The Sports Factor

The late Dick "Tosser" Turner and Tiger Woods don't seem to have much in common. One was a Queensland rugby league icon, the other the world's best golfer, yet they both decisively changed the sport they played and loved, and that's the mark of a champion.

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Mick O'Regan: Hello, and welcome to the program.

This week we're considering the sporting impact of two very significant individuals.

One is at the zenith of his career, arguably the greatest player in history.

The other was much a behind-the-scenes operator, a man who conspired to bring out the best in the individuals and the teams under his care.

The former is the peerless golfer, Tiger Woods, known everywhere; the latter is less well known except in Queensland, and he was the late, great Dick 'Tosser' Turner who passed away this week, the heart and soul of Rugby League in the North.

Later in the show we'll hear from the former Queensland rugby league State of Origin star, Gene Miles, with his thoughts on Dick Turner.

But first to golf, and the man who keeps updating the record book - Tiger Woods.

Tiger Woods: Today - today was just unreal, I mean honestly, that - and it's kept ebbing and flowing. Rocco looked like he was in control and I thought I was in control, and he's back in control again, back and forth, back and forth, and 90 holes wasn't enough, we had to - you know - go one more.

Mick O'Regan: One more hole and one more trophy. On Monday of this week Tiger Woods won his 14th major tournament, the US Open, which was played at the Torrey Pines course in southern California.

Playing not long after his third knee operation, Woods began poorly, well, you know, poorly for him, but then went on to play some of the most remarkable shots seen for years, including that extraordinary putt that ensured he had a play-off against Rocco Mediate.

Woods won the play-off and the tournament.

So how do we evaluate a sportsman who seems to be decisively altering the way his chosen sport is both played and watched?

Art Spander is the doyen of US golfing correspondents, and he spoke to me from his home in San Francisco.

Art Spander: I fortunately have seen all of 14 majors that Tiger has won, and it never gets old. And of course when it's an Open, whether it's a US Open or a British Open, it's a different venue. The Masters are the same crowd, the same place and we know that. But it's sort of fun because he is a southern Californian, he comes back to play a US Open about 90 miles from where he grew up, and of course everybody's waiting to see what he's going to do. He's maybe the No.1 person in sports - in the United States of course we've got all the basketball players and baseball players etc., but Tiger transcends them all and everybody's hoping he'll do well, whether it's a journalist or a fan, because when he is playing well everybody pays attention and it was certainly like that at Torrey Pines, which is a gorgeous golf course on the bluffs, up high, about 110 feet above the Pacific, and right below it there are people surfing and right of the edge there are people hang-gliding, a recreational area.

But there are people just crammed onto this golf course, and of course he's won, he's won at Torrey Pines six times in the Buick, but here you have the major, the first time in southern California in 60 years and tremendous excitement, and Tiger comes through and of course we have this play-off, which a lot of people don't like the 18 hole dragged over an extra day, but it turned out to be much more than we anticipated. Rocco Mediate, who's a guy who basically has been injured much of his career, and is not in Tiger's class you might say, but carried Tiger right to the end and the extra end, the 91st hole.

Mick O'Regan: Now those extraordinary putts, some of them 35 feet, you know 10-metre putts. Tell me about that, what's it like to be in the crowd as he's lining up those extraordinary putts. Is there an expectation that he'll succeed?

Art Spander: Well, absolutely, and even Mediate said 'Unbelievable, I knew he'd make it.' And basically everybody knew he'd make it. In fact I'm writing a column for my paper not on him specifically for tomorrow, about what separates - I hate to say the losers, but the non winners from the winners. And somehow whatever the sport, the winners, you know, tennis, Federer, even though he's had a little bit of an off-time, but over the years, somehow makes the big shot.

You just know Roger Federer when he's down 3 to 1 and the other guy's serving, somehow Federer will pull it out, and it's the same thinking with Tiger in that case and he doesn't. And everybody says, What happened? But this time he did, he just made big shot after big shot. Started off three different rounds. Round 1, Round 3 and Round 4 with a double bogey and still ends up in a play-off and wins it. Is anybody surprised? No.

