David Pocock opens up on his decision to walk away from rugby and into a wider world
DAVID Pocock is talking Colin Kaepernick, Donald Trump, Michael Jordan, climate change, immigration policy and tracking animals in game reserves.
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DAVID Pocock is talking Colin Kaepernick, Donald Trump, Michael Jordan, climate change, immigration policy and tracking animals in game reserves.
The pioneering Australian athlete of this generation, Pocock is walking away from the rugby at the peak of his powers to do conservation work in Africa and study.
So in his final interview before his one-year sabbatical, Pocock reflects on a 2016 where Trump was elected US president, where Britain voted to leave the European Union, and Australia’s stance on immigration and climate change has been widely condemned.
“It’s hard not to feel pretty sad and down, the issues do seem huge,” Pocock said.
“I was watching the Leonardo DiCaprio documentary the other night, Before The Flood, it’s pretty dire, the lack of action on climate change, the way that developed countries like Australia are shirking their responsibilities and going for short-term profit over a liveable Earth.”
But the 28-year-old always manages to find a light.
“There are a lot of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, standing up, trying to create new systems, getting their hands dirty and being part of the solution,” Pocock said.
“That’s always encouraging.
“At times, maybe we have more power than we think we do as individuals.”
It’s why Pocock has utmost respect for San Francisco 49ers NFL quarterback Kaepernick, who has silently protested for the Black Lives Matter campaign by kneeling for the US national anthem before games.
“That was courageous, I mean, I really admire someone like that, who takes that sort of stand,” said Pocock, who famously made a stand against homophobic comments during a Super Rugby game last year.
“I think it does come back to that line of sports people just being sports people and just toeing the Michael Jordan line where ‘Republicans buy sneakers too’. He’s not going to back Democratic candidate because he doesn’t want to hurt his bottom line.
“We compare that with someone like Muhammad Ali who put it all on the line for what he believed in.
“At the time, I think it was [former US president Ronald] Reagan, when he was the California governor, he said ‘that draft dodger will never fight in my state’.
“A few years later, he was there in the White House shaking his hand and we very soon the forget the price that these athletes have paid for what they’re doing.
“I think it’s so important that athletes are taking a stand because sport can be such a powerful vehicle in society to break down prejudice, to allow people to be part of a community and as a white Zimbabwean moving to Australia, there weren’t that many barriers.
“I had a funny accent, I was white so I kind of fit in. I still felt like a bit of an outsider. So, for me, sport was my in — that was how I made friends.
Once you’re out on the rugby field you’re all equal.
“Compare that to a black Zimbabwean friend in Australia — he had a totally different experience just because he was black.
“So, I think sport can be incredibly powerful when people do make a stand and try and make it more inclusive.
“So, I really love seeing people like [Kaepernick] doing what he’s doing.”
Pocock laments the use of fear by politicians to stoke the base prejudices in people.
“I think what we’ve seen with Brexit and with Trump in the States is people are genuinely disappointed with our political system,” Pocock said.
“They don’t feel like it’s working for the average person and leaders are using that to make people afraid of, whether it’s in Australia, these poor refugees that are going to be on the dole or take our jobs — I don’t know how they do both — but we’ll spend billions locking them up, whereas in the States it’s the Mexicans.
“It’s very easy to fearmonger when people have legitimate concerns.
“I think there’s such a need for people to begin to recognise how much we have in common. It probably sounds too idealistic but I don’t know, the system clearly doesn’t seem to be working so when you look at our response to climate change, we’re a long, long way away from that, particularly in Australia, there’s just no leadership on it, so I think you’re going to see more and more people beginning to stand up and citizens for being citizens not consumers and actually making a stand.
“There’s hundreds of thousands all around the world doing it. We just need more people to get involved.”
Pocock’s strong stance on a range of issues has made him the target of online trolls.
“It’s somewhere where people say things that they wouldn’t probably say to your face, I think anyone on social media gets it,” he said.
“I guess you’ve got to think, one, would this person probably say that to your face? Probably not. How much do you actually care what this person’s opinion of you is? You don’t know them ... the modern world.”
Pocock will take a journey from modern world to old world, from fulltime rugby professional (he has a six-week stint in Japanese rugby coming up) to the African jungles.
Pocock said had he not taken up the offer of a season in Japan, he may have walked away from rugby altogether.
“I kind of felt like if I took a full 12 months off, I’d probably never come back, I just felt like that was maybe a little bit too long,” Pocock said.
‘Having the Japanese season to get back into it and from that getting back into Super Rugby [in 2018] will be a really good way to do it.
“Talking to guys like George Smith, who’ve played in Japan, they felt like they add a lot to their game, it’s a very fast, expansive game. He was pretty positive about the experience and felt like it made him a better player so that’s my hope too.”
Watching #planetearth2 on forests it's hard to fathom how much we lose by clearing around 50,000 square miles of forest each year.
— David Pocock (@pocockdavid) November 20, 2016
After the Japan season finishes in January, much of Pocock and partner Emma’s plans will be made on the run.
“I’ve left a lot of it fairly free but I’ve locked a few things in,” he said.
“The plan is to base ourselves in South Africa, probably in Zimbabwe. We’ve booked in a few week-long courses with Wild Ark and eco-training, a company that I’m doing some work with and then a few other things, hopefully help out on my grandfather’s farm.
“There’s a one week [course] in northern Kruger National Park, in a concessions just to the north and there’s one week in Mashatu (Game Reserve) in Botswana.
“I’m still busy talking to them — they run a whole heap of different courses from one year accreditations to be a fully qualified safari guide to 55-day programs to one-week tracking programs.
“I think we’re going to try and mix in a whole bunch of different things. Some deep ecology stuff, looking at the relationship between everything in the area to hopefully some tracking — they’ve got some Shangaan trackers that are pretty handy.”
Excited to join the Wild Ark team. Looking forward to spending time with them during my time off next year. More: https://t.co/5hXS4lHOp6 pic.twitter.com/m9D4YPvrSF
— David Pocock (@pocockdavid) October 26, 2016
Just don’t expect Pocock to be trying to find Wi-Fi in the jungle to send us his thoughts on the latest political or ecological crisis.
“Everyone’s got an opinion and people get sick of them, I’m actually looking forward to doing things, getting involved in things I think are important, trying to meet interesting people,” Pocock said.
“It’s very easy as a privileged white dude who travels the world playing rugby to have opinions. I guess I have a platform because I do play rugby.
“But I certainly won’t be going out of my way to email in my opinions, that’s for sure.”
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