Jim Gavin was lauded as one of the finest Gaelic Football Managers of all time, leading Dublin to an unprecedented six All-Ireland Titles, five of them consecutive from 2015 to 2019.
He then bolstered his credentials by chairing the Football Review Committee that transformed the sport with rule changes implemented for the first time this year.
In between times, he also chaired a People’s Assembly on the election of a Lord Mayor for Dublin, all the time maintaining his day job in charge of Irish Air Traffic Control.
And somewhere along the line, the idea entered his mind of a run for the office of President of Ireland.
We can understand the logic of a line between a strong commitment to public service and an entry to the world of electoral politics.
Ireland has over 1,000 elected politicians at the national and local authority levels, all of whom sacrifice time and energy and put themselves before their peers to seek election.
For most of them, the elections can be won with a few hundred first preference votes, within the local community they have generally been a part of for a long time, where their efforts are known and recognised.
The office of the President, though, is a whole different ball game.
Politics is a tough station, where every choice you make is magnified and seen as fair game for political opponents. In the Presidential election where Michael D. Higgins was first elected, businessman Sean Gallagher was an early frontrunner but got taken down by questions raised, and never validated in a TV debate.
His experience put in full view the fact that you had to have a Teflon coat if you are to enter this world without years, if not decades, of experience in handling the inevitable scrutiny.
Being a football manager is a high-profile role, but it is a sport, and while it matters deeply, it is correctly described as perhaps the most important of the least important things.
Proving yourself in this arena is only part of the journey to bringing it into a national contest on matters of international geo-politics, housing and cost of living challenges, immigration, integration and questions of a border poll.
It is hard to know how much hard preparation Jim Gavin was put through before entering this bear pit. It is less than a week since the first TV debate, where the consensus was that he had not performed well.
In that week, he has been questioned and chipped away at over his presentation skills, over drone flights, over poorly thought-through photographs, and then over a financial episode from 16 years ago that was, as he said, ‘a part of his life that he had moved on from.’
A poor opinion poll on Sunday morning suggested that this was a battle already lost, and then last night, the announcement of his withdrawal from the race.
The problem that should have been put to him in capital letters is that in politics, no part of life can be fully moved on from. Everything is up for grabs, whether through investigative journalism or by rival candidate teams that leave no stone, or even pebble, unturned.
A life in politics should always be prefaced by a relentless immersion in the extensive canon of movies and TV series, from Washington Behind Closed Doors to House of Cards. Most of us will watch and be entertained, then shocked at why anyone would want to subject themselves to that scrutiny.
Thankfully for our democratic system there are those who do want to do it. Who are willing to be pilloried in satire and in public debate but who keep on showing up. But you really need to be willing for the sacrifice.
It takes a lifetime to build a reputation but has taken only seven days to leave a different picture of Jim Gavin for most of the population.
For sports fans the football contribution alone will always leave him standing tall but for those outside that bubble his place in public life is now tarnished.
It is a shame for him, and for those around him, it is also a shame for public life because he is now another reason to say no when the voice in your head says that public service and putting yourself up for it in a public vote is a sound way towards a peaceful life.
Further Reading for Sport for Business members:
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