Tweet
The Rooster booster: Brian Smith opens up
the-rooster-booster-brian-smith-opens-up
Richard Hinds
BRIAN Smith is talking earnestly, entertainingly and at length about the game. About himself. Why not? This is the perfect time.
The previous evening, Smith's Roosters have come from eight points down with three minutes left to beat South Sydney. A reminder of the water-to-wine victories achieved by the rollicking 2010 team. The antithesis of the aching defeats a troubled club endured last year.
Sitting in the cafe near the Sydney Football Stadium that is a crossroads for athletes, swimmers and gym rats, Smith is greeted by a passing parade of backslappers: ''Good on you Brian!'', ''Great win!'', ''Go Roosters!''.
This, you venture, is the sort of day that has sustained Smith during three decades. The addictive, knife-edge adrenalin of a close game. The afterglow of victory that puts a spring in everyone's step.
Smith hesitates, before allowing the ''spiky bits'' - the dramatic wins, even the bitter defeats - hook you in. ''The result is what keeps you in work or what gets you the sack,'' he says. ''But it is not what I personally do it for.''
So what does keep Smith going? Especially after a season when what little control a coach enjoys was seemingly ripped from his hands by behavioural issues and intra-club intrigue. When, after riding the wave of 2010, he was dumped on the rocks. When those who had sung his praises just months before howled for his blood.
As Smith ponders the reason for his enduring passion, a whimsical look crosses his face. The expression of a man considering a treasured moment that can never be relived, but also never erased. The Roosters coach is thinking about the team that helped turn a job into a vocation. ''[It was] a team of kids from mixed ethnic backgrounds, and I got them to play good softball,'' Smith recalls of his days as PE teacher at James Cook High School in Kogarah. Of the time he found that, by getting the best out of others, he also got the best out of himself. ''That is something that fulfils me, completes me. That people would do things they would not normally do for each other. What's that saying? 'They put their heads where no man would put their feet'. It's so compulsively rewarding.''
Some might suggest it is self-protective for Smith to insist there is more to his job than winning and losing. This is, after all, the man who has coached 583 first-grade games over 28 years at five NRL clubs - interspersed with two stints in England - without winning a premiership. Four grand final defeats. To his admirers, a king without a crown. To his critics, an emperor with no clothes.
Asked about that empty space in the trophy cabinet, Smith betrays no raw nerve. ''It's something that you really strive for, you really want it badly. You understand, in our profession, it is a clear marker of success. But it is not what gets you up and going every day. If every coach in footy was motivated by that only, there would be very few people doing it. The long-term coaches - do they want to win premierships? Of course. But there is a lot more to coaching than just that.''
Despite such fatalism, the harsh criticism Smith received last season, and the high expectations that preceded this one, seem unusual. Smith jokes he is ''the world's best sleeper'', which might explain why a man in a profession that prematurely ages most looks younger than his 58 years. ''I don't share stuff,'' he says of his moods. ''I talk about it with people who I feel can help me with a solution. It's a strength in some ways, but a weakness in others.''
Smith is a devotee of American sports. Asked about his treatment of players, he quotes the storied UCLA basketball coach John Wooden: ''Why on earth would you treat everybody the same?''
Yet, clearly, the brilliant but troubled Todd Carney challenged Smith's faith more than most. So often, the coach had seen players given a second or third chance pick themselves up from the floor. But, finally, Carney crossed the line when his personal problems had an impact on those around him.
''Everybody arrived at that point at approximately the same time - the players, coach, chairman, CEO,'' says Smith, who felt sad, rather than betrayed, by Carney's inability to reward his faith. ''There are a lot of things to like about Toddy. He has got qualities. He's got stuff he's got to deal with. We all have.''
The perception remains Carney left behind a club in disarray, and a coach under intense pressure from demanding chairman Nick Politis. Smith, on the contrary, portrays a team on the verge of benefiting from a long-term investment in youth. A scenario that clearly appeals to the teacher in him.
As for the personal pressure: ''Please, write me a new story. I've never ever been under anything but pressure in this job. Brisbane, in the end, told Wayne they didn't want him. Man, if he gets moved on, the rest of us are all living a temporary existence.''
Still, the world of demands and expectations Smith occupies seems far removed from his Huck Finn footballing childhood. Evenings spent kicking the ball around on his parents dairy farm near Maclean, on the NSW far north coast. Riding the team bus with his father who played for the local team. Pick-up games in the playground at a two-teacher school.
