Chapter 12: Sports Information

1. Les Darcy; 2. Don Bradman; 3. 'Snowy' Baker; 4. Walter Lindrum; 5. Victor Trumper; 6. Hubert Opperman; 7. Jack Crawford; 8. Vic Patrick; 9. "Young" Griffo; 10. Bobby Pearce.

- In 1946, the magazine Sports Novels asked its readers to nominate the top 10 Australian sportsmen or women of all time.

- Gallup Poll 1948.

-1953 Survey of spectator sports.

Our Favourite Australian Athletes of the Century

- Australian edition of Sports Illustrated (1999). Sports Illustrated writer, Paul Connolly, compiled the list after voting by 15 Time Inc. journalists.

Stars who did not make the 'cut' include: Greg Norman, Rod Laver, Kieran Perkins, Margret Court, Murray Rose, Shane Gould, Herb Elliott, Peter Thomson, Majorie Jackson, Heather McKay, Mick Doohan, Boy Charlton.

Best Australian Sportsmen

Best Australian Sportswomen

- Historian, Harry Gordon (1996).

The Australian has a strong anti-authoritarian streak and far prefers to offer irreverent advice from the outer rather than participate in physical activity.

- Phillip Adams in the rationale behind the Life: Be in It campaign (1979).

At the beginning of the 21st century, about 7.5 million Australians participated in sport each year in this country. This includes … 4.1 million members of the national sports organisations, while the remaining 3.4 million play informal or recreational sport. The latter groups often use municipal facilities such as tennis courts, outdoor fields, swimming pools, golf courses or commercial facilities such as squash courts, skating rinks or bowling alleys.

- Prof. John Bloomfield, in Australia's Sporting Success (2003) quoting the Australian Sports Commission Report for 2000-2001.

More than 35 per cent of schoolchildren do not play organised sport and another 20 per cent of teenagers involved in sport are in danger of dropping out, the Australian Sports Commission has found.

It found many students went through school without realising their bodies' full potential or developing eye-hand co-ordination, leaving them feeling awkward or clumsy. One hundred thousand Australian teenagers drop out of sport every year.

- Sport in School Report (1992).

The number one reason why children liked sport was to learn new skills, closely followed by wanting a fair go, such as not sitting on the bench for the whole game. … Sport taught children leadership, co-operation and tolerance and also built self-esteem.

- Australian Sports Commission Report (1991). The report suggested that children should try different sports until they found one they enjoyed.

Virtually all Australian children (97 percent) aged 5 to 14 years watched TV or videos during their free time, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on 18 January 2001. More than half (59 percent) participated in organised sports while almost three in ten (29 percent) were involved in at least one of the four surveyed organised cultural activities in their spare time during the 12 months to April 2000.

- According to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS ) in January 2001.

Many children relied on organised sport to get exercise but this created problems because organised sport was managed by adults who often were out of touch with children's needs.

Marilyn Shrapnel 1991 in a comment on an Australian Sports Commission survey that found one-third of the nation's children were not involved in organised sport. She also said, “Children were no longer involved in ‘spontaneous play' such as kicking the football around the backyard.”

More than 36 per cent of 13 to 18 year schoolchildren do not play organised sport. Another 20 per cent are in danger of dropping out.

- Australian Sports Commission (1990s).

On average, only 56% of boys and 21% of girls aged 13-14 could demonstrate mastery of the following skills - forehand strike, catch, two-hand strike, overhand throw and instep kick.

- ACHPER Fitness Survey (1990s).

Sport plays an important role in the lives of young people. Sport is their favoured leisure activity and young people have well defined views of the values that participation in sport has for them and they are engaged in quite a wide spectrum of different types of sports.

ACHPER National Journal (Winter, 1993).

Children's favourite part of the school week could be under siege with ‘untrained, unmotivated teachers and a lack of sporting facilities' posing hurdles for the school sports afternoon.

Insufficient expertise, lack of interest and expertise on the part of non-specialist staff who were expected to take responsibility for a group of students on one afternoon a week, problems with transport and financial constraints, lack of local facilities and lack of relevant choices for students all see to be issues. Jan Wright of the University of Wollongong commenting on a study which has signalled that the school sports afternoon is becoming obsolete

- The Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 13 April, 1999.

