Wayne Smith: great of Australian sports journalism passes away
Robert Craddock
June 7, 2023 - 6:52AM
Australian sports journalism has lost one of its finest craftsmen with the death of Wayne Smith, a man whose rare vision gave Brisbane their 2032 Olympic Games.
“Smithy’’, formerly of The Courier-Mail, the Brisbane Telegraph and The Australian before joining the Sydney Morning Herald as a columnist after retiring from News Corp, died suddenly on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast on Tuesday afternoon.
Only last week he had attended a Queensland Reds rugby lunch in Brisbane and two weeks ago another gathering for rugby journalist Georgina Robinson after she resigned from The Sydney Morning Herald.
Though small in stature Smith was a giant of the Australian sports writing scene.
Rugby union was his passion but he also excelled covering cricket, swimming and the Olympics and anything else he tuned his diligent had to.
“Rugby union and swimming were blessed to have Wayne Smith’s relentless and brilliant writing to chronicle their highest moments, analyse every issue and call out their failings for 50 years,” long-time colleague Jim Tucker said.
“It’s incredibly sad ‘Smithy’ won’t have the privileged seat he deserves at the 2032 Olympics after being the first to plant the idea that Brisbane should bid.
“Smithy only knew full speed when chasing a story. If five phone calls had to be made to corroborate a back page story, he’d make 10. You only hope he passed on enough of his craft to enough young journos so they know how fearless and researched they need to be to ever get close to one of the greatest of Australian sports writers.
“If rugby is serious about honouring him, they will ban his pet hate, the rolling maul try, for a full weekend of games.”
Smithy was frank, fearless and feisty, a fierce and challenging opponent but an equally loyal friend who enjoyed a drink and a laugh.
When former Australian Test batsman Kepler Wessels was about to announce his defection to South Africa in a Sydney publication Smithy decided he was having none of it and refused to be scooped by a paid column.
Then working for Brisbane’s Courier-Mail, Smith tracked down Wessels address in Brisbane, drove to his home after dark, knocked on his door and foiled the planned southern scoop by putting a tape recorder under Wessels nose.
But Smith’s greatest moment came on a sleepy Wednesday afternoon in 2015 when he had no idea for his weekly column and thought it might be an idea to suggest that Brisbane should bid for the Olympic Games.
He rang up Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk who initially baulked at the idea before saying “you know, we have a council of Mayor’s meeting this week so I might just raise it.’’
“Graham made it clear he would only push forward if there was buy-in from his fellow southeast Queensland based mayors,’’ Smith once said.
“He thought about it for a while and told me to write a piece saying he would put it on the agenda for the next meeting.’’
Smith went even further by ringing every mayor at the meeting to suggest they support it.
When asked after the meeting where the idea came from Quirk said “we’ve been thinking about it for a while’’ prompting Smith to raise his eyebrows and playfully think “remember where you heard it second.’’
When Smith got the scent of a big story, the adrenaline flowed and no greyhound ever chased a lure with more zest. He was simply relentless.
In the mid-1980s Smith heard rumours that a rebel Australian cricket tour of South Africa would become reality even though rival publications felt it was all smoke and mirrors.
He was right. Smith was so ahead of the game he occasionally kept rebel South African signings out of early editions of The Courier-Mail so no rival could copy his work.
Smith rang rebel tour boss Ali Bacher so often in South Africa that the editor of The Courier-Mail called him in an said “I love these stories you are getting but the phone bills are so huge we might have to sell off some land to pay for them.’’
Fellow journalist Mike Colman said Smith was “one of a kind’’ and remembered one moment when his professional smarts and insatiable work ethic stood out.
“We were at the Atlanta Olympics and Smith had just finished a massive swim program where Kieren Perkins won the 1500m on the last day and we were all just exhausted,’’ Colman said.
“But an hour later a bomb went off in a park. I was rooming with him and when I got back to the room there he was sitting there in front of the television filing live copy back to Australia. I remember thinking “this bloke is a just a great pro – I could learn a lot from him.’’
At his Brisbane farewell from The Australia there were touching video messages from the likes of pool great Kieren Perkins and rugby legend John Eales. Olympic champion Susan O’Neill also had deep respect for Smith.
John Connolly, former Queensland Reds and Australian coach, once said to me of Smith “nothing gets past him. That can be quite intimidating at times if you are a coach but if you were starting a newspaper you’d just hire him wouldn’t you?’’
For all of his relentless story chasing ability Smith also enjoyed a beer and a laugh and his sense of humour often flowed in a ghost writing capacity in a column with colourful former Wallaby Stan Pilecki in the Brisbane Telegraph.
Pilecki told Smith their early columns were too boring and gave him a licence to liven then up. Smith then went full throttle and wrote colourfully about hard men such as renowned enforcer Tony Shaw.
“Can you please stop it - you are going to get me killed,’’ Pilecki said to Smith.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/sport...04fa6d432af134