Mick O'Regan: Indeed, but it does then raise that question that you brought up earlier. Is he simply the greatest person within golf at the moment and his successes would indicate that. Or has he transcended golf to now be working on a plane that's populated by people like say Mohamed Ali, people who have become more than simply the best at their own sport?

Art Spander: Well I think he's right up there. Some people in America and maybe in Australia, will argue golf is not a sport. And Hale Irwin, who played American Football, and was pretty good at it, a defensive back said playing in the US Open is tougher than trying to tackle a guy in football. So it's what everybody's viewpoint is. But Tiger has to be considered one of the few greatest athletes in the last decade in America, maybe the world, and throw in some of the athletics stars and of course some of those are tainted and Barry Bonds with his home runs and he's caved a little bit with the steroids thing.

But if a person is there and wins all the time and he's heading now 14 Majors, four more he ties Nicklaus, and we don't know how bad the knee is, there's the real question. This is the third surgery he had on the knee. If he has to continue and have operations every couple of years, maybe he gets 18 doesn't get the 20 Majors, maybe if the leg wears out, and he's certainly at times on Sunday and even Monday, looked like he was going to fall down with the pain. But maybe he just keeps going for those ten years, and you'd certainly have to judge him right now as potentially the greatest golfer of all time, and one of the great athletes of all time.

Mick O'Regan: Art, in terms of his greatness, how has he changed golf? What's he done to transform the game do you think?

Art Spander: Well I hate the phrase, but it's been used basically since the time he won the Masters, 'raising the bar'. He's changed the idea of golf. We'd better go out there and work very hard, we'd better lift weights, we'd better jog and build up our stamina, because we've got to compete against a guy who's in incredible shape. It used to be people who played golf sometimes in America, Ben Hogan, a little 5-foot-8 guy, were men, young boys who couldn't play another sport. They were talented, they were skilled, they had the hand-eye co-ordination to play perhaps baseball or basketball or even American football, but they didn't have the size.

Well now you're getting guys who could play other sports going out for golf. They're winding up and they're just hitting the ball miles. I play the game very poorly and when I see people hitting 7-irons 180 yards, which is what I hit a 3-wood if I'm lucky, I said What game were they playing out there? And so Tiger has made them think that way. Nobody stands up and his kids now go up and they're just athletes, they're great athletes who happen to be golfers.

Mick O'Regan: Art what about the other side of it, if you like, the corporate side of golf. I mean media reports in Australia following this 14th Major victory basically suggested now that in the States there's a problem that there are events that Tiger Woods plays at, and they get extraordinary coverage and sponsorship, but suddenly events that he doesn't participate in, it's as if they're not on the tour any more.

Art Spander: That's a major problem. It was a problem with Nicklaus but it's more so a problem, Nicklaus and Palmer and a little bit with Tom Watson, but Nicklaus and Palmer really were up - Watson was a great golfer, Norman, when Greg came here, he sort of replaced everybody. There was no superstar. Watson was a great golfer but he didn't have the personality that Greg did. Well now in this television era when everybody knows everything about everybody, and they say 'Tiger Woods, he's golf'. So once you establish your name and once you lift yourself up here, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, everybody knows Tiger Woods. He's a magazine cover guy, the way Angelina Jolie and some of these women are, in the drugstore and the market tabloid magazines, and so yes, does it hurt a tournament if he's not there? Some tournaments it does, it hurts the television coverage. When Tiger plays well in a tournament, the TV ratings go up. It's just the way it is.

Mick O'Regan: Indeed. The fact that he's an African-American athlete, has that changed the level of interest of black players or black people in golf?

Art Spander: Well it's changed the level of interest of black spectators. There were a lot of blacks who played golf, and a lot of them did not have access to country clubs, and so they didn't come to tournaments, now when you see Tiger Woods, you see many more African-Americans in the gallery than you did before. Which is great, you know, and of course one of the things they thought when he turned pro and he won the Masters in '97, Boy, that's going to get all the black kids in America playing golf. Well so many of them live in downtown areas in urban areas, there are no golf courses there.

