MELBOURNE (Paulo Kennedy's View from Downunder) - It has certainly been a week of controversy in Australian sport, highlighted by issues surrounding Aussie rules footballer Adam Goodes and Olympic basketballer Liz Cambage.

For those who don't know, Goodes has become a rather unpopular figure with AFL crowds, being booed regularly, something which has stirred up endless discussion in Australia.

Legendary Australian Boomers point guard Shane Heal, himself one of this country's most taunted sports stars, weighed into the debate with this tweet:

The reason Heal was talking about racism was that a number of public figures - from the Victorian Premier, to AFL CEO to public commentators - have claimed the booing of Goodes, an Aboriginal Australian, is racist.

It seems an odd claim, given around one-in-10 AFL players have Aboriginal ancestry, and Goodes is the only one to be targeted in such a way.

From a basketball perspective, Patty Mills is probably Australia's most popular current hoopster, as shown by the dismay bordering on outrage about his omission from this year's Boomers team.

Some commentators suggested it was because Goodes, an Australian of the Year in 2014, had made a very public stand against racism and in favour of Aboriginal rights.

Again this seems odd as athletes like Cathy Freeman, Nicky Winmar and Michael Long have made their own stands on these issues and not received treatment like Goodes has. In fact, they have been widely lauded for their efforts.

I could never presume to know why thousands of people are booing, but there doesn’t appear to be a recent precedent for an Aboriginal athlete getting this sort of hostile reception.

However, there are plenty of examples of sportsmen and women being turned on by the Australian public because of the way they rub people up the wrong way, perhaps best exemplified by the treatment of the great Richard Hadlee.

Heal is another lead example, one who embraced his villain status, while Shane Warne, Bernard Tomic, Tony Liberatore, Brian Goorjian, Anthony Mundine, Shane Watson, Jason Akermanis, Jana Pitman and Jobe Watson are other examples from a much longer list.

And that's where this gets back to Cambage.

For those who missed it, Cambage chose not to attend last weekend’s Opals camp to be a "paid host" for a band at a music festival in Byron Bay.

Cambage's explanation was Basketball Australia (BA) didn't give her ample notice of the camp dates and she had made a prior commitment.

However Opals legend Lauren Jackson took to Melbourne radio to rebuff that claim, saying she was "baffled" by Cambage's decision.

Reports then emerged that BA had offered to fly her to Melbourne for the second day of the weekend camp so they could test her injured Achilles before this week's series against Japan.

Cambage supposedly declined and remained at the music festival, missing the entirety of the camp and prompting BA to rule her out of the upcoming FIBA Oceania Women's Championship - a qualifier for next year's Rio Olympics - with support of the playing group.

Cambage then reportedly involved legal reps to challenge BA's decision and attacked some of her teammates on social media before quickly deleting the post.

I think it's fair to say that Cambage, 23, has just made a string of decisions which could rub people the wrong way.

History tells us that young athletes who get ahead of themselves and appear to be wasting their rare talent, such as Tomic and potentially Cambage, quickly fall out of favour.

Those who appear too cocky like Heal and Mundine receive the same response, while players who are viewed as outspoken and divisive like Goodes and Akermanis are also often turned on.

I was once a 'Heal booer'. Almost wherever he went in the NBL, the feisty point guard used to cop it and in Melbourne I used to join in the chorus.

Why? He must have rubbed me up the wrong way somehow.

But one day, in my early 20s, after The Hammer had typically ignored the jeers to produce another match-winning performance, I realised how silly it was.

What did it possibly say about me that I would get enjoyment out of someone else's failure or misery? So I stopped.

Everyone has the right to act as they wish at a sporting event, provided it's within the law, but I also have a right to my opinion on this.

To all the people booing Adam Goodes, I say grow up.

Sure, you might disagree with some of his views or the way he delivers them, but it's gone for so long that what you are delivering as 'punishment' far exceeds what you view as his 'crime'.

To those who have jumped into the media and labelled this as racism, I say grow up.

The precedents simply don't back your assertions, instead your comments come across as an immature attempt to put down large sections of the community and present yourself as culturally superior. Worse still, you are trying to slander and censor people whose motivation you cannot possibly know.

The comment "what else could it be" is the weakest argument of all. That says I don't have an argument, but I'm going to put the onus on you to disprove my slanderous assumptions.

To young athletes at risk of rubbing people up the wrong way, I say blaming others isn't the solution.

Take responsibility, and perhaps look to Lleyton Hewitt as a guide. Once arguably the most despised sportsman in Australia, Hewitt will this year retire as one of our most admired.

In the case of Cambage, I'm sure there are things BA could have done better in this situation, but Liz needs to front up to what she was responsible for.

If she admits where she was wrong, apologises to her teammates and gets on with the business of representing her country, this incident will be just a hiccup.

But if she doesn't, rightly or wrongly Australian sports fans will turn on athletes they think are making it about themselves and not the team they represent.

Paulo Kennedy

FIBA

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