Colonel Jessep: We follow orders or people die. Are we clear?
Lieutenant Kaffee: Yes sir.
Jessep: ARE WE CLEAR?
Kaffee: Crystal.
Are you a fan of A Few Good Men? It’s a cinematic classic. Tom Cruise plays Lieutenant Daniel Kaffe a brilliant, but wayward military lawyer, interrogating the cantankerous and powerful Colonel Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson) over the death of a young marine.
At the centre of the electric court scene that defines the movie is the old idea of the ends justifying the means. The Colonel makes the point that the death of the young marine, while tragic, is for the greater good. He and the armed forces are providing freedom, and it comes at a cost.
What on earth are you talking about Stack? This is a sports newsletter, not your year ten film review assignment. Well, watching Suns coach Damien Hardwick interact with the media in the Northern Territory this week, I felt as though we might have found a Jack Nicholson impersonator.
ABC journalist Matthew Garrick was asking the legendary premiership coach whether it was appropriate for team manager Mark Opie to be working for the club on match day, given he is an operator of bookmaker Okebet. The AFL integrity unit is investigating the matter, and Garrick quizzed Hardwick on it.
What followed was a 77-second exchange that was a tense watch. It generally is when you get a news journalist bringing real-world logic inside the sports bubble to pose uncomfortable questions. You can see it in full in the link below.
The short version is that Hardwick defended Opie’s role and suggested that if that’s a conflict, the journalist should consider the fact that Sportsbet sponsors the AFL.
‘Conflicts in AFL circles are prevalent everywhere’, he said.
Garrick continued to push, and that was when Hardwick snapped that it was a matter for his CEO and turned Colonel Jessep on him.
‘Are we clear? Are we clear? Are we clear?’
Much like Jessep, he’d also said the quiet part out loud. The AFL and the industry that delivers are providing football, and it comes at a cost. Hardwick is a leader in the game, and he laid it bare for those of us who aren’t paying attention. The AFL is utterly conflicted on the issue of sports gambling. As Hardwick has effectively argued in the clip below, if the league is sponsored by a bookmaker, is it really a problem to have one in the dressing room?
Can we handle the truth?
