Hussey says success comes with positive attitude and single focus
Afterwards Hussey spoke of the parallels between the top amateur boxers and those at the top in other sports, including the GAA, and the pressures they are now under.
“Probably the most fanatical of all the sports people that I deal with are the boxers. Munster Rugby is a massive project and the lads there certainly don’t lack any commitment, but they’re salaried — the boxers are not. Some people think they’re paid, and a few of them are grant-aided, to various degrees, but a lot of them get nothing, they pay their own way. Everything else gets put on hold — vocational pursuits, personal pursuits, relationships, marriage.
“It’s a minimum of two very tough training-sessions a day, constant travel — it just has to be your one and only focus, and in that there are strong resemblances with the top players in the GAA. Newly-qualified Olympian Darren O’Neill is a former Kilkenny underage hurler, and he’s also a full-time teacher. Darren manages to maintain a full-time job, while also maintaining the level of fitness and dedication it takes to become an Olympian.
“That takes massive self-management and massive self-responsibility, very similar to what’s required these days at inter-county level in the GAA.
“With the GAA now what’s expected is very close to full professionalism. You have physios and dieticians, all sorts of expertise around the team; then you look at the amount of training sessions, the quality of those sessions, the work that’s done between those sessions. People don’t realise what a GAA player puts into it. I’m involved with both a club team and a county squad at the moment, so I see this at first hand.
Boxing and GAA aren’t his only sports, however.
“I’m with Munster Rugby also, and I know the pain and sacrifice involved there. I’d meet a player, talk for an hour, and often we mightn’t even mention rugby. What people tend to overlook – across all sports – is that these guys also have their own ups and downs. They have marriage problems, they have to deal with depression, rejection – everything we have to deal with they have to deal with, but they have to do it in the spotlight, the full glare of public attention where everything they do is analysed and dissected and monitored.”
Not surprising then that so many can’t handle that pressure? “No, it’s not. Most lads would look at Munster and think – I’d love to be a professional rugby player. But if they really knew what was involved, all the demands even outside of the physical preparation. It’s a lonely, lonely path; especially for those on the fringes. Munster, for example, have 54 full-time professional players but only 23 can be picked every week – that leaves 31 to deal with their disappointments. Some may go six or seven games without even getting on the bench, and they have to deal with that.
“Then you have the guy who is injured, especially the long-term injured – it’s a long, long slog back for him. He’s probably training harder than everyone else, he’s also probably on his own for much of that time, he might be dealing with 24-hour physical pain for a couple of weeks, yet somehow he has to maintain a positive attitude, a single focus.
“The wives and the partners at home – and it’s the same in the GAA – are due immense credit, especially if they’re just married, if there are young kids in the equation. But everything is a huge balancing act and I think we have to work hard to ensure the players can cope with that.”
There are lessons there, surely, for any would-be coach in any sport at any level, but there are lessons there for us all. Next time you feel like hurling abuse at a player, pause for a moment, bear in mind some of what Gerry has to say. Just as their focus has to be on the positive, perhaps we should all do the same?
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