Lewis was Aboriginal, a Yamatji man, with a background not typical for his time, having attended Perth's prestigious Christ Church Grammar School. The first time I met him was in Perth before the start of the 1991 season. With him was one of his mates from school, a young whitefella called Sully.

The Chris Lewis I met was an amiable individual who said, "I'll meet anyone halfway." The previous year, at the age of 20, he had won the Eagles' club champion award.

Football was a different game back then. The 1989 grand final had been epic. It had also left a string of players with concussion and broken body parts.

In 1990, Collingwood and West Coast played two finals, the first game being drawn. It was football at its fiercest and most unrelenting.

Lewis was in the thick of it, but in the first game he also kicked a goal that was pure skill from one forward pocket. Soon afterwards, at the other end of the ground, the great Peter Daicos riposted with one of his own.

The Pies won that year but the Eagles had declared themselves the young team on the rise, and Lewis was their star midfielder. He had poise, judgment and fire at his core.

And that was when Chris Lewis' troubles began. In 1991 he was singled out for special treatment.

This was two years before Nicky Winmar raised his guernsey at Victoria Park and pointed to his black skin. It was four years before Michael Long took on the AFL and changed not only the rules but also the culture of the game – a culture that has stood basically intact and not been seriously challenged until now.

For Chris Lewis, it wasn't just close checking that he now experienced, it was racist jibes which, in those days, were considered part of the game, the old saying being, "What happens on the field stays on the field".

Lewis fought back and was reviled for it by both the press and the footy public.

I will never forget a senior member of the footy media publicly passing judgment on Lewis, declaring that all he respected about him was his talent. The booing of Chris Lewis during the 1991 grand final – shrill, hateful and sustained – exceeds anything I have heard directed towards Adam Goodes.

The argument I put at the time was that the hidden player in the game was Australian history. The media in discussing the matter used euphemisms which diluted the offensiveness of what was actually being said to Aboriginal players.

Privately, the argument went like this: "So what if I call him a black c--t. He can call me a white c--t, it won't bother me."

But the thrust and power of language varies with context. The Aboriginal players I knew at the time were not only playing for themselves and their teams, they had a powerful consciousness of playing for their people, a people who had been violently dispossessed and whose womenfolk had been subjected to innumerable crimes.

Now, 25 years later, the same arguments are in play. If anyone writes a book on this saga, I urge them to include the blogs of News Corp columnist Miranda Devine for July 17 and 29.

Her July 17 blog begins: "I'm sorry, but people are not booing Adam Goodes because he's Aboriginal."

Devine then notes what she believes is behind the booing:  "1. It's become a thing; 2. He deliberately taunts opposition fans; 3. He is accused of staging for free kicks, in contravention of the rules of fair play; 4. No one has forgotten how he singled out a 13-year-old girl in the Collingwood crowd and sicced security onto her after she called him an "ape"; 5. He was rewarded for outing this powerless little girl with the honour of Australian of the Year, which he then turned into a grievance pulpit to bag Australia as a racist nation."

That is, Adam Goodes is being booed not because he's Aboriginal but because of Aboriginal viewpoints he expressed as Australian of the Year, according to Devine.

While assuring her readers the issue is not about race – that is, you are not racist if you boo Adam Goodes – Devine reignites the resentment felt towards Goodes for statements he made on racial issues while Australian of the Year.

Her message, cleverly wrapped, is that it's not about race. But it is.

We are living in racially charged times. There are extremist groups such as Reclaim Australia that could work this situation to their advantage, as has happened in European soccer. Young men performing war dances that aim to confront the crowd and are seen as racially symbolic are in no way going to ease the tension.

We could learn a lot from the haka, the war dance performed by the All Blacks. The haka is strictly controlled and directed at the opposing team, never at the crowd. It's a Maori war dance that is always led by a Maori All Black, but it is a dance that his Pakeha (whitefella) teammates participate in with gusto and an attitude of awe-inspiring respect.

My hope is that before the start of Adam Goodes' last game at the SCG, he leads his Swans' team-mates in the spear dance.

As for Chris Lewis, he played in two Eagles' premierships and made the Indigenous Team of the Century. Inexplicably, he spent most of his career confined to the forward pocket where the full range of his gifts weren't brought into play. But it's also the case he was never again the free footballing spirit we saw in 1990.

Lewis now lives in Port Hedland, working as a train driver. He has an interest in a player management group called Inside 50.

As I know Chris Lewis, he has stuck to his belief that he'll meet anyone halfway. It's time the rest of us made the effort.