RIP Jim Stynes

[Burgs]

I think you would have to go a long way to find anyone with a bad word to say about Jim Stynes.
RIP Jim. Sporting Champion and, more importantly, gentleman.

James (Jim) Stynes

Date of birth 23 April 1966(1966-04-23)
Place of birth Dublin, Ireland
Date of death 20 March 2012(2012-03-20) (aged 45)
Place of death Melbourne
Original team Ballyboden/Dublin
Height/Weight 199 cm / 99 kg
Position(s) Ruckman

Playing career
Years Club Games (Goals)
1987–1998 Melbourne 264 (130)

Representative team honours
Years Team Games
1990–1994 Victoria

International team honours
Australia 1987–88, 1998
Ireland 1990

Career highlights
244 consecutive games (league record)
Night premiership: 1987
Brownlow Medal: 1991
Leigh Matthews Trophy: 1991
Four club best and fairest awards
All-Australian: 1991, 1993
Australian Football Hall of Fame (inducted 2003)
Melbourne Football Club Team of the Century

Australian football legend Jim Stynes dies after long battle with cancer

Greg Denham and Courtney Walsh
The Australian March 20, 2012 9:04AM

Football legend Jim Stynes has died after a three year battle with cancer.
Stynes had become a Victorian icon since migrating to Australia from Ireland to learn the art of Australian football as an 18-year-old.

His wife Samantha Stynes said he had died at 8.20am today, and his passing was "pain free, dignified and peaceful". He was 45.

In a message on Facebook, hiw wife said their children Matisse and Tiernan were at his bedside.

"Not surprisingly, in his last week of life Jim continued to defy the odds and lived his life to the fullest attending the Melbourne-Hawthorn football match, his son Tiernan's 7th birthday celebration, The MFC Blazer Ceremony and a casual Friday night dinner at Topolinos in his much loved suburb St Kilda.''

In a highly-decorated playing career with Melbourne, he won the 1991 Brownlow Medal, the league’s most prestigious individual award, to become the greatest Irish player to successfully make the transition from Gaelic football to the AFL.

He played 264 games, including 244 in succession, which still remains an AFL record.

It was announced in July 2009 that he had been diagnosed with cancer. Since then the father of two had been hospitalised many times with the illness, including several bouts of surgery to remove brain tumours.

Stynes’ health crisis started when he began treatment for a rare melanoma on his spine.

After retiring as a player in 1998, Stynes concentrated primarily on his youth organisation The Reach Foundation. The three-time Victorian of the Year received an OAM for his work with disadvantaged children and services to football.

In 2008 Stynes returned to the Demons as chairman before standing aside last month and handing the role to Don McLardy.

As Melbourne chairman, Stynes was responsible for eradicating more than $5 million in debt through his “debt demolition” campaign.

McLardy today described Stynes as as extraordinary talent with a passion for his football club and an infectious personality.

“To see Jim work with young, troubled teenagers was inspiring,” McLardy said. “He not only showed those young people a way forward, he trained many of them to be inspiring leaders themselves.

“When it came to our football club, Jim was equally as inspirational. He was able to gather our people together and harness their spirit in a time when many had lost enthusiasm.

“The first Foundation Heroes dinner - which raised $2 million in one night - was a Jim Stynes masterstroke that many thought was not possible. In two years, he rebuilt the base of our football club with his all inclusive style and virtually ensured our future would be secure.

“His impact in so many areas has been profound, and I am sure the next few weeks will reinforce that.

“Perhaps this story best encapsulates Jim Stynes for me. He once told me that having cancer was a privilege. He said he had worked with many young people who had been in life threatening situations, and he never really knew how they felt. He believed having cancer would help him."

AFL chief Andrew Demetriou told Fox Footy’s On the Couch program last night that the thoughts of the AFL community were with Stynes and his family, giving rise to the grave nature of his illness.

The father of two had been hospitalised several times with the illness, including an operation in 2010 to remove tumours from his brain.

The news led to an outpouring of prayers and wishes from around the country and overseas.

His deeath comes only days after the he made an extraordinary appearance at a Melbourne Football Club function where Ron Barassi presented him with a blazer.

McLardy told more than 500 people at Melbourne's Crown Palladium room last week of his shock at Stynes' attendance at the gala event.

"As you all know Jim continues to amaze and inspire us with his iron will and no one was more surprised than me today to get a phone call to say Jim wanted to arrive here tonight,'' he said.

