Not for the first time in his life, Eddie McGuire has spent the better part of a week copping it for saying something wildly insensitive, because hey, it’s footy season and you can set your watch by Eddie gaffes between February and September.
And not for the first time in his life, tennis champ, new AFL Footy Show panellist, all-around legend and wheelchair user Dylan Alcott has managed to put a positive spin on a gross, ableist moment while delivering a cheeky lesson in how to not be a douche to disabled people.
McGuire was in the commentary box during the coin toss before the Sydney Swans’ game against the Adelaide Crows, and mocked the woman performing the toss’s technique, saying anyone who didn’t do it “properly” should be fined $5000.
Unfortunately for Eddie, the woman was the Swans’ number one ticket holder, writer and double amputee Cynthia Banham, who lost both her legs and suffered severe burns in a plane crash over a decade ago – so making fun of her fine motor skills wasn’t a great look.
Someone had a quiet word to McGuire – the AFL probably has someone employed full-time for having quiet words to Eddie – and he apologised on-air straight away.
But Alcott had a chat about it on The AFL Footy Show last night, and managed to be patient and generous to McGuire about it while also getting right to the heart of exactly why comments like that suck so much.
Yep. @DylanAlcott – all over it. ?
WATCH: @Channel9 #9AFLFootyShow pic.twitter.com/FF1LaVd7Rj
— The AFL Footy Show (@AFLFootyShow) April 3, 2019
“I spoke to Eddie today about it and he’s super remorseful, he had absolutely no idea Cynthia had a disability. And if he knew that, he said that he wouldn’t have said [what he did] and I believe him,” Alcott said.
“The reason that it struck such a chord with the disabled community is, I’ve been in a wheelchair my whole life, we’re always compared to the able-bodied way of doing it, and if you can’t do it the able-bodied, ‘normal’ way, then you get discriminated against, you get ridiculed and you don’t even get jobs.
“If I’m honest with you, before all this [public success] happened, that happened to me all the time.
“I’m not saying you can’t take the piss out of people with a disability — I would not be on this show otherwise. You’ve always got to have a joke about the people that you are,” Alcott went on.
But he added that public gaffes like this were a learning opportunity for everyone.
“There are 4.5 million Australians with a disability and you can’t see a lot of those disabilities. So the next time you see somebody doing something differently, let’s not bag them because of it, let’s say good on you for doing it the way that you can.
“I think it’s so awesome that this has come up so everybody can learn, because I’m always learning about things that I don’t know as well, and then we can just move on and bloody enjoy the footy.”
Even the Collingwood supporters in the audience got behind that with a huge round of applause.
It’s a great example of “calling someone in” instead of calling them out – inviting someone to turn a mistake into a positive.
It's been a rousing reception for the panel so far, but the biggest welcome was reserved for @DylanAlcott…
WATCH LIVE: @Channel9#9AFLFootyShow #AFL pic.twitter.com/ZYY6MfumtK
— The AFL Footy Show (@AFLFootyShow) March 20, 2019