The story of Irish Boxing could not have been created in a Hollywood script conference. For a nation of our size to have delivered at the highest level over the past two decades, and to be accelerating from fifth in the Olympic medal table in London towards an aspired to first place in 2016 is incredible in every sense.
The template though was based on a simple creed of doing everything as well as you could. The little things to the big things. It didn’t demand a massive budget. This was more sleeping bag than multi star luxury.
It was put in place in the run up to Beijing 2008 by Gary Keegan who is now head of the Institute of Sport. It has been brought to a higher level again by a soft spoken Wexford man called Billy Walsh who’s ambition it was post London to go from ‘Five to One’ in that medal table.
Cuba had done it, as a small country. Ireland has a rich pool of talent from Katie Taylor to Paddy Barnes, Joe Ward to Michael Conlan and a host of young boxers knocking on the door.
Now though it looks like they will be brought through the most crucial year of their sporting lives by somebody else as Walsh is reported to be on the verge of heading to Colorado to take up a senior position with the US Team.
Conlan said yesterday it was a shock and would be a massive blow to boxing in Ireland if Walsh and his assistant Zaur Antia were to leave.
It’s been on the cards for eight months but late negotiations between the Irish Amateur Boxing Association who employ Walsh and his team, and the Irish Sports Council who fund the high performance element of the sport appear to have been torn up by the former and the boss appears ready to walk away.
The money will be better, the facilities bigger and better equipped. It’s likely that Walsh will be set for life after a few years and who could blame a family man for putting his family security first.
Well quite a few as it happens. Message boards and comment sections have been primarily focused on slagging off ‘the suits’ for letting this happen but a noticeable minority have hinted that ‘he’s only one man’ and maybe fresh thinking needs to come in.
Honestly lads, this is a question of leadership. Every good leader knows that things can always be improved. Every good leader strives to do just that.
When they fail to do it as well as they once did it’s time to leave. Billy Walsh is far from being at that point. The curve of success is still rising. That number one spot seems insane but it could happen.
In part that’s because somebody stood up and said it could. And made people walk beside him to see if they could make it happen. One step at a time. That’s what Billy Walsh has done. Maybe that’s what he will now do for the USA.
He is ‘only one man’ and maybe his successor will build on the success. It happened when he replaced Gary Keegan after all. But if the detail we believe to be true in terms of a refusal to cede control from amateur administrators to professional managers is true then the new person’s hands will be tied from the start and a slow but inevitable decline will set in.
No great champions ever remain so forever. But while they are there they stay longer because they want to keep on getting better. If that’s what Walsh has sought and been refused then this is a bad day for Irish sport.
A Question of Leadership