"Unbelievably he is here down on the front table with his wife Sam who has got an iron will as well.

"While Jim was here we thought it was only appropriate that we recognised this great champion of our football club."

[Burgs]

Irish-born Jim Stynes was one of the most extraordinary figures in Australian life

Mike Sheahan
Herald Sun March 20, 2012 10:48AM

THE Richmond champion Jack "Skinny" Titus was regarded as the most durable player in VFL/AFL history for more than half the 20th century after playing 202 games in a row in the 1930s and '40s.

When his record finally fell in 1998, it fell to an Irishman, a man who stretched the games sequence to 244.

Dublin-raised Jim Stynes represented the Melbourne Football Club in every official game for 11 years, for a total of 264 from 1987-98.

It is, in all the circumstances, an astonishing achievement, yet it's more than just a record. It's indisputable proof of the sense of adventure, self-belief, ambition, resolve, courage and resilience of one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of Australian football, Australian sport.

Make that Australian life, for he was a man of many parts.

At 45, Jim Stynes has gone far too soon, yet not without leaving a huge footprint on his adopted land.

Melbourne chief executive Cameron Schwab told me in 2009 that Stynes ultimately might be seen as the most significant figure in the history of the oldest club in Australian football.

Reflect upon that. Schwab, a student of history and steeped in football tradition, says a teenager who came from Ireland with little more than a dream might have surpassed Barassi, Smith, Mueller, Flower, Neitz and company as the greatest contributor in a history of a club dating back more than 150 years.

Apart from the romance of his football odyssey, his games total is the fourth-highest figure in club history, he won a Brownlow Medal and he won four best and fairests, the equal of the great Allan La Fontaine, the equal of Barassi and Flower combined.

Yet, Schwab elevated him to a plane of his own for his sense of obligation, his commitment, physically and spiritually, his willingness to take on a challenge, his work ethic in taking the presidency at his old club in 2008, when all looked lost.

There were doubters, but what Stynes possessed was optimism, will-power, determination and a rare ability to open doors.

People in high places liked him. If Jimmy wanted five minutes, Jimmy got 15. If he wanted a commitment in dollars, he coaxed or badgered people into producing their credit cards or writing a cheque.

He also talked a group of high-powered if largely anonymous movers and shakers into taking positions on the club board.

Stynes was a doer, who didn't hear the words "no" or "can't".

To him, if there was a will, there was a way.

It was the same with his kids, the young people, as he liked to call them, of the Reach organisation.

I admired Stynes for his contribution to football, yet loved the man for his work with Reach. I was one of 15-20 of his friends from sport, business and entertainment who hosted a table at the Reach breakfast every year.

Watching him co-ordinate that function at the microphone, even when he knew the seriousness of his cancer late last year, was an amazing experience.

He was like an evangelist, yet was neither patronising nor self-serving. Never trite.

It was raw, it was emotional, it was uplifting. I have not seen a man tap into the psyche, into the soul, of troubled young people as he could.

When you heard the stories of the young people, most of them remarkably candid, even assured, at the microphone, it was difficult to fathom the depths of their despair.

Yet, Stynes and his team restored them, gave them belief, gave them self-esteem.

There were dozens of us who saw each other only at those Reach breakfasts, when we laughed together, cried together, celebrated together.

It was his cause and, regardless of the fact he took a salary as chief executive, it was a labour of love.

Australia is much the better for an Irish boy's willingness to follow a dream to the other side of the world, to adopt his new homeland, to make it a much better place.

I interviewed Stynes for Fox Sports early in 2010 after he called me and said he was ready. His wife, Sam, was uneasy, understandably so, given their two young children.

Yet, Jim left me with the impression he wanted something for posterity, something for his children to look back on.

One of the questions addressed his Catholic faith and whether he ever asked God "why me?"

Here's what he said: "Not so much 'why me'? I suppose I go, well, part of me goes 'this is ridiculous, how could this be'?

"It's just part of nature ... we're all susceptible to different things and, when you get the balance out, things are going to happen and illness will come your way.

"I'm not blaming anyone. I don't blame the big fella, that's the way I see it.

"There's no payback; it's just (that) these things happen and then it's how you respond to them."

Recalling the day he was informed he had cancer, he said: "Oh, it was a shock. It was like 'this doesn't happen to me'.

