Front and centre

Andrew Slack was a hero to many as captain of Australia’s Wallabies in the 1980’s. MADONNA BOTTING finds that there is much to admire in a man dedicated to his family, friends and faith.

Many Australians remember Andrew Slack as a ground-breaking, charismatic Wallaby captain. These days his public face is as a sports journalist, columnist and Wallaby selector.

Meeting to chat for this story at Channel Nine in Brisbane I was surprised to find his office looking dilapidated. This was certainly not the space of someone who takes his executive status seriously. His desk is home to a Christy Moore CD—he’s a big fan—a pair of tiny china dogs, and assorted sporting reference books dumped in the in-tray. Family photos adorn the window-sill.

Self-effacing and courteous, he is nonetheless a demon for work. While I was there he took a dozen phone calls, and wrote and sent to air a piece on a breaking news story. He does admit to a competitive streak.

‘I like the job, and I want to be a better contributor than anyone else. I do like to do things well!’

However, being connected with people and having friends and family around have always been the most important things for Andrew Slack.

‘Most things I do are enjoyable because I have a sense of sharing them with people.’ Rugby for him was just like the rest of life—important because it was something ‘you did with your pals’.

Andrew sees his rugby years philosophically now, ‘You had a bit of luck, and obviously some sort of talent, so you end up where you are’, and that is all there is to it.

‘Rugby and school have given me nearly all my friends and connections and so they were important in that sense’, he explains. Andrew even met his wife Caroline, through rugby. ‘An English girl’, he grins.

Perhaps it is no surprise then that the records and achievements mean little. ‘It was fun at the time’, he says. ‘I’m glad I did it, but onwards we move’.

His focus on the present is a characteristic attitude. ‘I don’t worry about yesterday, but by the same token, I don’t worry too much about tomorrow either. You love what you do, not what you did’.
Andrew’s father died in 1957 when he was two years old. Six months later his mother Julia opened the pub at Mt Gravatt in Brisbane, which she kept until her retirement in 1986.

Andrew has happy memories of childhood. He reflects on the values he holds as a result of the influences of family and school. ‘I try to recall the things Mum said that influenced the values I hold and I can’t think of any! I suppose I just saw her example really.

‘We were very tight [as a family], but it was open. Everyone was allowed in and we were allowed out. It can be almost dangerous to be too enclosed as a family … as if it’s "us and them". But if you don’t have the initial love and warmth, then you’re not going to give it naturally. If the family gives you a bad start, you’ve got a few hurdles in front of you.’

Andrew loved his days at the Augustinians’ Villanova College at Coorparoo and remembers the particular influence of some teachers. ‘There was a bloke named Brother Clarkson who was just a wonderful teacher, and Mr Godsall, who had been a missionary in PNG and used to regale us ten-year-olds with fascinating stories.

‘We were a typically Catholic family. We got up for Mass at 6.30 am and went every day in Lent. In the early years we said rosaries together as a family. It was just like having breakfast, dinner and tea. You didn’t question—it was just what you did. I wasn’t uncomfortable with it. I was an altar boy, and I quite liked that. The first year it was Latin. I might still be able to manage a few responses if someone started me off.’

Andrew’s has been a life with many triumphs and one with more than its fair share of ‘hits.’ Certainly the most devastating was the loss in April 2000 of his son Tom. Tom died from cancer, a few months short of his twelfth birthday. The tears come to Andrew’s eyes as he says he is ‘a bit fragile on that front today.’ He regroups, and talks about his thoughts on Tom’s illness.

‘Well, you don’t get a choice in these things. There were some great moments in those two years that we might otherwise not have had. Tom was a great kid. Prior to his getting sick, Caroline, Tom’s sister Hannah and I had been very close, but in those two years, you just get ridiculously close. So had it not been for him being sick, those special moments might not have come.

‘I believe there is a plan in all these things. I believe Tom’s as happy as he could be. You’ve got to get over the selfish feelings of missing him, and sometimes you can’t do that, you just want to bash walls down.’

Andrew shows me a copy of a prayer he heard recently in a sermon, saying it sums up the way he feels. It was written by a Confederate soldier in the American Civil War.

I asked God for strength that I might achieve,
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health that I might do great things,
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked for riches that I might be happy,
I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men,
I was given weakness that I might feel the need for God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life,
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for,
But everything I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my prayers were answered.
I am, among all men, most truly blessed.

‘I’ve always felt that way. Thank God I do or I’d be a basket case. That doesn’t make me good or better or anything—it just makes me what I am.’

On making sense of suffering Andrew says, ‘You’ve just got to take things on board, and make it into something positive, difficult as that may be at times. You can’t always do it. But I think if you’re a positive person and you share things, by and large, you’ll be pretty happy. The only thing I think about yesterday for, is Tom. And I often talk to him’.

I ask about the two china puppies on the desk. He smiles. ‘Yeah, Tom gave me those, for a birthday or something. He was a very thoughtful sort of kid.’

Andrew says he certainly feels the sense of God’s presence with him, though he thinks of God as a parent who leaves you to ‘make your own tracks’.

‘Sometimes you’ll get whacked around, and you don’t know why. But I’ve every confidence that I’m being looked after. I’m not in charge of me really.

‘I pray and do all that sort of stuff. Sometimes it’s routine, hopefully sometimes it’s more than that. What is great is faith, a gentle sort of forgiving faith. I think people who are comfortable having some sort of faith are the lucky ones.’

He tells me there is a plaque in ‘a little garden we’ve made for Tom’. He quotes the words by heart,

Life is eternal and love is immortal
Death is only a horizon
And a horizon is nothing
Save the limit of our sight.

The lines capture the wisdom and courage of this remarkable man.

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