Although there's a young kid in the Washington D.C. area and I can't think of his name, who's supposed to be very good, and he's about 15 years old and he's going to play in this world tournament over in Scotland, and will he come through? You look at it, I do Wimbledon, I do the British Open, I do American sports, the SuperBowl, the NCAA Basketball, but one of the things I always find at Wimbledon is the tremendous pressure the British tabloid papers put on young English players such as Tim Henman.

Mick O'Regan: Oh it's legendary. They crucify them.

Art Spander: And so can the next young African-American player make his way through the pressure? Because you know how they're going to identify him? 'The next Tiger Woods'.

Mick O'Regan: In some post-golf world for Tiger Woods, do you think he's of that sort of personality that he might go on, rather than simply being a commentator on professional golf, but go on to some other facet of his life? Do you think that he's the sort of person who once sport is done with, we might see him in public office or something?

Art Spander: Public office, I don't know. He's always tried to be very neutral. The famous Michael Jordan line, when somebody says 'Why don't you support this candidate?' and Michael Jordan said, 'Republicans buy shoes too.' What Tiger says is very innocuous. He almost never takes a stand because he doesn't want to alienate anybody. I know he's a very intelligent guy and you don't get into Stanford if you don't have brains, it's that simple.

Mick O'Regan: Indeed, and you keep your brand neutral.

Art Spander: Yes. But the thing is, where does he go? I think he'll play golf, you know it's funny because I'm of Jack Nicklaus' era and he's a year younger than I am, and I've known Jack, I met him at the 1966 US Open in San Francisco, and we've talked over the years, and I can remember Jack said, 'I'll never play' (it was then called the Seniors Tour, now the Champions Tour) 'I'll never play past 40 years old.' Well he's 66 and he's still occasionally playing. Because it's part of him. In other words, what else do you do? If you're a great golfer, that's what you do best. Now Tiger, he won't be Arnold Palmer, he won't be showing up everywhere, but I wouldn't be surprised if he plays till 50, and I think he'll have a lot of business interests. He majored in business and economics, he knows what's going on in the world, and he may find a new challenge, the way Nicklaus and Norman have after their golf.

Mick O'Regan: Personally, I think the Obama-Woods ticket is a lay-down mazaire for the Democrats!

US sports writer Art Spander, on the line from San Francisco.

And the latest on Tiger Woods is that now that he's safely secured victory in the US Open, he's taking the remainder of the year off. Woods revealed that he has torn ligaments in his left knee and a double stress fracture of the tibia. No wonder he was hobbling as he climbed out of those bunkers.

Now to the memory of another sporting legend, the man who helped engineer moments like this in his chosen game of Rugby league.

PETER WILKINS EXCERPT GAME COMMENTARY

Ah, the memories. Peter Wilkins having a Latin American moment as Mark Coyne scores a match-winning try for the Queenslanders in the last breathless moments of a 1994 Rugby league State of Origin clash.

You can bet when that game was over the delight that that victory was nowhere greater than in the heart of the late Dick 'Tosser' Turner, the Queensland Manager.

Turner died this week, and one of his final sporting moments was to visit the Maroons' dressing room after the 30-nil drubbing they handed to New South Wales.

In the early 1980s, just as the State of Origin concept was beginning to be established, Turner became the influential manager of the Maroons, with the task of b lending a team of heroes and nobodies to confront the New South Wales Blues.

According to his great friend, and the general manager of the Queensland Rugby League, Ross Livermore, it was a mob that Tosser Turner revelled in.

Ross Livermore: It didn't take a lot for that to happen. The Queenslanders were a different breed, as you know, and all he had to do was harness the desire to beat New South Wales, and when you had local players stepping up onto the big arena, because State of Origin just got bigger and bigger and bigger, it didn't take a lot, and they got that maroon jersey and there was pride, there was passion and there was a desire to just go out there and win at all costs.

Mick O'Regan: He seemed the sort of person who could get on with players irrespective of where they'd come from, what their place in the league had been; he was obviously a great people-person.

Ross Livermore: Oh, he was. And I think if you look at the fact of Dick's background, where he came from, a player, norths for Redcliffe, he went on to coach, he went on to become chairman of the club. He was a very successful businessman, he just had Rugby league running through his veins; it wouldn't be hard to get on with Dick, because they called him The Godfather, he'd make an offer that you couldn't refuse. And the boys would all blend behind him. But if anyone fell on hard times, or needed fatherly advice, Dick would be at hand, and that's how he's seen by all the players who've been involved in the Origin series.

