 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
SPORT
- Being true to yourself and honest with your teammates is critical for sporting success, writes Francois Pienaar as South Africans embark on a public conversation about positive values.
Read Story - With more than 200 caps to her name and two Olympic Games under her belt, 37-year-old Lindsey Carlisle finally decided to quit her 11-year career after the Commonwealth Games in March and is now focusing on coaching youngsters.
Read Story - Faith and solid values bring joy to cricket for Jonty. Karien Jonckheere asked him for his secret to such phenomenal success.
Read Story - He’s the only South African to have won four boxing world titles. And even four years after his retirement from the sport, Baby Jake Matlala is one of the most recognisable, popular characters in sport. He spoke to Karien Jonckheere about the values that drive his success.
Read Story - Many administrators fall short - five minutes with Oregan Hoskins, the new president of the SA Rugby Union
Read Story - As South Africans engage in a national conversation about positive values, golden girl Penny Heyns stresses the importance of faith, good values and having a moral compass. Karien Jonckheere reports.
Read Story - Sports stars attribute success to good values. By Karien Jonckheere.
Read Story
BRUTAL HONESTY IS NECESSARY FOR SUCCESS,
writes Francois Pienaar, former Springbok captain and a supporter of Heartlines public conversation on values
Being true to yourself and honest with your teammates is critical for sporting success, writes Francois Pienaar as South Africans embark on a public conversation about positive values.
Honesty to yourself and your team is one of the most important contributing factors to achieving your goals on the sports field.
It plays a major role in a variety of ways. For example in training, in a team environment it’s incredibly important to be honest in your personal application of a training programme.
Especially in sports at an amateur level where there is a need for external training, you have to be honest with yourself in doing enough training to support the overall team performance. Players are often given a personal training schedule and have to give report back forms but sometimes there is the temptation to just fill in the numbers that they think the coach wants to see and that’s not going to get you anywhere. I have seen many individuals who let their talent go to waste because they are not honest with themselves.
Also when the team is training together, you can cut the corners or turn around before you’ve run to the line and maybe even leave the last couple of sit-ups and by not being honest to yourself you are also letting the team down.
But if you do it properly and remain honest about it, you will have a better-focused team that are playing for each other.
Honesty also plays a part in the way certain issues are addressed. Invariably you have ups and downs in a team and you need to reflect on those performances in an honest and constructive manner.
When you have an up day it’s just as important to be honest about it because it might not necessarily have been a good performance, maybe the other side was just weak. And that reflection is just as important as the down times, when you can’t just blame others if you played badly. Honesty is about unpacking things that people don’t really want to hear and then designing a plan to deal with them.
It means that on the training pitch you do your best and also that when you are not at your best, you tell the guys ‘I was a fool and this is why.’ I had that experience at the 1995 World Cup where my behaviour after the game against Canada had a negative effect on the team.
I was reprimanded for something I didn’t think I was necessarily guilty of and I let myself down. Afterwards I realised it was childish and I was a fool. I apologised to the team which was not an easy thing to do. But if you have those values and that openness and honesty, you definitely gel as a team.
It’s important that tactics and gamesmanship don’t get confused with being dishonest on the field though.
A sport like rugby is very physical and there’s always going to be gamesmanship but that shouldn’t be seen as dishonesty. In a game you can be streetwise and it can be a tactic to upset a player that you know has a very short temper but that’s not dishonest, that’s what can give you the edge. Some of the great captains I played against had that quality. They were all winners and pushed the envelope and only you will know when you have gone too far.
Obviously another area of the game where honesty plays a part is in the area of performance enhancing substances. Like I said in my autobiography, I did use performance enhancing supplements when I played at varsity but they were not illegal. There was no doubt that by taking them, it helped my performance especially when I was not as fit as what I would have liked to be.
They have been banned since then but then a couple of individuals still carried on using them. There is so much pressure on athletes to perform that it must be tempting but I just hope they look in the mirror and think it through first. They should not be foolish but rather do it the honest way.
That must be the worst feeling in the world when you know you’ve taking something illegal and then your number comes up to be tested.