"Then I thought 'oh, nah, I'll be all right. It will just be a lump and they'll take it out and it will be a good story ... and you will be able to say you had cancer, but you got on with it. and you beat it'.

"But, um, when the doc then did the tests and came back and said 'no, we've got some more tumours lying round the body', then it was like 'oh, this is really serious'."

During his football career, Stynes simply refused to accept that injury or illness could stop him.

One of my favorite Footy Show moments came at a time when he had defied injury and medical advice for several weeks with injuries including major a major knee problem, torn muscles and broken bones.

Just before Melbourne's "ins" and "outs" were announced this particular night, Sam Newman held a vial of ashes up to camera and said: "This is Jim Stynes ... but he will be playing on Saturday."

Jimmy may have played a few times when he shouldn't have, but, basically, he had a burning desire to compete, to contribute - and to maintain that games sequence.

The Stynes mantra was simple - "I love making a difference".

The boy from Dublin made a huge difference in hundreds of lives.

I dearly hope I live long enough to see Melbourne celebrate its next premiership, to drink a toast to "Jimma", as his close friend and former teammate Garry Lyon liked to call him.

Whoever the coach is at the time, whoever the players are on the day, no one will deserve more credit than the lanky Irishman who made Australia home.

Jim Stynes dies: Full statement from wife Sam

Herald Sun March 20, 2012 8:56AM

Jim Stynes died on Tuesday the 20th of March at 8.20am.
Jim was pain-free, dignified and peaceful. Matisse and Tiernan were present.

Not surprisingly, in his last week of life Jim continued to defy the odds and lived his life to the fullest attending the Melbourne vs Hawthorn football match, his son Tiernan's 7th Birthday celebration, the MFC Blazer Ceremony and a casual Friday night dinner at Toplinos in his much loved suburb St Kilda.

In his final days Jim was immersed with insurmountable love and tenderness surrounded by his family and some close friends in the comfort of his own home.

On behalf of Jim my heartfelt thanks to all those who have so generously cared for, guided and supported Jim throughout his challenging cancer battle.

The list of people to thank reaches far and wide but for now I would like to make special mention of those that went far and beyond the call of duty, Dr Grant Macarthur from The Peter McCallum Centre, Dr Grahame Southwick from the Australian Institute of Plastic Surgery, Professor Jeffrey Rosenfeld from The Alfred Hospital, Dr Peter Sherwan from Freemasons Hospital and the team at Cabrini Palliative Home Care that combined with Jim’s fighting spirit resulted in Jim's extended three year life journey.

It is an incredibly sad time, however Jim in his passing, has made us see that in our grief that we can smile in our hearts for a beautiful man who will forever hold a special place in the hearts of many.

Jim's lesson is that life was to be challenged and treasured.

Sam Stynes

[shasta]

Despite some 35 years living in the West I've never really "got" AFL. But I did watch and admire Jim Stynes. For a foreign player he took to the game quickly and in some ways re-invented how a ruckman should play the game. His durability was incredible. An outstanding citizen off the field. RIP a great Australian.

Incidentally, watching a live cross on his story on ABC 24, the reporter had a large Force logo over her right shoulder. A street sign advertising Friday's game. Perhaps a Rugby pulse also beat in that big Irish heart.

[The InnFORCEr]

A very sad loss for AFL, Australia and Ireland, an absolute legend

I highly doubt his 244 consecutive game record will ever be beaten on the AFL stage, especially by another ruckman

RIP

[Elf1]

RIP Jim Stynes such sad news.
A great world citizen is lost to us.

[blueandblack]

RIP

[hertryk]

Seemed a really good bloke! All best wishes, thoughts and prayers to all his family, and close friends

[JediKnight]

At only 45 too. A salient lesson to make the most out of each & every opportunity. RIP Jim Stynes - a legend.

[jt12]

RIP Jimmy Stynes - he was able to transcend his sport, his career and his undoubted humanitarian causes. Not many in any era from any background can do that. Remarkable man and his legacy is such that it will be a shining beacon to all of us on how to live a successful, rewarding and complete life. Heartfelt sympathy to his wife Sam and his young children.

For Jim an old irish ditty:

May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be ever at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
And the rain fall softly on your fields
And until we meet again, May God hold
you in the hollow of his hand.

[Ecky]

He seems to have been an effing good fella and very inspirational to all and sundry.

If there were ever an AFL player who actually was a good role model on which impressionable kids could model themselves, Jimmy Stynes was it, I reckon.