Mick O'Regan: Now later in the program Ross, we're going to talk to Gene Miles, a very famous former Origin great, but Dick Turner started a group called FOGS, Former Origin Greats, and the purpose of that I understand was to actually help former Rugby League players who might have fallen on hard times.

Ross Livermore: Well more so associations than individual players. Dick was Manager through until 1996 and when he finished that position, he said Look, we've got too many great players that have gone through here. We can't afford to lose them to the game. And he said, I'm going to set about setting up this organisation, now known as FOGS, where the boys can put back into the game something that they got out of it. And they really set about trying to help clubs and so forth, have sportsmen's night, guest speakers, to raise money, where we've got another group called Men of League here the same as in Sydney, where they help individuals. That's not to say FOGS don't, but they don't target individuals in the main, it's mainly groups and clubs and so forth.

Mick O'Regan: What was Dick Turner like on a personal level? You were obviously a good friend of his over many years.

Ross Livermore: Oh yes, I've known Dick, I could probably tell a lot of stories, but we used to have some great times together. He's had a couple of catamarans over the years, on the water, and Dick loved sailing. And Laurie Kavanagah, a former journalist and myself would go out every second Wednesday and we'd have a derby round Bramble Bay and pity anyone in front of us, but there was always something would happen. I remember the mast came down one day and we went through the trampoline another, did a little auxiliary motor was hanging on by a thread underneath the cat another day. And that was just Dick Turner, no attention to details, 'Let's go', you know.

Mick O'Regan: I think for many people who possibly didn't know Dick personally but the images in the most recent State of Origin game which of course was a fantastic result for Queensland winning 30-nil, to see him in his wheelchair being wheeled amongst the players at the conclusion of that game, greeting them, shaking their hands, obviously in poor health and frail, but the remarkable attention and respect paid to him by the players spoke volumes.

Ross Livermore: Oh, too, and what you didn't see was the day and the night before, Dick attended the FOGS lunch, the annual FOGS lunch and that night we had our centenary black-tie dinner at the Convention Centre where we had 1700 people. Dick attended that, and made a double-header for the day. We actually made him an Honorary Manager of the Queensland Team of the Century that night, and he was just in raptures. And then of course as you said, to see him the next night front up to the dressing room, he obviously knew that this was the last hurrah, and that that 30-nil win. Out he went.

Mick O'Regan: Did you speak to him during that game, were you able to talk to him when Queensland was racking up that remarkable scoreline?

Ross Livermore: No, unfortunately I was in a different area; I knew what he'd be thinking, but I did see him after the game and he was just completely in raptures.

Mick O'Regan: Ross Livermore, the General Manager of the Queensland Rugby League.

One of the former Queensland players who maintained almost daily contact with Dick Turner is Gene Miles, a veteran of 20 Origin games, who like so many other young players benefited from Turner's guiding role.

Gene Miles: Well I was a country boy, I came from Townsville, so it was a huge step for me, firstly to play first-grade in Brisbane and then of course being selected for the ultimate prize of playing State of Origin footy. So I was a nervous kid coming into my first camp, and from that first moment that I met Dick 'Tosser' Turner, he just made me feel really comfortable.

Mick O'Regan: How did he do that?

Gene Miles: Just in his own sarcastic, laid-back type of way, but he just made sure that not only me, we had 15 players in those days, the 15 guys were comfortable. So anything that he could have done for the team, like he wasn't a coach, well he was a coach, but he wasn't a coach of State of Origin level, he was the manager. And while he had an assistant, Tosser just took care of business off the field. So if we had any issues, and let me tell you, we had a number of issues back in those days, because we were twice as bad as a current player, but our good friend Toss just kept the lid on those type of things, and a lot of things didn't even see the light of day, compliments of that man. But had they seen the light of day we were in a lot of trouble, let me tell you.

Mick O'Regan: So that was a key role that Dick had, he was basically making sure that none of the stuff hit the rotor?

