Say it ain’t so, Steve?

Hyperbole.

Potentially one of the greatest shortcomings of sports writing.

Once you’ve thrown around “the ball of the century”, “greatest game ever” and “the best tackle of all time” often enough, it dilutes the message. And as a card-carrying former sports journo, I have to plead guilty to reaching into the bag of superlatives more than once myself.

It’s part of the job. Convey what you’ve just experienced… what the crowd has just experienced. And if the last game was a 10, and this is better, then…. 11?

But what happens when the truly great, or truly horrible moments arrive?

When does hyperbole become fact?

When is it fair to say: “THIS is the darkest day in Australian sports?”

Well, this comes awful bloody close.

Australian cricket captain, Steve Smith – by his own admission – has conspired to cheat in the Third Test against South Africa. Bowler Cameron Bancroft attempted to implement the plan and the senior leadership group knew about it and, it appears, approved of the action.

This is Australia’s Chicago Black Sox scandal.

Eight players from the 1920 Chicago White Sox were sensationally banned from playing Major League Baseball for life after being determined guilty of conspiring to cheat.

Among their number was one of the brightest lights of the game at the time, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson – a man many believe to this day to have been innocent, and who himself protested his innocence until his death.

And this brings us back briefly to sport journos and their penchant for myth making and narrative, sometimes at the expense of facts.

Legend has it (based around the account of a sports journo at the time) that a young boy approached Jackson during the court case and said to him “It ain’t true, is it, Joe?”, which over the years morphed into “Say it ain’t so, Joe?”.

And while there is little evidence to prove this exchange actually took place, the sentiment took a firm grip. The sport was tarnished for years, the fans were let down and confused. From a bewildered and saddened nation, the question was posed.

Please, tell us it’s not true.

And I’d like to reiterate that.

Say it ain’t so, Steve?

But he can’t… because he’s admitted it’s true.

So it is indeed a dark day for Australian sports. The darkest? I dunno… choose your own. It’s not a competition, but this is pretty bloody gut-wrenching.

I was that kid in the 80s saying “say it ain’t so, Greg” when Greg Chappell instructed his brother Trevor to bowl underarm to Brian McKechnie. We all were.

And that wasn’t even illegal.

But it was definitely against the spirit of the game and rightly earned us world-wide condemnation for being against the spirit of the game.

Now, some Aussies supported it. Some win-at-all-cost types endorsed and defended the decision, but memory of the time was that MOST of us felt embarrassed, cheated, disappointed… even a bit betrayed.

And that’s all to do with the special relationship we share with our representative team. The title itself pretty much gives the reason for that. They REPRESENT us.

The Wallabies, the Diamonds, the Kangaroos, the Hockeyroos….

The Baggy Greens.

They represent us. To the world. We follow them from a sense of national pride, sure, but we invest in them far more than that. We ask them to make us proud. We ask them to provide an example to young players coming through.

Show the world what mateship means in Australia.

Show the world what tenacity and never giving up means.

Show the world that we empty the tank, every time, and never…. cheat.

It’s a lot of weight that we lay upon our representative sporting teams, but that’s the job.

Don’t like it? There’s the door. Thanks for your efforts, have a nice day and make way for someone who wants your spot.

But if you take the job, know that you are representing a nation of people who can only DREAM about having your skills or this opportunity. Use those skills to your best and – win, lose or draw – we’ll have your back.

Still, it’s only sport, yeah?

And who cares what people think of us anyway.

There are shelves full of books, reams and reams of paper dedicated to telling people not to care what other people think of them. Only worry about the things you can control. That sort of stuff. For the most part, it’s pretty bloody good advice.

So when the world reacts to this incident, when the involved players are judged… and by extension the entire team is judged… and by extension the entire nation is judged… perhaps we should just ignore it. What people think doesn’t matter. Or shouldn’t matter.

What gets in my craw is that what they think is true.

What bugs me is that I agree with the international condemnation.

It sucks that these guys… and I’ve always believed Steve Smith to be a great guy, and I’m sure in many ways he still is … but it sucks that these guys took this decision.

It sucks that they chose to take shortcuts over trying to improve.

It sucks that they believed winning was more important than how you went about it.

It sucks that they cheated.

And, maybe worst of all, maybe they truly DO represent us. Maybe this is a snapshot of what’s acceptable in Australia, or by Australians today.

What happens next?

I’d like to think that Cricket Australia feels the need to show the world we condemn this behaviour and stands down each player involved.

I’d like to think that Cricket Australia feels that a captain who would approve of, or worse yet help plan cheating, didn’t have the right stuff for captaincy and would never hold that position again.

To be honest, I’d like to think that Steve Smith would relinquish the captaincy without being asked… or told to… to show he gets it.

I guess we’ll see.

But let’s remove the hyperbole. Let’s take a few steps back from the adjectives and remember that the world didn’t just end.

It IS, after all, just sport,

But in a nation where we spend so much time participating and watching sport, it’s ok to feel gutted. It’s ok to feel that this is a very dark day.