My early memories of Ron Barassi are vague. Half my family going for Carlton I would see images of him coaching in the 70s leading the Blues to multiple flags. I only remember thinking both my grandfathers looked a lot like him.
As time went on I learnt about how he was a pioneer of the sport, one of the first players to take their career into their own hands and move clubs (from Melbourne to Carlton). What at the time was a Melbournian sin but in retrospect admirable. Think of Lebron leaving Cleveland for the Miami Heat but with tall poppy syndrome on top of that.
Ron Barassi was player coach at Carlton before moving into the Coach role full time where he displayed some of the best Coach outfits ever.
The more I looked into Ron's story the more it seemed to be the script of a movie. Ron's father played for Melbourne with Norm Smith before being sent to war in the 1940s where he killed in combat. Barassi was left with his mother who was then financially looked after by Norm Smith himself. When Ron was old enough to be drafted he immediately moved in with Norm Smith, a step father figure and now coach for him at the Melbourne Football Club.
Beyond the game I found out while watching his memorial last year that he intervened a woman getting assaulted in St Kilda only recently as an elderly crippled man. He was jumped by 4 men and suffered injury but never hesitated to spare himself in protection of the young female. A man of true character off the field as well.
Now why do i care about him enough to create a collection in tribute to the man? Not that I always believe this to be true but Ron Barassi is a man of true character that people speak of not being around anymore, a man of a by gone era. A man that was brave enough to go against traditional convention at the time and leave a club to pursue more for himself, a man that would throw himself in harms way when no one would expect it of him as a 70 year old to protect a young lady. All the while lookin fucking fresh doing it.
"The Premiership Quarter" Drop will be releasing Wednesday 7pm AEST featuring the Coach's Cardigan Range & "Coach's Spray" T-Shirt.
- Simon