Gene Miles: Yes. And did a tremendous job because we were known as Angels. Off the field of course. But our preparation back in those days, you know, people would shudder to think that these guys punish themselves that much in camp and then go out there and perform on a Tuesday evening, back in those days. So we used to come into camp on a Wednesday, Thursday, we'd have some heavy drinking sessions, Arthur Beetson was the coach, so bonding was a big part of it, because we had a lot of fresh faces back in those days. Having said that, when I say fresh faces, the nucleus of that side were all of the same age. So we were all born within an 18-month period of each other. So you know, I'm talking about Wally Lewis, Mal Maninga, Mark Murray, Greg Dowling, Dave Brown, Colin Scott, Chrissie Close, Fatty Vautin, Greg Conescu, Wally Fullerton-Smith, Bryan Neibling, the names go on and on and on.

But because we were so successful throughout that period, that was the secret of our success, that we all started our representative careers around the same time, and we stuck together right throughout that '80s period, and that's when we really dominated State of Origin footy. And a common denominator right through that whole process was one Dick Tosser Turner. He was there from the moment I set foot in the camp to the day I stepped out of camp. And remained there for another 7 or 8 years after I moved on.

Mick O'Regan: How did he instil players with that sense of playing for Queensland, because prior to Origin, the interstate series in Rugby League hadn't been that emotionally charged, but Origin, as people would know who follow it, changed everything.

Gene Miles: He put back into the Queensland jersey the pride and the privilege of playing for Queensland which was probably just taken for granted throughout that period, because they knew they were going to get their butts kicked by New South Wales because they had half our players down there anyway. So when it came to the State of Origin concept, that he just put the pride back in there, and said, You know, we've got a lot of ground to make up here, because you know, we've been getting belted for a number of years. Now we've got the opportunity as of 1980 when we won that first-ever match, and the tradition was to continue.

And we learned a lot from the early '80s through to the late '80s as well, on how to approach these games and preparation-wise. Toss was influential. State of Origin series used to run from May through to, say, early July, which it's still doing at this stage, but Tosser wouldn't - his campaign wouldn't stop then, he would start preparing after that series, he'd review what we had done and what we did well or what we didn't do so well, and start preparing for the next series.

So that was him. But he never ever got any publicity about that, that was just Tosser's life, and I can tell you, up until last Monday I used to get a call at 7.30 every morning and we could be in the middle of September or we could be in the middle of January or whatever, all Toss wanted to talk about was State of Origin footy. And that was his life, a huge part of it, and it's just so important that this tradition continues because we're back, the State of Origin concept now is the goose that laid the golden egg, it has just got so much going for it, and no matter what game you talk about, there is always something special comes out of every series, and I'm sure this series won't be any different.

Mick O'Regan: Well I'd like to take you back to a series that I'm sure wasn't so special for Queenslanders, in I think 2000 the New South Wales team put 50 points on Queensland, which was a record, I think probably is still a record for State of Origin games. It prompted action from Dick Turner and a major change. Could you just take the listeners through what happened in the aftermath of that big defeat?

Gene Miles: Yes, it's a record, a 50-point record scoreliner at State of Origin level, and we were on the wrong end of that. And we watched that game, we were humiliated, we were embarrassed by the performance of that particular team. And Toss got on the phone the next morning and he just rallied a few of the boys up, which included Wayne Bennett, Chris Close and myself, and obviously said the result last night, we've got to do something about it. Toss had only just stepped back from State of Origin footy in 1996, so he's had four years out of the concept, and this is something that he's been extremely proud of that he's achieved over these years, and to see that just go away in one game, or lose that in one game, was very disappointing and he wasn't about to sit on his butt and let it happen.

So he came straight on the phone and he said to Wayne [Bennett], Wayne, we need you back, and Wayne jumped at the opportunity. He was also embarrassed by the performance and the scoreline. And Chris Close didn't take much prompting either. Chris is probably one of the most passionate people about State of Origin as well. So to cut a long story short, we formed a group again and we went to the Queensland Rugby League and we said to Ross Livermore, that Ross, you know, this is unacceptable the way the players conducted themselves on the football field, we're very proud, we've got a proud tradition with State of Origin footy, and we sold him the concept that Wayne would be coach, Chris Close would be Manager, Toss would be an advisor to that management team and I'd be Chairman of Selectors.