Honesty is obviously vital in every day life as well. Values are what drive society and make it a better place and that is what Heartlines is trying to do. I think values play a part in every day life when you are faced with a situation where you have to make decisions.
I place expectations on myself and my reality check is my family, my boys and my wife. I have a very strong value system in place but it is something I have prescribed for myself and not because of expectations from other people.
I am not a saint; I am merely trying to explain how honesty has helped me in my career. I could easily try and cover over the skeletons in my closet and keep it closed but I don’t portray myself as a saint.
If you are honest then you don’t need to be clever, it takes a very bright person to remember everything he or she has said when they tell the “truth” in different ways.
WITH MORE THAN 200 CAPS TO HER NAME AND TWO OLYMPIC GAMES UNDER HER BELT, 37-year-old Lindsey Carlisle finally decided to quit her 11-year career after the Commonwealth Games in March and is now focusing on coaching youngsters. She writes here about being a role model, the major lack of women sports role models in the country and the responsibility of pulling on a South African vest.
It would be nice in this country to see more role models. You see a lot of male role models because they are obviously on TV more. The three big sports in this country (soccer, cricket and rugby) get the most TV coverage, and unfortunately that means there aren’t enough women role models.
A lot of young girls look up to someone like Penny Heyns but a lack of media exposure means there aren’t too many others. And Penny only came to the forefront when she won two Olympic gold medals. That’s when she became Penny Heyns, the role model and that’s really unfair. She should have been a role model long before then. Maybe she was in the swimming fraternity and that’s great – that’s where you need to start – but in order to develop children, both men and women, you have to show them that there are more than three sports in this country because not everyone in their life is going to be a cricket, soccer or rugby player.
There are other sports, and plenty of women who do achieve. I think young people need to be exposed to the fact that being a sportswoman does not necessarily mean being gay or butch and it doesn’t mean you are unfeminine. It just means that you are taking your healthy life seriously and putting it into something that you love. And these young girls have every right to go and achieve the absolute maximum of their potential.
I’ve had a few people saying to me that I am their role model and when I hear those kind of things, especially from my fellow hockey players, it shows that I’ve dome something right in my life and that feels good.
I try to do that in the life that I lead on a daily basis by giving of myself, giving my best, giving passionately and living what I feel is the right life, a healthy life, a fun life. And it doesn’t matter – it can be the youngest kid who doesn’t play sport or a player who is going for national colours, I feel it is my duty as a former captain of a national women’s team in the country to do that.
Obviously being a role model, you have to life your life with honour and respect for yourself. I don’t need to try and be somebody I’m not.
There’s always that fine line and a lot of people will fall short of that because you’re trying to be a normal person and have fun and all of that. There’s always that double edge where you can fall over the one side and somebody can just pick the moment where they feel you’re not being a role model. You’ve got to be so careful what you do.
I am constantly telling the younger members of the national team – you don’t even know you’re a role model and that’s what you’ve got to be careful of. Because you might be out at a club or having a drink socially or even on the hockey field for that matter and you might do something not expected of a role model and people are waiting to take you down. They will do anything in their power to make a very small thing into a much larger incident and that can destroy you. I’m always very aware of where I am, who I’m with and what I’m saying, or trying to say. It’s different with your mates, they know who you are, the fun you can have and your sense of humour. But you’ve got to be so careful with strangers or if there are strangers within earshot or whatever.
It’s a huge responsibility and a responsibility you have to live every day. You have to be 100 per cent responsible all the time. And you have to learn from your mistakes. And you will make mistakes. I have made plenty in my life and if you are responsible enough and mature enough, you take that mistake, turn it around learn from it and move on and hopefully you won’t make that mistake again.
I have had times when I have been terribly irresponsible and not been the person I wanted to be. And I don’t know if it’s my upbringing or God talking to me, telling me that I’ve done wrong but I need to accept that, learn from it, not point fingers, forgive – all those things and move on to take responsibility to change my life in accordance with that.
There is a definite responsibility that goes along with being selected to represent your country.
We are 16 girls representing over 10 000 hockey players in the country – that’s a responsibility in itself. And you have to conduct yourself with best behaviour, which I don’t always do I must admit. But I play my sport with absolute passion, I know my rules. I need to know the game in order to conduct myself in the right way. And I’m competitive. There’s nothing wrong with being competitive as long as you can accept what is right and wrong. It’s a huge responsibility. Everyone has to take that responsibility. You take a nation onto your shoulders.