After moving to Casino, Smith was good enough to attract the attention of St George. Yet, when you venture such a small man must have been brave and gifted to play 31 first grade games for St George and Souths (1974 and 1979) in a brutal era, Smith is self-deprecating. ''I was always just in the right place at the right time,'' he says.
By 1979, that place was teaching and playing mostly reserve grade at Souths. His lack of playing ambition was revealed when the first-grade coach told Smith he planned to pick a kid who had been sitting on the bench for the under-23s ahead of him. ''I said, 'Sounds like you've got the right man there'.''
Already, those young softballers had revealed Smith's true calling. Although success did not come easily. Smith won only a handful of games in his first season coaching the Newtown under-23s, and in his first four years with Illawarra for 32 wins and 64 defeats. Although, in retrospect, it was a useful initiation. ''It's good to do it tough really early,'' he says. ''You work out whether you are in it for the right reasons.''
Having commenced his coaching career in an era of cut-priced Jack Gibson impersonators, Smith also learned to be true to himself. ''I only knew him a little bit, but to try to base your coaching on someone who has that sort of personal power and delivery style, it is just fraught with danger,'' he says. ''You've just got to do things your own way, for better or worse.''
As an example of his independence, Smith eschewed the fashionably masochistic training sessions in favour of a more scientific approach. ''The toughest thing I've seen is my wife giving birth,'' says the father of three. ''I mean that. I haven't seen anything that more physically taxing and exhausting and downright painful. But you could have as many babies as you like, and I'm not sure that would help you to run into Fuifui Moimoi or keep going in the 75th minute.''
For Smith, there is now another joy beyond victory - watching those he has coached and mentored grow. His son Rohan and former Canberra and Penrith coach Matthew Elliott are now on his staff. Others who have been under his wing have prospered. ''For we gentlemen in our late 50s, there is more satisfaction in seeing guys develop into decent blokes and go on to be coaches and fathers. I definitely get a thrill out of seeing people do that.''
Yet, if there seems a high-mindedness, even a romanticism, in the way Smith speaks of his role, and the game itself, you suspect the cruel bottom line lingers in the back of his mind. ''My job is to take that team and win [now],'' he says, when asked how he will be judged this season. ''All that other stuff is just waffle. People can say all that stuff, but, in the end, you've got to get the job done.''
the-rooster-booster-brian-smith-opens-up
Richard Hinds
BRIAN Smith is talking earnestly, entertainingly and at length about the game. About himself. Why not? This is the perfect time.
The previous evening, Smith's Roosters have come from eight points down with three minutes left to beat South Sydney. A reminder of the water-to-wine victories achieved by the rollicking 2010 team. The antithesis of the aching defeats a troubled club endured last year.
Sitting in the cafe near the Sydney Football Stadium that is a crossroads for athletes, swimmers and gym rats, Smith is greeted by a passing parade of backslappers: ''Good on you Brian!'', ''Great win!'', ''Go Roosters!''.
This, you venture, is the sort of day that has sustained Smith during three decades. The addictive, knife-edge adrenalin of a close game. The afterglow of victory that puts a spring in everyone's step.
Smith hesitates, before allowing the ''spiky bits'' - the dramatic wins, even the bitter defeats - hook you in. ''The result is what keeps you in work or what gets you the sack,'' he says. ''But it is not what I personally do it for.''
So what does keep Smith going? Especially after a season when what little control a coach enjoys was seemingly ripped from his hands by behavioural issues and intra-club intrigue. When, after riding the wave of 2010, he was dumped on the rocks. When those who had sung his praises just months before howled for his blood.
As Smith ponders the reason for his enduring passion, a whimsical look crosses his face. The expression of a man considering a treasured moment that can never be relived, but also never erased. The Roosters coach is thinking about the team that helped turn a job into a vocation. ''[It was] a team of kids from mixed ethnic backgrounds, and I got them to play good softball,'' Smith recalls of his days as PE teacher at James Cook High School in Kogarah. Of the time he found that, by getting the best out of others, he also got the best out of himself. ''That is something that fulfils me, completes me. That people would do things they would not normally do for each other. What's that saying? 'They put their heads where no man would put their feet'. It's so compulsively rewarding.''
Some might suggest it is self-protective for Smith to insist there is more to his job than winning and losing. This is, after all, the man who has coached 583 first-grade games over 28 years at five NRL clubs - interspersed with two stints in England - without winning a premiership. Four grand final defeats. To his admirers, a king without a crown. To his critics, an emperor with no clothes.
