JASON BARRY | Victorian Leg Tennis | Contact
AFL 360 is back baby and if you are wondering where that blinding light is coming from, it’s shining right out of AFL media legend Gerard Whateley’s backside.
Universally loved, Whateley’s won every award you can win as a sports journalist. Including the highly coveted Australian Football Media Association’s Alf Brown Award for most outstanding media performer not once or twice but four bloody times.
The living legend has been gracing our TV screens and radio waves for years, but as he explained to the Advocate he now finds himself at a career crossroads. Having reached the pinnacle of his profession, he’s unsure on where to go from here.
“After winning all the awards I feel like I’ve reached the top of Maslow’s Pyramid. Self-actualisation and all that. I need to do what the Beatles did and travel to India for some spiritual reawakening or something,” Whateley said in a voice that sounds like honey and lemon gently lapping up against the centre of one’s ear drum.
“It’s time I gave back, you know?”
The Advocate understands Whateley intends to make 2023 the year where he lives entirely for his peers, putting their needs above his own, in the hope of bringing them up to his incredible performance level. And the big hearted footy media personality knows exactly where to start.
“I work mostly with Robbo,” he said in reference to his AFL 360 co-host Mark Robinson, a man who if not for the existence of Whateley, would have surely won his own Alf Brown award already.
Whateley smiled his gorgeous smile and spoke behind kind eyes: “He deserves the award as much as me. So I’ve decided to perform badly this season to make him look the better journalist.”
Whateley nodded thoughtfully to himself.
“If I can somehow lose my quick wit and piercing insight, stutter and make errors, maybe Robbo can outshine me.”
Altruistic to a fault, Whateley appears ready to accept the consequences of putting in poor performances this year. “If I get fired I get fired. It doesn’t matter what happens to me. I gotta do this for Robbo,” he said before describing a tingling sensation in his arms. Suddenly, he transcended the physical plane and drifted up towards heaven to be with the Angels.
