CLOSE to a hundred members from local sporting clubs enjoyed a night of laughs and introspection with a star of Australian sports television.
Former Sports Tonight presenter Brad McEwan made the trip to Kerang last Thursday night to host Gannawarra Shire Council’s sporting club dinner.
Now working as a resilience and leadership trainer, McEwan regaled the crowd with stories of his life growing up in country Victoria, his time working in sports media, and personal insights.
McEwan told Gannawarra Times that “on nights like that, you can tell pretty early on that there’s something a little special in the air.”
“Everyone, whether they were in the crowd or behind the bar, they were all so engaged and listening so intently to the things that I was saying,” he said.
“Of all the places on the planet I could have been on the planet last Thursday night, I would want to be there in the K-Bar in Kerang, because I just loved it so much.
“The people there from all over the Gannawarra Shire, as well as people who I knew personally from my hometown of Lockington, I love getting get to meet new people and making those connections.
“I can still picture the different people that I met on the night and can think of them smiling or even getting a little teary in response to what I was talking about.”
Having grown up in Lockington, McEwan still sees the town as home, but explained to the crowd that he has a strong connection to a town in the Gannawarra Shire.
“It was great letting people know that my great-grandmother was a Robinson from Dingwall,” he said.
“People will drive through the town that I grew up in and they’ll say that there’s nothing there, and I will turn around and say that from my perspective, everything is there.
“That’s where I went to school, that’s where I played sport, where I fell of my bike and where I had my first kiss.
“I’m so grateful and I know that so many people across regional Australia are so grateful to have had an upbringing in the country.”
McEwan said that sporting clubs “are basically a melting pot of our entire society.”
“In my opinion, the greatest thing about this planet that we live on is the people,” he said.
“The other thing I love passionately is stories, and sport is an amazing merging of the two.
“There are so many people who make up the sporting clubs around the region, and they’re not just farmers, or tradies or business owners.
“They are great listeners, and supporters and huggers, they are people who have enormous amounts of empathy and then of course there are the jokers who make up clubs.
“Sport is incredible in that way, you learn structure; and fair play and about teamwork, connection, belonging and purpose and you make so many friends along the way.”
McEwan was incredibly open with the crowd, speaking about his ongoing battle with anxiety, and the work that he does in the mental health space.
He hoped that speaking openly about mental health would encourage many more people to speak about the topic.
“The more that people talk about mental health, the more people get used to talking about it,” he said.
“My dream is that in the future, the teacher will have to tell their class that in the 20th and early 21st centuries, people didn’t talk about mental health because they were embarrassed.
“They’ll be questioning why mental health wasn’t seen the same as physical health.
“I think that kids won’t be able to wrap their heads around that in the future.”