Asked about that empty space in the trophy cabinet, Smith betrays no raw nerve. ''It's something that you really strive for, you really want it badly. You understand, in our profession, it is a clear marker of success. But it is not what gets you up and going every day. If every coach in footy was motivated by that only, there would be very few people doing it. The long-term coaches - do they want to win premierships? Of course. But there is a lot more to coaching than just that.''
Despite such fatalism, the harsh criticism Smith received last season, and the high expectations that preceded this one, seem unusual. Smith jokes he is ''the world's best sleeper'', which might explain why a man in a profession that prematurely ages most looks younger than his 58 years. ''I don't share stuff,'' he says of his moods. ''I talk about it with people who I feel can help me with a solution. It's a strength in some ways, but a weakness in others.''
Smith is a devotee of American sports. Asked about his treatment of players, he quotes the storied UCLA basketball coach John Wooden: ''Why on earth would you treat everybody the same?''
Yet, clearly, the brilliant but troubled Todd Carney challenged Smith's faith more than most. So often, the coach had seen players given a second or third chance pick themselves up from the floor. But, finally, Carney crossed the line when his personal problems had an impact on those around him.
''Everybody arrived at that point at approximately the same time - the players, coach, chairman, CEO,'' says Smith, who felt sad, rather than betrayed, by Carney's inability to reward his faith. ''There are a lot of things to like about Toddy. He has got qualities. He's got stuff he's got to deal with. We all have.''
The perception remains Carney left behind a club in disarray, and a coach under intense pressure from demanding chairman Nick Politis. Smith, on the contrary, portrays a team on the verge of benefiting from a long-term investment in youth. A scenario that clearly appeals to the teacher in him.
As for the personal pressure: ''Please, write me a new story. I've never ever been under anything but pressure in this job. Brisbane, in the end, told Wayne they didn't want him. Man, if he gets moved on, the rest of us are all living a temporary existence.''
Still, the world of demands and expectations Smith occupies seems far removed from his Huck Finn footballing childhood. Evenings spent kicking the ball around on his parents dairy farm near Maclean, on the NSW far north coast. Riding the team bus with his father who played for the local team. Pick-up games in the playground at a two-teacher school.
After moving to Casino, Smith was good enough to attract the attention of St George. Yet, when you venture such a small man must have been brave and gifted to play 31 first grade games for St George and Souths (1974 and 1979) in a brutal era, Smith is self-deprecating. ''I was always just in the right place at the right time,'' he says.
By 1979, that place was teaching and playing mostly reserve grade at Souths. His lack of playing ambition was revealed when the first-grade coach told Smith he planned to pick a kid who had been sitting on the bench for the under-23s ahead of him. ''I said, 'Sounds like you've got the right man there'.''
Already, those young softballers had revealed Smith's true calling. Although success did not come easily. Smith won only a handful of games in his first season coaching the Newtown under-23s, and in his first four years with Illawarra for 32 wins and 64 defeats. Although, in retrospect, it was a useful initiation. ''It's good to do it tough really early,'' he says. ''You work out whether you are in it for the right reasons.''
Having commenced his coaching career in an era of cut-priced Jack Gibson impersonators, Smith also learned to be true to himself. ''I only knew him a little bit, but to try to base your coaching on someone who has that sort of personal power and delivery style, it is just fraught with danger,'' he says. ''You've just got to do things your own way, for better or worse.''
As an example of his independence, Smith eschewed the fashionably masochistic training sessions in favour of a more scientific approach. ''The toughest thing I've seen is my wife giving birth,'' says the father of three. ''I mean that. I haven't seen anything that more physically taxing and exhausting and downright painful. But you could have as many babies as you like, and I'm not sure that would help you to run into Fuifui Moimoi or keep going in the 75th minute.''
For Smith, there is now another joy beyond victory - watching those he has coached and mentored grow. His son Rohan and former Canberra and Penrith coach Matthew Elliott are now on his staff. Others who have been under his wing have prospered. ''For we gentlemen in our late 50s, there is more satisfaction in seeing guys develop into decent blokes and go on to be coaches and fathers. I definitely get a thrill out of seeing people do that.''
Yet, if there seems a high-mindedness, even a romanticism, in the way Smith speaks of his role, and the game itself, you suspect the cruel bottom line lingers in the back of his mind. ''My job is to take that team and win [now],'' he says, when asked how he will be judged this season. ''All that other stuff is just waffle. People can say all that stuff, but, in the end, you've got to get the job done.''
Comment