Grant Hackett deserves time to sort his life out free of online abuse for simply falling short and ‘stuffing up’

I HOPE that Friday afternoon’s mea culpa is the last we hear from Grant Hackett for a long, long time ... it will mean he’s finally getting on with his life.

Grant Hackett deserves time out of the spotlight to get on with his life.

I don’t know about you, but I hope that Friday afternoon’s mea culpa is the last we hear from Grant Hackett for a long, long time. Not because I don’t like the bloke, quite the contrary, I like him a lot. It’s just that if Grant stays in the shadows it means he’s getting on with his life.

And just like all of us, doesn’t he deserve that?

I must say I was stunned by the spite and venom that bubbled away in the “Comments” section when the Hackett story broke online.

And that’s not the story about the infamous Virgin flight from hell that I’m referring to. It was the one a few days earlier reporting that he had failed in his bid to make the Olympic team at the age of 35.

“Has-been”, “Limelighter”, “Serves him right” … the animosity towards a man who had done nothing more than have a go and fall short was astonishing.

It made me wonder what Hackett had done to upset these people, but of course that was nothing to the outcry when, in his own words, he “stuffed up” on the flight from Adelaide.

Me? I just felt desperately sad for him.

I’ve known Grant Hackett since he was barely 17 years-old. It was just after the 1996 Olympics and I’d been talking to swimming publicist Ian Hanson about Daniel Kowalski, who had gone to the Olympics odds-on favourite to win the 1500m freestyle but had been beaten by Kieren Perkins in the race that stopped Australia.

Grant Hackett being helped off a plane in Melbourne worse for drink.

“Oh well,” I said. “At least Dan will get his chance in Sydney if Kieren retires.”

“No,” said Hanso. “It won’t be him. There’s this young kid down on the Gold Coast called Hackett …”

So I tracked down the skinny gangly kid (even his coach Dennis Cotterell called him a “goober”) and arranged an interview.

“Please don’t call me the next Kieren,” he said as I left. The story ran the next week. The subeditor outdid himself with the headline. ‘The Next Kieren’, it screamed in 110 point bold type.

He forgave me, and I continued to report his career. By the time the Sydney Olympics were approaching he was no longer an unknown. He arrived for an interview driving a shiny new Holden Commodore the colour of which, his manager told me, was “Hackett Gold”.

Four years later I sat down with him at his new home, a massive waterfront edifice in a gated community with a metal staircase that looked like something out of a Batman movie.

Hackett’s failed bid to make one more Olympics does not deserve derision.

But no matter how famous he got, or how much money he made, he never lost his work ethic. Cotterell once told me the story of how he caught a cab to early morning training.

“Will Grant Hackett be there when you arrive?” the cabbie asked him as they drove through the half-light.

“He’ll either be there or he’ll be in hospital,” he answered. Nothing would ever stop Hackett training. Nothing would ever stop him giving his all, or striving to win. His motto was: “You do the work, you get the result”.

When he walked from the pool at Beijing after being beaten in his bid to become the first Olympic swimmer to win the 1500m three times, I’ve never seen a more disappointed athlete.

Which is why I was so happy to see him in Adelaide. He looked sensational. Fit, tanned, happy. Cracking jokes. Just feeling great to be alive.

And then he went out for a drink.

So yeah, he’s stuffed up. He’s been embarrassed and humiliated and had a horrible image posted in cyberspace for all to see for the rest of eternity.

But come on, don’t be too hard on the bloke. He’s only human.

Around the Traps

The mess that is the ACT Brumbies head office continues to fester with unwanted CEO Mike Jones refusing to do an Elvis and leave the building. If the Brumbies had had their way Jones would have been gone long ago and the whispers are that they had a very well-known name in mind to slip into the still-warm seat. Fella by the name of Joe Roff.

*************

Interesting to hear that Kevin Walters sounded out Justin Hodges to see if he might come out of retirement to help out when the Maroons midfield ranks were looking depleted. Hodges says his wife knocked any such plans on the head, but you have to wonder how seriously he considered it — and whether there is any link to the fact that he had minor “clean out” surgery to both knees about six weeks ago. He reckons it was so he could keep up with young son Carter, but where the pull of Origin is concerned, you can never be too sure …

***********

Brisbane boxer Jeff Horn showed great character and style to climb off the canvas to beat highly-credentialed former world champ Randall Bailey on Wednesday night but it was Argentinian undercard fighter Manuel Alberto Pucheta who really had the crowd talking. Pucheta, who was announced as weighing a (very conservative) 115kgs, lasted six rounds against former NRL forward Solomon Haumono.

Jeff Horn celebrates winning his Welterweight bout against Randall Bailey.

While boxers often go by “ring names” such as Hitman, Bonecrusher or, in Horn’s case, The Hornet, Pucheta’s bio lists his nickname as El Bombardero del Mercofruit which, as best we can determine, translates as The Bomber of Mercofrut (Mercofrut being a raisin and sultana processing company in Chile). While El Bombardero was unable to keep abreast of Big Solo, he obviously still has a huge future in front of him as a manssiere model.

************

All eyes will be on the Kangaroos-New Zealand clash this week, but no doubt Big Mal will have noticed the growing presence of English players in the NRL — and how well they are going. Word from the UK is that the Poms are very confident of winning next year’s World Cup under Wayne Bennett, especially if he can talk halfback Danny Brough into playing for England instead of Scotland.

And another thing …

Isacc Luke must be wishing he took up round ball football instead of rugby league when he was a kid. Same with Steve “Blocker” Roach and Cameron Smith, to say nothing of AFL players Jason Cloke and Anthony Rocca.

Why? Because they all missed out on playing in grand finals due to suspension.

Nichols was lucky to avoid a Grand Final ban for his ‘salute’ to his former fans.

Now if they’d been playing for the Wanderers instead of the Rabbitohs or Magpies they wouldn’t have ended up watching the biggest game of their lives from the sidelines (or in Blocker’s case listening to it down a telephone line from England). They’d have been out in the middle like Mitch Nichols.

Mitch, for those of you who think the A-League is a Marvel Comics series, is the Western Sydney midfielder who was cited for flipping the bird to Brisbane Roar supporters at the end of last weekend’s semi-final but still lines up for the grand final in Adelaide today.

Unlike the NRL and AFL, who have staunchly stuck to a policy of “all games are created equal” (despite the fact that they are clearly not), the FFA decided to adjudicate on Nichols’ case after the grand final, enabling both teams to play at full strength and give the fans a true contest.

Admittedly raising two fingers to the supporters of your former club who have been giving you a gobfull for 120 minutes, as Nichols did, is at the lower end of the misconduct scale unlike, say, the punch to Ron Coote’s head that saw Balmain’s Arthur Beetson rubbed out of the 1969 decider or the right hand jab that ended Richmond ruckman Neville Crowe’s grand final dream — and career — in 1967.

But even so, it was an offence that the FFA deemed serious enough to take further and may yet result in a one-week suspension.

There will be those — and I’m in that group — who will commend the FFA’s compassion and commonsense, although let’s hope it doesn’t come back to bite them.

Just wait for the outcry the next time an A-League player is cited the week before the grand final — and doesn’t get the benefit of “Nichols’ Law”.

Or even worse, if Mitch scores the winner this afternoon.

Originally published as Grant Hackett deserves time to sort his life out free of online abuse for simply falling short and ‘stuffing up’