For those not from Australia, or not up with the news, this is a brief runthrough. Ben Cousins plays AFL football for the West Coast Eagles. Two weeks ago he was banned from his club for not being dedicated to the team. It was then reported and confirmed that he has a drug addiction, and that drugs are apparently rife in the AFL. He is currently keeping a low profile during one of the biggest sporting stories to hit the West.

Here are my views.

Ben Cousins is a very silly man. There are however some issues that are important to consider when talking about this issue.
Most people that know me will think, and probably assume that I am coming at this from a Fremantle Dockers point of view, but I believe my thoughts are well supported and fair.

It is important to realise why he would have done it, and why other AFL and sports stars would get into this kind of 'life' with so much on the line. This will come later, but firstly the consequences of his actions need to be addressed.

Ben Cousins, along with most of his Eagle and AFL counterparts are rolemodels to millions of people throughout Australia. Whether or not they want this is not important, rather it is a fact of the life that they choose. Every job, every industry and every facet of life has positive and negative parts to it, and you need to take the good with the bad. If you want your picture in the paper or on TV when you win a Grand Final, or when you are doing Charity work or when you are going along well, then you need to accept the media when you do something bad. I can't imagine Ben Cousins, or anyone else pushing away the cameras when they are not in 'trouble'. The media makes AFL players their money, and they need to be able to live with the consequences.

Going back to the issue of role models. It is not unusual for a player to come out and tell the media that they don't want to be a role model. If you don't want to be a rolemodel then don't play football, or do anything in the public eye. It is easy for an adult to work out who is good or bad rolemodels. Wirrupunda, Bell and Buckley from the AFL, and Federra and Tiger Woods are examples of good rolemodels. There are many who aren't. A child who sees Cousins or Daniel Kerr on the TV every night, walking in and out of court, running from the media and splattered across the front page of the newspaper won't understand what is going on. What are drugs? They will wonder. It is ok to hit someone, they will assume. I am unsure if people wonder how important rolemodels actually are to children.

Ben Cousins does not only have a responsibility to the public, but also to his team. How can his fellow team mates not feel let down by his actions? He is also a role model to his team mates. A young player who is a part of the squad, who knows or sees his captain, or former captain, doing drugs, getting involved with people he shouldn't associate with, can only feel let down. Every young player on that team knows that if they were in Cousins' situation they would have been sacked. Special rules for special players? If a junior player is socialising with someone doing drugs, then I would think they would be more likely to try them too.

Why would a player, who is a respected player, a champion in his sport, want to do, or even consider drugs? Too much money? Too much time? Too many external pressures? By doing 'something stupid'? Probably a combination of them all.
Daniel Kerr is a good example of this. Four years ago he was recorded having combinations with a convicted drug dealer about the effects of the drugs that he bought off him. These tapes have been released in the past week. I am in no way suggesting that Kerr is now involved in drugs now, or that he has taken them since. It is however not speculation that he was taking drugs four years ago. He came into an average West Coast team, on a contract that saw him have more money than he would have ever seen. With this money, and this profile, it is ea