And Ross agreed to that, and it's history now that we got that group of people together, and some support staff that we had all the faith in the world in, picked the right team, probably ambushed New South Wales, because we probably weren't entitled to win that 2001 series; we had a number of kids that were 20 and 21 year old, making their debuts and that just happened to be the last game ever played at the old Laing Park. And we went on to win the series in 2001, drew it in 2002, but because we held the title from 2001 we claimed that series, and then lost 2003, and that's when Wayne handed the reins over to Michael Hagan, who held the reins for a couple of years, 2004, 2005 and then Mal stepped in 2006 and his record's pretty impressive at the moment.

Mick O'Regan: Indeed. Tell me, do you have favourite stories of Dick Tosser Turner? When his name comes up is there an incident or an event that immediately comes to your mind?

Gene Miles: Like there's a thousand funny ones, but you know, I would love him to be remembered as - when I speak about these 20-year old kids coming into the camp, and it's such an intimidating gig to come into a State of Origin camp where there's established players there that have played 20 games, and this kid's just making his debut. Very nervous, and a number of them came from the country. And Toss would say, 'What's Mum and Dad doing?' 'Oh no, they're just at home in Ayr', or Townsville, or Ingham, or wherever they may have come from. Well unbeknownst to that kid making his debut, Toss would organise Mum and Dad to be down there for the kid to make his debut.

Anything that he could do off the field to make the players perform better on the field, he'd take care of business, and I've got a thousand funny stories but it's just so important and he never ever sought publicity or anything about that, all out of his own pocket, he'd make sure Mum and Dad were down there to see their son make their debut playing State of Origin footy. So that was just one little thing.

Another thing was we were preparing for a game in Sydney once, at Rushcutter's Bay Travelodge, it's a pretty well-worn story this one, but a lot of listeners might not have heard of it. There was a road gang outside our hotel. The afternoon before the match we usually had a two or three hour kip, you know, like in preparation for the evening game. Anyway there's a road gang outside our hotel, and no-one could get to sleep because they were jack-hammering and replacing a part of the road. Anyway, no-one complained, they just tossed and turned but they just couldn't go to sleep. So anyway, all of a sudden the noise stopped. And we thought Gee, what happened?

Anyway we didn't give it another thought, we just thought they'd moved on. They did move on all right, but they had a couple of hundred bucks in their pocket, which obviously Toss had gone out there and said, 'What will it take for you blokes to move on?' 'Oh no, we've got to do this job'. He said, 'How much will it take for you guys to go and spend the rest of the day in the pub and leave us at peace here', and to cut a long story short, once again, we slept very well that afternoon and played very well that night compliments of one Dick Tosser Turner.

Mick O'Regan: There you go. On Monday, here at Suncorp Stadium, which to many older Queenslanders will still be known as Laing Park, there's basically a celebration of Dick's life, isn't it? Tell me about that. You're one of the key organisers for that. What are you expecting to happen on Monday?

Gene Miles: Well we're just sending the press release out now. So we're expecting a great response. It's open to the public, and where else could we have it but here, the old Laing Park Suncorp Stadium. And we really don't know how many to expect, so it's a 52,500-seat stadium here, and if we get 500 or we get 5,000, we can accommodate everyone. So it'll be a lovely day and he thoroughly deserves it, and we'll have Fatty Vautin as the M.C. and Mal Maninga will be giving the eulogy, probably on the current side of things, because Mal's been involved with the team and Wally Lewis will be giving probably a review of our lives with Tosser over the '80s and the '90s. But it will be a great day. It won't be overly religious, it'll be in layman's terms, just give the public an opportunity to pay their respects to a great man.

Mick O'Regan: Vale, Dick Tosser Turner. That's former Origin great, Gene Miles talking about his late friend.

And that's our show for this week.

Thanks to Andrew Davies for producing the program and to Costa Zouliou for technical production. And also to Sabrina Lipovic for archival research.

Guests

Art Spander
Veteran US sports journalist.

Ross Livermore
General Manager of the Queensland Rugby League.

Gene Miles
Former rugby league great.

Presenter

Mick O'Regan

Producer

Andrew Davies