Not fit to lace his shoes
Eamonn has some cut off Kyle Hayes in the Sindo today.
They were talking about this on radio one earlier, fire it up there.
Eamonn Sweeney: Sports stars should not be held up as moral exemplars
Expecting athletes to be perfect will only end one way
Limerick’s Kyle Hayes signs autographs for supporters. Photo: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile
Limerick’s Kyle Hayes in action against Cork in their All-Ireland SHC semi-final at Croke Park last July. Photo: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Limerick’s Kyle Hayes signs autographs for supporters. Photo: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile
Limerick’s Kyle Hayes in action against Cork in their All-Ireland SHC semi-final at Croke Park last July. Photo: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Eamonn Sweeney
Today at 02:30
Kyle Hayes’ nomination as Hurler of the Year is a disgrace. A place for Nickie Quaid on the shortlist would have provided overdue recognition for a severely under-rated player and position.
OK, it’s not really a disgrace. These things are a matter of opinion. But some people did argue last week that the Limerick player’s selection constituted an unforgivable lapse on the part of the voters.
His recent conviction for dangerous driving after passing nine cars while doing almost 100mph was brought up. The shadow of his conviction in March on two counts of violent disorder arising out of a 2019 incident lurked behind the claims that Hayes shouldn’t be considered for the honour.
Spare me the pious protestations that mentioning these cases is unfair to Hayes. Everyone knows about and won’t forget about them for a while. It’s childish to pretend otherwise.
The question is whether these transgressions should prevent him from being named as one of the best three hurlers of the 2024 season? Given that he’s already been legally punished, is it fair to try and cancel the player?
My instinct as a foolish old man is to be lenient with the transgressions of foolish young ones. I personally dislike any clamour for people to be jailed or subjected to pariah status. That’s just me. Those personally affected by the kind of offences in question are entitled to their own opinions.
The idea that a player’s behaviour off the pitch should affect how he’s regarded on the pitch stems from the dubious idea that sports stars are moral exemplars.
But they haven’t volunteered for this role, it’s been thrust upon them by adoring fans and media. The truth is that the distribution of nice guys and assholes on any team panel probably mirrors that of society as a whole. It’s silly to think that outstanding ability at hurling, football, soccer or rugby confers superior moral integrity.
I remember seeing some talking head in a documentary about Christy Ring argue that Ringy’s great strength was that he was “morally fit”. That seemed questionable. Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most morally fit people of the 20th century but he’d have struggled against John Doyle in a Munster final.
In recent years the notion of sports stars, and the famous in general, as superior beings has become ever more prevalent. The idea that valuable life lessons can be learned from top-level sport is regularly trotted out.
There’s no doubt some of the traits required for sporting success, resilience in the face of setbacks, the determination to work hard in pursuit of a long-term goal, are useful in daily life.
But there are also features of team sport in particular — dividing the world into winners and losers, unquestioning obedience to management figures, a siege mentality dictating blind loyalty to colleagues no matter what they do — which seem the very opposite. Such qualities might be very useful if you’re fighting a war but seem more hindrance than help in ordinary existence.
The scrutiny of players’ private lives, thankfully uncommon in this country compared to England, gets justified by the claim that they’re ‘role models’. Players don’t set themselves up as role models. Fans and media do and then feel free to rip them to shreds for not living up to these arbitrarily imposed standards.
In our age of slavish celebrity worship, people compete to find new ways of praising the famous. You find, for example, articles on how heeding the lessons of Taylor Swift’s success can help your career. Or discussing the singer’s personal life as though merely going to her gigs furnishes you with intimate knowledge.
Ms Swift seems a likeable person. But talent doesn’t automatically translate into pristine character. Many albums in the rock music pantheon were recorded by guys whose behaviour in the sixties and seventies would probably get them locked up today.
Fame is also no guarantor of political wisdom. Kellie Harrington’s protestations, after being criticised for retweeting a racist post, that as a boxer rather than a politician she knew little about these things seemed honest rather than evasive.
The single-minded focus required for sporting success can sometimes lead to a lack of knowledge about the workings of the world. Sports stars are as entitled to voice their political opinions as anyone else but those opinions don’t generally contain any special insight. Why should they?
Yet the delusion persists, accompanied occasionally by the pretence that victory makes the opinions more special still.
In the aftermath of Harrington’s Olympic triumph, the kind of clowns who disgraced themselves on RTÉ Investigates last week acted as though this was a gold medal for the far right.
Their, “It’s unfair to call someone a racist just because they want foreigners out for being ‘a different breed’ and firebomb direct provision centres,” media defenders took the same tack. People who’d criticised the bringing up of Harrington’s original tweet now brought it up with glee though the boxer had seemed genuinely contrite and eager to put it behind her.
Callum Robinson’s vaccine scepticism was suddenly judged to be a pretty cool thing when he scored a couple of goals in his next game for Ireland. The kid gloves treatment afforded Novak Djokovic’s various loopy beliefs is probably the best example of how success can confer a sort of respectability on nonsense.
Sycophancy underlies all this. Who wants to fall out with the winners? That’s why another GAA star’s brushes with the law have seen him described as, “a complex character”, although getting drunk and punching people in the face is one of the less complex things you can do.
A Hurler of the Year award for Hayes would no doubt engender much fawning comment about the difficult time he’s had, how he’s answered the critics etc. But if it’s wrong to hold a player’s off the field deeds against him, it’s just as wrong to completely excuse them because of who he is.
The idea that sports stars get away with bad behaviour much more often than ordinary citizens probably prompted most of last week’s comments.
It might not be true but the perception is definitely out there and isn’t helped by a general tendency to treat players like members of a privileged caste.
The good feeling you got when player X scored a goal doesn’t oblige you to defend everything he does. But players who go astray sometimes need to be cut a little slack.
Not because they’re stars but because they’re human like the rest of us. The only special thing about them is what they do on the field. It’s enough to be going on with.
You must have read a different article
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Foley had an article in the examiner as well or maybe it was the times