So at the Commonwealth Games, for example, the country gets behind you. We had had success leading up to the Commonwealth Games, and then just one game, just one goal brought it all down on top of us and we as a team had to accept responsibility for that and discover what could we do better. I think that’s where the public miss it. They just say we failed. But sometimes failure is a way to success. And we could all quit but if I quit the many times that I had failed, I would never have achieved what I’ve achieved.
And it’s through the failures that I’ve felt I’ve had my biggest success.
Ultimately it also comes back to you as an individual – you are letting down your team if you are not training enough just because you don’t feel like it. When I was 11 years old I wanted to become an Olympian and that was my responsibility. I never deviated from that responsibility because I knew that if I wanted to do that I had to train harder, be fitter. I took that on myself and sacrificed a lot of things, sacrificed half my life, but that’s what I wanted and that’s what I got.
There are so many people saying ‘I could have done that, I could have played for South Africa’. Well you didn’t so you can’t say that. You never stuck in there, you never took the responsibility, you never took the commitment. That’s why when kids quite so quickly it really hurts me because does that mean that when they don’t get their first job interview they are going to quit from wanting to make a career? You can’t do that in life. And there’s no better place to learn that than on the sports field. Things don’t always go your way. Why should they go your way? You have to learn to fight for thing. It builds your character. You have to keep progressing from there and it builds you. Hockey has built me for life. There’s no doubt about that.”
FAITH AND SOLID VALUES BRING JOY TO CRICKET FOR JONTY.
Fast between the wickets and lethal in the field, Jonty Rhodes captured global attention when he flew through the air in Brisbane and threw himself against the stumps to send a Pakistani batsman packing.
That was during World Cup match in 1999, when Rhodes was at his peak on the field, the year he was named one of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year. He has played 52 Tests and 245 One Day Internationals for South Africa.
Rhodes no longer plays international cricket. He is an account executive at Standard Bank and surfs to stay fit – and enjoys spending time with his wife and two children. “Without him I would be nothing. Jesus in my everything,” he has been quoted as saying.
As Heartlines, a campaign aimed at promoting positive values in South Africa gains momentum, Karien Jonckheere asked him for his secret to such phenomenal success.
KJ: What values do you think were most important in your success and why?
JR: My Christian faith helped me put things in perspective. Knowing that I was meant to be there as a part of God’s plan for my life took the pressure off me to perform, and allowed me to play cricket like it should be played – for the sheer joy of the game.
KR: Do you think values (eg responsibility, forgiveness, perseverance and self control) have a place in the sports world?
JR: Most of these values are an essential part of self-discipline, which is vital in order to be successful in the sports arena.
KJ. How did your value system influence your career as a cricketer?
JR: My parents are both teachers, so discipline was a key element of our upbringing. Also, respecting others, especially your opponents, allows you to remain grounded and focused on the job at hand.
KJ: How important is it for South Africans to talk about the issue of values in society?
JR: Vitally important. Too often in this beautiful country of ours, we read about how certain people have behaved without any regards for the welfare of their countrymen, and if nothing is said or done about this, the future will look more bleak than bright.
KJ: Do you think focusing on values and moral regeneration can bring about change in South Africa? How?
JR: The legacy of Apartheid is not just going to disappear, sadly, but we can’t keep harping on about the fact that it was the political system’s fault that there is such a high level of violent crime in SA. I have seen in the SA cricket team environment, when individuals enjoy the success of their team mates around them, then the team as a whole is usually able to outperform its potential. Same thing could happen in this country if we all were less focused on what we do or don’t have, and paid a bit more attention to trying to make a difference to the lives of the people around us, regardless of your position in society. It’s too easy to say: ‘the problem is too big, what can I do as an individual to change things?’ If we all got off our butts, and pulled in the same direction, you would be amazed at what could be achieved – if I could play international cricket for 11 years (with my technique, or lack of it), then anything is possible! – Heartlines Features
HE'S THE ONLY SOUTH AFRICAN TO HAVE WON FOUR BOXING TITLES.
