#endthecowardpunch

The Pat Cronin Foundation

On Monday 27th May, Middle School students were given the opportunity to witness a presentation run by Ben O’Toole of The Pat Cronin Foundation. For those who do not know, Pat Cronin was a nineteen year old man in the prime of his life – a successful student, footballer, and aspiring young man with a scholarship to university to complete his Physiotherapy degree. Sadly, on a night out with friends in Diamond Creek he was hit from behind by an attacker while trying to help a friend up off the ground. He wasn’t involved in fighting, he never threw a punch. His only concern was to look out for all of his mates, and then move on to a safer location. Unfortunately, the punch that landed to the back of Pat’s head – the coward punch – caused a massive brain bleed which resulted in his death two days later. He was surrounded by his family and friends.

His parents, Matt and Robyn looked at what they could do to educate the community around the incident that took their son’s life. Through a dedicated approach they set up The Pat Cronin Foundation, which looks at educating the youth of today about the dangers of violence, and the coward punch. Similar programs have been set up by Australian boxing champion, Danny Green.

Students were amazing in the way they acted and responded during the presentation. Many were able to reflect on past issues they themselves have witnessed. Some will hopefully think about the consequences their own actions could have had, or may have in the future. Many students were moved to tears, as were the teachers supervising. To his credit, Ben also spoke about his own incident where he was attacked one night as a 22 year old in Geelong. He was lucky that after surgery, and six weeks recuperating, he did the impossible and walked into his surgeon’s office to be told he was one of the lucky ones to survive a physical altercation and an attack to the head.

It should be noted that the content presented to the Year 9 and 10 cohorts was quite heavy, and that if students feel they need to talk to someone they have their Student Management team, School Leadership and the Well-being team, as well as their teachers and each other. I strongly encourage parents to talk to their children about Pat Cronin Foundation, and for parents and students to further investigate their mission of eradicating the coward punch from our society. Further information can be found by going to https://www.patcroninfoundation.org.au/