Most popular sports:

1. Swimming 2. Cricket 3. Tennis 4. Australian rules footy 5. Soccer 6. Rugby League 7. Golf 8. Basketball 9. Athletics 10. Motor sport

Sweeney Sports Report (2001).

Australians used to think themselves the fittest race on earth. Unfortunately that is no longer the case. We've dragged ourselves down so that perhaps we are the laziest country on earth.

- Councillor Walker, Lord Mayor of Melbourne (1974).

Get out of door and get into some kind of game … don't watch games, play them … play for the fun and joy of it … play hard but clean and fair. Be a good sport on the field, in business and at home.

- Reg 'Snowy' Baker has been considered to have been Australia's best all-round sportsman. This is a comment from the 1920s. In the 1940s, when he was in his 60s, Baker was still involved in regular exercise: "I still swim, take two and a half turns off the springboard, box a little, ride 20 to 25 miles daily, play polo three days each week all the year round, fence and generally keep myself in condition."

The proportion of men who are overweight or obese - that's 20 per cent more than their ideal body weight - has risen 11.9 per cent in five years to 49.7 per cent, or almost one in two. The greatest increase was among men aged 18 to 34, those who could be expected to exercise more. The proportion of overweight or obese women increased by 8 per cent to 33.5 per cent, or one in three.

- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (1995) on the physical decline of Australians.

Sport is probably Australia's most under-valued social service. Its contributions to our physical, mental and social health are enormous; its savings to our national health and social welfare bills are incalculable.

- Introductory Statement from The Confederation of Australian Sport (1980).

- Australasian Society for the Study of Obesity (1995).

For the average Australian getting physical is dangerous. We're unfit, lack athletic skills, and are often overweight - great fodder for the booming sports injury clinics. The prognosis? Things are going to get worse.

- Mike Safe, ‘Woes of the Weekend Warriors,' The Australian Magazine (October 7-8 1995).

Thirty to 40 per cent of the adolescent males I see are seriously overweight. They have no established exercise pattern - and that scares me. There's no pattern of walking to school because a nasty man might get them, there's no pattern of playing on a bike or skateboard when they come home. They go in and watch TV or play with a Nintendo. … Otherwise, you may as well give up - it's that hard. It's becoming a major concern because we're looking at people who may cost themselves and the health system an enormous amount of money in years to come.

- Dr. Simon Clarke, head of the adolescent unit at Westmead Hospital in Sydney's western suburbs (1995).

This Federation requests, then, that the Commonwealth Government consider as a matter of urgency the establishment of a Ministry for Recreation and Sport which is aimed at fostering good health in all age groups through physical activity. The Australian Sports Medicine Federation believes that it is vital that all Australians are encouraged to maintain at least a basic level of physical fitness in order to cope effectively with the problems of living in a Western society.

- John Bloomfield, President of the Australian Sports Medicine Association (1972) in a letter to the Federal Government to establish a Ministry for Sport and Recreation.

The majority of people surveyed (71 per cent) participated in some form of physical activity and approximately half of all respondents exercised with a view to keeping fit. Findings indicate that the people most likely to take part in exercise are full-time, paid workers.

- Results of a survey of the physical activity levels of Australians, conducted by the Department of the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, Participation (1988).

State Education Departments should all be strongly encouraged to upgrade primary school health and physical education programs by providing trained health and physical education teachers in this specialist field. The debate as to whether this is possible or not from a financial viewpoint should cease, because Australia cannot afford not to have it. With the rapidly escalating health-care costs in recent years, the Federal Government must immediately act as a catalyst with the states to develop this preventive medical program.

- Prof. John Bloomfield in Australia's Sporting Success (2003).

Australian teenagers do not compare favourably with teenagers in other developed countries and data shows that cardiovascular fitness declines in boys from the age of 14-15 and in girls from the age of 10. Daily strenuous physical exercise is one way of helping to remedy this situation.