Hawthorn played in the 1976 Grand Final.
Kennedy read out a telegram from Crimmins before the game, and asked the players to “Do it for the Little Fella”.
They did, and teammates took the premiership cup to Crimmins’s house that night. Crimmins died a few days later.
It was Kennedy’s final game as Hawthorn coach.
Rodney Eade, who played in that ‘76 flag, said: “His booming voice, oratory skills and his command of the English language were all so powerful.”
“He was a white collar worker as the head of a school and the head of the teachers’ tribunal, but he was a blue-singlet coach. It was all about hard work, mental toughness, resilience, perseverance and effort.”
In his later years, Kennedy watched proudly as Hawthorn won the 2008 flag.
He handed over the 2013 premiership cup to Alastair Clarkson in the first of a three-peat of flags, then took pride in seeing grandson Josh play in Sydney’s 2012 premiership, even if he confessed to barracking for the Hawks that day.
The man known as ‘Kanga’ is gone after life well lived, but his remarkable legacy lives on.
Originally published as Obituary: AFL world mourns passing of John Kennedy Sr, amid revelation legendary speech was almost lost to footy