And, most athletes would dream of hitting, kicking, throwing or in this case shooting the winning the score for the national team like Australian netballer Donnell Wallam did against England on Wednesday night.
To do it on debut is even better. To do it after taking on the nation’s richest person over a $15 million sponsorship, earning the wrath of a large section of Australian society, is next-level cool.
Wallam has been thrust into the spotlight in the past week or so for apparently suggesting she would rather not wear the logo of Hancock Prospecting, a company owned by billionaire businesswoman Gina Rinehart, on the national team’s uniform.
Wallam, a Noongar woman, had not even played a test for Australia, when the Diamonds’ squad made its stand, a move that led to Ms Rinehart pulling her $15 million sponsorship.
The playing group’s concerns seem to have centred around comments Mrs Rinehart’s father, Lang Hancock, made in the 1980s advocating for the extermination of First Nations people who did not fit his version of “assimilation” or had not “accepted society”.
“I would dope the water up so they are sterile and would breed themselves out in future and that would solve the problem,” he said in the 1984 television interview.
As a Noongar woman, Wallam would be well versed with the measures that have been used through Australian history to try to wipe out the First Australians, including poisoning.
Mrs Rinehart is executive chairman of Hancock Prospecting, which was created by her father. She was reportedly asked to distance herself from her father’s views.
Given the views were expressed by her father and that she now leads the company he founded, and it is that company that was sponsoring the team of the netballer in question, that seemed a reasonable request.
Even if you believe Mrs Rinehart isn’t responsible for the views of her father, as the head of the same company it is reasonable for a First Nations woman on the team being sponsored by that company to ask if the executive chairman of that very same company shares the view that her people should be exterminated.
To date, to the knowledge of this correspondent, Mrs Rinehart has not denounced the views, but she has chosen to withdraw her sponsorship instead, reportedly criticising the netballers’ opposition to views on the extermination of Traditional Owners as “virtue signalling”.
For those who think athletes should just shut up and accept their pay, there’s a long history of sport changing the world in ways that are now accepted as rightful advances, such as helping bring about the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Forbes estimates Mrs Rinehart is Australia’s richest person, with a fortune of $14.8 billion.
Wallam is a 28-year-old rookie Australian netballer, hoping to live out her dream of representing Australia.
Yet, this young woman stood up for what she believes in, against the might of a powerful company, businesswoman, and often hostile media.
It’s not unusual for strong young women to be shouted down in the media for taking a moral stand they believe will improve the world.
Greta Thunberg just wants the world to be a cleaner place so the children who inherit it from the likes of my generation won’t have to live their lives underground.
Grace Tame shakes the establishment with her forthright views on child abuse and society’s ambivalence to it.
Malala Yousafzai was almost killed for wanting girls to have an education.
All argue and campaign, putting their personal wellbeing on the line, for things that should be universal, a better society.
Donnell Wallam should be a national hero, not just for shooting the winning goal on debut, but also for fighting for something that is just and right.
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