In this job it's a standard enough inquiry of any leading player. Biggest influence on career? More often than not the pen is poised to record some leading light, a legend from afar or closer to home, a team-mate or national/club coach, only for the player to instead mention someone relatively obscure.
And more often than not the Joe Bloggs in question was the said player's first coach, who in turn was usually a school teacher who oversaw some under-age team or teams on a voluntary basis. He didn't get paid and he didn't ask to get paid. He just did it for the love of the game, for the enjoyment he derived from coaching kids to play the game, and perhaps also because the head master put a little pressure on him, so underlining the moral obligation to do more than just teach in the confines of a classroom.
Ask the current crop of Irish international players and indeed the top tier of professional/provincial players, and I'd venture most of them were introduced to the game through their school and by teachers who were in all likelihood coaching on a voluntary basis.
True, increasingly in the established rugby playing schools, the senior and junior cup sides are probably either coached by priests working on a voluntary basis or by professional coaches or players drawn from outside the school. Even so, in the less established rugby playing schools or in the lower age bracket, unpaid teachers who give their time to introduce children to rugby have been, and are, the lifeblood of the game. No doubt rugby is not unique here and it's the same for other sports as well. Witness the story of Crossmolina from their origins as 10-year-olds to Croke Park yesterday.
One regional development officer employed by the IRFU describes the role of voluntary teachers as "absolutely vital", adding "for the simple reason that the whole thing would fall down in any school if you didn't have them. I have about 25 schools in my region but none of us would be able to get out to all the schools on a regular basis. You might go out to help out occasionally or to do a specialised session but it's the teachers who do the weekly grind. It's the same for all sports, who depend on teachers for running the teams, overseeing the practice sessions and the fixture lists, picking and coaching the teams."
It doesn't stop there either. As one teacher puts it: "The truth of the matter is that I or any other teacher involved in team sports don't have any lunch breaks or free classes. They're all used up, first off by making the fixture list, then confirming the fixtures every week, taking the training sessions, having meetings with the kids, organise the transport and very often drive the shagging bus as well, if they're injured take them to hospital, pack first-aid kits and kicking kits - all the banal things that have to be done."
Increasingly, fewer teachers are voluntarily giving up their time for sport. "It's the same handful of people, it's usually just one or two guys who are doing the whole thing," says the aforementioned teacher. Ask the aforementioned IRFU regional development officer why the teachers do it and he says simply: "For the love of the game - same as any other sport."
The IRFU's employment of 50 youth development officers, who are paid to take the game to schools and areas where rugby scarcely exists, and introduce them to the game by way of the nearest senior or junior club, has been a boon on the ground for the game. But the role of teachers is still vital and were they lost to the game "it would be devastating" according to the regional development officer.
IN fee-paying schools there is generally some payment to teachers for coaching rugby. But in Leinster alone there are now 46 Section A or weaker-section schools now affiliated and as most are non fee-paying schools, you can be pretty sure most of them are reliant on unpaid work by teachers.
No doubt the anti-sports lobby among us - "grown men or children chasing around after a pumped up piece of leather, blah, blah, blah" - will deride this contribution to our society, but viewed in any rational light the voluntary work of these teachers has to be considered as socially very significant. "No-one gives a damn but sport does give kids values, especially team sports, in terms of camaraderie," says the teacher. Not to mention healthy outdoor exercise.
Yet, for the most part, teachers' unpaid contribution to sport is increasingly taken for granted and however peeved they must be at this, they are likely to be even more dispirited in light of the ASTI's dispute with the government.
Undoubtedly the ASTI have lost the public relations battle heavily. That the media, the parents and the students, for the most part, have turned against the teachers during this dispute can probably be attributed to them threatening the Leaving Certificate. It was a question of timing and tactics as much as anything else.
However the dispute now pans out and whether or not the ASTI now accepts the Labour Court's proposals, it's clear that the Government are intent on brow beating them into submission on this one, and that sympathy for the teachers' plight is not exactly widespread.
The whole episode is unlikely to encourage more teachers to sacrifice their lunch breaks or their free classes in the depths of winter for the good of a specific sport/the good of pupils/society, much less to spark a stampede among third-level students to take the `H. Dip.' Least of all when they can organise private tutorials that are more financially remunerative.
So where will that leave schools sport henceforth? Undoubtedly with fewer volunteers. When we look back on this dispute, that is sure to be one of its main legacies. What a pity.
gthornley@irish-times.ie
