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HISTORY
Birthdays
JUNE BRONHILL
Born June Mary Gough in Broken
Hill, NSW, in 1929, the Australian
opera singer and actress
changed her name in honour of
her home town. TV credits include
Are You Being Served? and
Melba. She died in 2005.
HELEN MIRREN
Born Ilyena
Mironof in
Chiswick,
England, in
1945. Her love
of Shakespeare
led her to an
acting career.
She became a
dame in 2003 and won a best
actress Oscar for her title role in
The Queen (2006).
CHRIS ISAAK
Musician, born in California in
1956. He released his first album
Silvertone in 1984, and is best
known for songs Wicked Game
and Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing,
both of which have been used in
film soundtracks.
JASON
SCHWARTZMAN
Born in LA in
1980, the
musician/actor
came from a
film family —
his uncle is
director Francis
Ford Coppola,
his mother an
actress and father a producer. He
has appeared in The Darjeeling
Limited and Marie Antoinette.
On this day
III begins his
1483 Richard
reign after taking power
from his nephew, Edward V.
The first grand prix
motor race begins.
It lasts for two days outside the
French city of Le Mans.
The charter creating
the United Nations is
signed in San Francisco by
delegates of 50 nations.
Australian politician Dr H.V.
‘‘Bert’’ Evatt helped draw it up.
A Skymaster DC4 plane
on an ANA flight from
Perth to Adelaide crashes in
Western Australia, killing 29.
1906
1945
1950
1963
US president
John F.
Kennedy
inspires West
Germans with
his ‘‘Ich bin
ein Berliner’’
speech. It was seen as a turning
point in the Cold War.
Presley gives his
1977 Elvis
last live performance,
in Indianapolis — two months
before his death.
Ali
1979 Muhammad
announces his
retirement from boxing after
almost 20 years in the sport.
design by Australian
1980 Aarchitect
Richard Thorp
is announced as winner of the
competition for a new Parliament
House in Canberra.
2003
Sir Denis
Thatcher dies
aged 88. He
was married
to former UK
prime minister
Margaret
Thatcher.
The Socceroos are
knocked out of the
Football World Cup in Germany.
2006
Proud as punch . . . Laila Ali (left), daughter of Muhammad Ali, takes on Joe Frazier’s daughter Jacqui in 2001, and (inset) their fathers in 1975
Success in sport
is often relative
Inherent sporting talent
can often be passed on,
writes TROY LENNON
enetic inheritance can
mean a lot when it comes
to being a sports star.
Many sporting figures
have given birth to similarly talented progeny. Mitchell
Pearce, son of league great Wayne
Pearce, has shown that he has what
it takes to follow in his dad’s
footsteps, being selected to play for
the NSW State of Origin team.
Sometimes the sons, daughters,
nieces, nephews and even grandchildren of famous sports stars
have failed to reach the same
heights as their forebears, but in
other cases they have rivalled or
even bettered those achievements.
Recently rugby league seems to
be populated with the relatives and
sons of former players. Parramatta
player Eric Grothe was rookie of
the year in 1978. He went on to be
part of the premiership-winning
Eels team in 1981, ’82 and ’83 and
played for NSW and Australia. He
retired in 1990. His son Eric junior,
born in 1980, began his professional
career with the Eels in 1999 and has
also represented his country.
It is not only sons. Reg Gasnier,
who played for St George in the late
1950s and ’60s, was one of the
game’s brightest stars. Born in 1939
he almost first chose cricket before
joining the Dragons. Injuries
forced him to retire in 1967. Gasnier’s nephew Mark Gasnier is now
the captain of St George and has
also played for NSW and Australia.
One league player’s son has opted
for a different sport. League player
Garry Jack, who played for Wests,
Balmain, NSW and Australia in the
’80s and ’90s, had a son Keiren in
1987 who is now playing Australian
rules with the Sydney Swans.
Similarly, French tennis star
Yannick Noah, winner of the
French Open in 1983, was the son of
Cameroonian footballer Zacharie
Noah who played professionally
in the 1960s. In turn, Yannick’s
son Joakim is a basketballer with
the Chicago Bulls.
