Fire Carrier Fun Fact

Adam Goodes: Turning racism into good 

Adam Goodes is an aboriginal person and one of Australia’s greatest football players. Over the years Adam has suffered severe racism.

In 2013 what started as a racist comment from a footy fan led to a campaign against Adam. Although Adam was a 2x Brownlow medallist winner and a 2x premiership winner, he still had lots of racist comments coming in. The comments started turning into crowds booing him. Wherever he went at least half of the stadium would boo him because of his race. 

This racism against Adam motivated him to help young indigenous people, so they don’t suffer from this horrible act like he did. Adam started to help lots of indigenous communities with these problems and he also started to stand up to his problems to try to end racism. 

In 2014, Adam was awarded The Australian of the Year because of his work helping indigenous communities and addressing racism. Because Adam won Australian of the year people started picking on him more, more people booed. This racism was affecting Adam so much he decided to retire in 2015.

Adam’s story can teach us to stick up for ourself, not to judge anybody by their race and to try to change the bad things into good things.

Fun Fact

When Adam was young he preferred soccer and wanted to play, but his family couldn’t find a club so he played footy.

Ollie F

on behalf of the Fire Carriers