And even four years after his retirement from the sport, Baby Jake Matlala is one of the most recognisable, popular characters in sport. He spoke to Karien Jonckheere about the values that drive his success.
He attributes his popularity to the fact that he has practiced what he’s preached and set a good example, in and outside of the ring.
“I don’t see myself as a celebrity,” says Baby Jake Matlala. “I see myself as a role model. I see role models as being different from celebrities because I have to practice what I preach.
“If I say ‘don’t do crime’, I mustn’t do crime. If I say ‘don’t sleep around’, I mustn’t sleep around. If I say you must go to school, I must have done it too. I start with myself,” says Matlala, who has a B Comm degree from Unisa.
“I also have a lot of role models like my parents, and other people who have done well in the world. Nelson Mandela is definitely a role model for me. I have asked him what made him the way he is and he told me about values and that we must respect each other and forgive people. You must be honest and have integrity. Those are the things in life that make you into a better person.”
Matlala recalled one of his greatest moments was when Mandela attended his final fight at Carnival City. He was so overwhelmed by the show of support that after defeating Colombian Juan Herrera for the WBU junior flyweight title in the seventh round, he presented the belt he was awarded to the former president.
Since hanging up his gloves in 2002, Matlala has spent his time doing motivational speaking and getting involved in charity work.
“I go to schools and companies and talk to people. My diary is always booked to give motivational talks, and I talk about family values. I talk about everything that made me the person that I am.
“It’s very important to have values, not only for a sports career, but in life. They make you what you are so that people can respect you and people can love you,” he says.
“To me values and morals go together. You must have values and morals in life. As a sports person I got to the very top but those values never dropped. I respect people; I honour people – that kind of thing. Also it’s important to love myself and to respect myself too. That’s why I am accepted by all people, any nation and all colours because I have values and I respect myself.
“I also haven’t forgotten where I came from. I started boxing at the age of 10 in Soweto and those were bad years in South Africa, but I didn’t let that hold me back. I wanted to reach the top and I wanted to be a better person in life.
“I always tell my kids, you must have goals, you must have ambitions. You must try to achieve. The reason for my success was that I had a dream. I wanted to become something in 10 years, 20 years and I worked hard to achieve that dream.” – Heartlines Features
Five minutes with Oregan Hoskins, the new president of the SA Rugby Union
MANY ADMINISTRATORS FALL SHORT
- Hoskins
How important are values in the sports world?
I can’t stress enough how important values are in the sports world. They go hand in hand with success and with the making of a complete sports person, not only in the playing arena but in life in general.
And what about sports administrators?
I think there is an even higher test for sports administrators. We are seen as the custodians of sport and as custodians we are entrusted with organisation, finances and the sports people themselves - and that’s a real responsibility.
What specific values should sports administrators have?
The values needed to be a sports administrator go for life as well. Honesty, integrity, transparency and respect are some of the ones that immediately come to mind.
Why have so many sports administrators in South Africa fallen short?
It’s very unfortunate that so many sports administrators have fallen short. That is reflective of our society. Unfortunately we have a culture which promotes the opposite of those values and qualities I mentioned. In our culture, people who don’t have integrity, honesty, respect and hard work are semi-idolised by society and that needs to change. We need to look at that urgently and it needs to start from the top down. The change should start with the leaders in society. – Heartlines Features
HE STILL INSPIRES SA'S GOLDEN GIRL
As South Africans engage in a national conversation about positive values, golden girl Penny Heyns stresses the importance of faith, good values and having a moral compass. Karien Jonckheere reports.
She’s achieved more than any sportswoman hailing from South Africa.
But according to Penny Heyns, Olympic glory and 14 shattered world records would not have been possible without seeing the ‘bigger picture’ and a rock-solid value system.
“Obviously it’s important for every individual to have a solid set of values because there are times where you lose track or you’re at a crossroads and without values you don’t have a compass,” she says.
“I’ve often said that the reason I swam was not for the gold medals but I felt an incredible responsibility to use the talent that God had given me. Honesty was also very important to me because if I wasn’t honest with myself, I would never have known the true measure of my talent.”
