Reputations at stake

OPINION: JUST WHEN you thought you'd heard it all about John Daly, something else pops out of the woodwork. This time it's his PGA Tour disciplinary record, from all accounts a work of several volumes, including revelations he has been charged 21 times for not giving his best effort, placed on probation six times, ordered to undergo counselling or rehab seven times, cited for conduct unbecoming 11 times, suspended five times and fined a total of nearly $US200,000.

The PGA Tour was forced to produce this 456-page tome as evidence in an unsuccessful lawsuit that Daly filed against a newspaper for suggesting he didn't pass the "scoundrel sniff-test". As the London Daily Telegraph writer Mark Reason pointed out last week, everyone knew Daly had a rap sheet, but 456 pages is roughly twice the size of Daly's autobiography. And interestingly, in the aftermath of the Tiger Woods' scandal, many of his misdemeanours occurred off the course.

Whatever specific conduct breaches Daly was charged with, almost everything fell under the basic heading of bringing the game into disrepute. It is a romantic notion, this; a catch-all clause that sports administrators are desperately turning to in an effort to demand standards the rest of the community have long since given up on. It is a dream that can be never realised, of course; no more than Act MP David Garrett's hope of one day being taken seriously.

These are fluid times, and the idea of athletes tarnishing a code's image by merely exhibiting behaviour the rest of us witness or hear of every weekend, must be drawing closer to a legal challenge by the day. Daly, for example, may leave much to be desired in golf's halls of power, but he remains an undoubted drawcard in the game. His off-course earnings last year were estimated at $US4m and, for all his faults, he has a common touch Woods can only dream of.

Disreputable behaviour? The Court of Arbitration for Sport not long ago defined this as conduct likely to lower the reputation of a person in the eyes of ordinary members of the public to a significant extent. How this could apply to Daly hasn't been satisfactorily explained. Just as golf supporters expect Woods to be humourless, aloof and virtually plastic, they also expect Daly to be a complete fright, hitting balls off beer cans, smashing hotel rooms, and passing out on the street.

It is a strange world when convicted child killer Soulan Pownceby can be picked to represent New Zealand at the Olympics, his US colleague Michael Bennett can fight at the Sydney Games after serving time for armed robbery, synchronised swimmer Tammy Crow can compete at Athens while awaiting prison for vehicular manslaughter, but Welsh rugby player Andy Powell can be axed for driving over the limit in a golf cart.

Coaches are being fined and suspended for bringing their sport into disrepute for conduct as trifling as criticising referees and umpires, or opponents. Yet sporting administrators can happily sell their codes' soul to booze barons and gambling pimps and receive only commendation and praise. Under today's guidelines baseball legend Babe Ruth would have found himself suspended every second game, such was his serial womanising, drunkenness and bawdiness.

Surely, our sporting bodies are becoming too precious, and the trend of applying sanctions against athletes who transgress in their own time is manifestly unfair. To suggest being caught drink-driving somehow brings a sport into dispute is to suggest the rest of us can't tell the difference between private and professional conduct. How is it that a rugby player convicted of drink-driving can be suspended from his day job but not an airline pilot?

The most recent issue of the Australian and New Zealand Sports Law Journal talks about the case of an Australian barrister attempting to be rehabilitated after being jailed for two years for vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. The majority of the High Court held that it was not conduct that made the barrister unfit to continue to be a member of his profession. They considered it an isolated incident, rather than evidence of general behaviour or inherent qualities.

The question the author, Patrick George, posed was whether drink driving, even where another motorist was killed, was conduct that would make a barrister unfit to practice, or in the case of a sportsman, would constitute disreputable conduct; and in either case whether it was sufficiently connected to their profession or sport. It is a point likely to be raised increasingly when it comes to sports figures being penalised for behaviour unrelated to their core duties.

Sports administrators, of course, like to take the high moral ground on this one, insisting that any public misbehaviour is likely to diminish the reputation of an individual, and that the subsequent association with a particular sport will, by definition, bring it too, into disrepute. It is a nonsense, propped up only by a lesser obligation to provide proof of damage. That's why so many contracts now talk about the "likelihood of causing" or the "tendency to cause" disrepute.

Consider the NRL, a competition that has soared in popularity and financial wellbeing over the past decade, despite the kind of publicity that makes Daly sound like a choirboy. Dozens of players have been banned, fined and shamed over the years, all in the name of bringing the code into disrepute. Yet the brand has never been stronger, the future has never been rosier, and the status of the game has remained undiminished.

Why so? Because it's hard to damage nothing. That is, despite the pleas to the contrary, there never was any reputation to protect in the first place.

rboock@xtra.co.nz

- © Fairfax NZ News