It isn't just about you.
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With vaccine mandates all but on the horizon for community sport, it's time to take a step back.
I'm lucky my job has taken to me sporting clubs around the state and offered me the chance to sink into a match day.
It's a special environment.
Last summer, I got talking to a long-time volunteer. I won't name them - your mind will take you to someone similar you already know.
Having played cricket for decades, they couldn't tear themselves away when their body started to fail them. A stint as an umpire morphed into an administration role before finally they took some deserved rest and found a home on the boundary as a supporter.
They'd only missed a handful of matches over the years and still hadn't forgiven themselves for it.
They loved the sport, loved their club, and appreciated the outlet.
When I was talking to them, they'd just finished their latest bout of treatment for aggressive lung cancer.
The prognosis wasn't good. With what looked like months left, there they were boundaryside, proudly watching their club.
Vaccine mandates for community sport aren't discriminatory to its participants. Instead, they protect the very thing that underpins sport - its people.
Sport goes beyond the people on the field or court. It's the parent in the canteen, the volunteer on the gate, and the die-hard who's held the same spot in the pocket for seasons and seasons.
A vaccine mandate for community sport is as much about them as it is the participants.
The reality is fit 20 or 30-something-year-olds won't be greatly affected by COVID.
But that's irrelevant.
What about the club legend who's turned up every weekend to watch the newcomer wearing their number? What if they are one of the unfortunate ones?
It's irresponsible to think people should be exempt from caring for others because they're playing sport.
Community sport is about unity. At every level, from the elite to juniors, teammates come together for one goal. They power through and protect each other.
Ballarat understands this, and statistics back it up.
More than 95 per cent of Ballarat residents aged 15-plus, have had their first jab, the latest data shows.
Over 70 per cent of eligible residents are fully vaccinated, and that rate is expected to climb in coming weeks.
Sport, and at a broader level, freedom, is insight. But, there will always be outliers.
Earlier in the week, North Ballarat Rebel product Tom McDonald said mandatory vaccines for AFL players was "ethically wrong."
The Melbourne premiership player is fully vaccinated, as the Victorian government requires, and said he supported mandatory jabs for frontline healthcare and aged care workers.
The former St Patrick's College student was even comfortable playing against an unvaccinated opponent.,
(I have) no issue at all, that's why you get vaccinated, to protect yourself. I don't understand why we need to force other players," he said.
McDonald's comments came a day after two-time Adelaide AFLW premiership player Deni Varnaghen, who is a registered nurse, told her club she wasn't willing to be vaccinated.
It's worth remembering these are outlying views. But, that shouldn't make them excusable.
McDonald especially, as someone who holds a special status in Ballarat and has the eyes of all junior footballers on him, is in a position to influence more people to get vaccinated.
Instead, he's adopted a stance that expresses doubt and fuels the so-called division he used to form his anti-mandate pitch.
The individual is going against the team.
We've had nearly two years of leaders spinning idealities of togetherness and hearing sanitised soundbites like "we're all in this together".
It was nothing new for those who in community sport circles.
Every player, from senior to junior, every umpire, every administrator, timeskeeper, groundsman, and supporter knows about togetherness.
Anyone who's been involved in a community sports club knows how special a shared identity is.
Getting vaccinated is the only way to protect that.
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