Since retiring in 2001, Heyns has dedicated her time to business and to motivational speaking and has addressed audiences not only in South Africa and neighbouring countries but also in the US, Canada, Australia, Sri Lanka and Dubai.
“What I always say to people is you have to know why you are doing what you do. You’ve got to have a greater reason than money and look at the bigger picture. If you don’t have that understanding, you’re going to go off track.
“If you’re doing it to try and reach your potential and to fulfil a divine purpose or calling then you won’t be as tempted to dabble in performance enhancing drugs and things like that,” added Heyns.
“The sports world is constantly becoming more professional and the more money is involved, the more sportspeople are playing in the same camp at the corporates and as that happens the temptations are growing in the sports arena.
“What drove me was a huge sense of responsibility to tap into all the talent and potential that had been given to me. I didn’t want to stand in front of God one day and Him say to me ‘I gave you so much and you have fallen so short of the mark’. And on a human level I never wanted to look back and say ‘what if’.
“Other values that are very important to me are sportsmanship and integrity. I think what you achieve in the sports world counts only as much as you contribute back to greater society.”
Heyns expressed great enthusiasm with regards to the Heartlines initiative, saying: “If people were more aware of values and took responsibility obviously we would live in a better society. Any conversation around these topics is valuable because I think there is a major lack of that in the home. Either parents don’t have time or they rely on the media and what they put forward is not especially Godly.
“We live in a selfish world and we need to do everything possible to encourage people to look beyond themselves.” – Heartlines Features
SPORTS STARS ATTRIBUTE SUCCESS TO GOOD VALUES
By Karien Jonckeere
A double Olympic gold medallist, a four-time world champion and a world renowned cricketer – they may come from very different backgrounds and disciplines, but one thing they have in common is the belief that the secret of their phenomenal success lies in a solid set of values.
In a sports world filled with the temptations of money, the lure of fame and the multitude of adoring fans to stroke your ego, Baby Jake Matlala, Penny Heyns and Jonty Rhodes managed somehow to keep their feet on the ground throughout their careers.
And key to that process was the ability to look beyond themselves and at a bigger picture, they say.
“I think what you achieve in the sports world counts only as much as you contribute back to greater society,” explained Heyns.
“Obviously it’s important for every individual to have a solid set of values because there are times where you lose track or you’re at a crossroads and without values you don’t have a compass.
“We live in a selfish world and we need to do everything possible to encourage people to look beyond themselves.”
Cricket hero Rhodes agreed.
“My parents are both teachers, so discipline was a key element of our upbringing. Also, respecting others, especially your opponents, allows you to remain grounded and focused on the job at hand.
“Too often in this beautiful country of ours, we read about how certain people have behaved without any regards for the welfare of their countrymen, and if nothing is said or done about this, the future will look more bleak than bright.
“I have seen in the SA cricket team environment, when individuals enjoy the success of their teammates around them, then the team as a whole is usually able to outperform its potential. Same thing could happen in this country if we all were less focused on what we do or don’t have, and paid a bit more attention to trying to make a difference to the lives of the people around us, regardless of your position in society.
“It’s too easy to say: ‘the problem is too big, what can I do as an individual to change things?’ If we all got off our butts, and pulled in the same direction, you would be amazed at what could be achieved – if I could play international cricket for 11 years (with my technique, or lack of it), then anything is possible!”
Boxing hero Matlala, who since retiring spends his time speaking to schoolchildren and corporate South Africa about what it takes to get to the top, believes it is important to maintain a certain standard of morals regardless of the success you may achieve.
“To me values and morals go together. You must have values and morals in life. As a sports person I got to the very top but those values never dropped. I respect people; I honour people – that kind of thing. Also it’s important to love myself and to respect myself too. That’s why I am accepted by all people, any nation and all colours because I have values and I respect myself.”
Also placing respect and perseverance high on her agenda, former national hockey captain Lindsey Carlisle believes there’s no better place to learn these life lessons than on the sports field.
“Things don’t always go your way. Why should they go your way? You have to learn to fight for things. It builds your character. You have to keep progressing from there and it builds you. Hockey has built me for life. There’s no doubt about that.” – Heartlines Features