The union of basketballers Gary
Jackson and Maree Bennie, both of
G
Family affair . . . (from left) cricketing brothers Trevor, Ian and Greg Chappell; Eric Grothe Sr, and Jr
whom represented Australia, produced a new star. Their daughter
Lauren, born in 1981, had the right
genes and was raised in a culture
of basketball. Lauren went to the
Australian Institute of Sport where
she captained their team and in
1997 she was selected for the Australian national women’s team, the
Opals, and is now captain. She
joined the Seattle Storm in 2001.
Motor racing also seems to have
many competitors who build on
family genes. The American Unser
clan produced many champions.
Louis Unser, born in 1896, was the
nine-times winner of the famous
Pikes Peak Hill Climb, a mad dash
up a Colorado mountain. His brothers Joe and Jerry were also racers,
but it was Jerry’s son Al, born in
1939, who would make the Unser
name famous internationally.
Al’s older brother Jerry Jr became the first member of the family
to drive in the race for which the
clan has become best known — the
Indianapolis 500 — but was killed in
a practice session in 1959. Al raced
in his first Indy in 1965. By then,
brother Bobby was making his
name in the race, winning his first
in 1968. Al won in 1970 and again in
’71. Bobby would win the race three
times and Al four times. Bobby
retired in 1982 and Al in 1994.
Al’s son Al Jr (1962-), won his first
Indy 500 in 1992, while his father
came third in the same race. He
won again in 1994, the year his dad
retired. Al Jr retired in 2004 but
made a comeback to Indy and later
Formula One. His son Al Unser III
now drives on the Indy circuit.
Australia’s Jack Brabham has
also produced a crop of racers. Born
in Hurstville in 1926, Brabham is a
three-time Formula One World
Champion who retired from racing
in 1970. His son Geoff, born in 1952,
went on to race in many different
fields of the sport, including a win
at the Le Mans 24-hour sports car
race. He was inducted into the
American Motorsports Hall of
Fame in 2004. Geoff’s brothers
Gary (1961-) and David (1965-) have
also made careers in racing.
The self-proclaimed ‘‘greatest’’
boxer of all time, Muhammad Ali,
Olympic gold medallist and threetime heavyweight champion, also
produced an heir. But most people
thought it unlikely his daughter
EVERY TUESDAY
Series 8
www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/classmate
ACTIVITY: Write about another famous child of a sporting star.
WEBSITE: Honour Thy Father www.sptimes.com/2007/06/17/Sports/
Honoring thy father.shtml — a list of some famous American sporting
parents and their children.
BOOK: Raising Champions
by Philippa Coates, $29.95, Hachette Livre.
A look at how parents of elite athletes raise their children.
68—THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, www.dailytelegraph.com.au Thursday, June 26, 2008—68
Laila, born in 1977, would follow in
his footsteps. She gained a business
degree before taking up professional boxing. She made her debut in
1999, winning by a knock-out.
In 2001, she squared off against
Jackie Frazier-Lyde, the daughter
of one of Muhammad Ali’s most
famous opponents, Joe Frazier. Ali,
22, beat the 39-year-old Frazier-Lyde
on points after eight rounds. She
later became female world super
middleweight boxing champion.
Cricket has also produced some
families who have made their mark
on the sport. English cricketer William ‘‘W.G.’’ Grace (1848-1915) was
one of the giants of the sport in the
late 19th century. A formidable batsman, he was part of a cricketing clan.
His father was a cricketer as were
his brothers, several cousins and his
son. W.G.’s older brother Edward
(1841-1911) was carving an impressive
career before he was overshadowed
by his younger sibling.
His other younger brother George
(1850-1880) struggled to match the
form of his brothers and died at the
age of 30. William’s sons William
Gilbert Jr (1874-1905) and Charles
(1882-1938) both went on to have
brief careers in the sport.
Australian cricketer Vic Richardson (1894-1969) similarly passed on
cricketing genes. He made his Test
debut in 1924, competing in the
famous Bodyline series against the
English in 1932-33. His daughter
Jeanne married grade cricketer
Martin Chappell and they had
three sons: Ian (born 1943), Greg
(1948-) and Trevor (1952-) who all
went on to play Test cricket —
encouraged by a doting grandad.