Scotty Stevenson: We can't let club sport wither on the vine

Scotty Stevenson was just ten when he saw Keith Quinn commentating on the Rugby World Cup and thought it looked like a great job. Sixteen years after commentating his first rugby game for Sky Sport, the 48-year-old broadcaster and writer now covers cricket matches for TVNZ.

While the job of thinking on the spot to narrate live sporting action is a joy, he says, it's also a big responsibility.

"These are people's lives. This is their athletic career. And your voice is going to be attached to their good moments and their worst moments for eternity," Stevenson tells RNZ's Summer Weekends.

The job of a sports commentator, Stevenson says, is to "reach back into whatever bag of memories and statistics and histories that you have collected in your head, and then try to put words in the right order".

And no matter how prepared you are and what you've thought might happen, there will always be some surprise.

An amazing catch, shot, or try is a great moment to be a part of as a commentator, he says, but over time he's learned it's best to shut his mouth when those big moments occur and let the crowd's reaction "carry" the moment.

"If you've got some line in your head that you want to use to maybe sum up what you've just witnessed, there's no point in banging on about that while everyone's chatting on a couch at home or losing their gherkins in the crowd at the stadium."

Stevenson makes a distinction between "corporate" sport, which he says rugby and cricket have become and what he calls "true sport" - the kind that reveals something universal that everyone who watches and participates can share in.

"I love watching the struggle… It's triumph over adversity, and sometimes it's both at the same time. I really enjoy it. I love watching people try to figure it out.

"You're trying to master a skill, you're trying to master an opponent, you're trying to master your own mind. You're trying to push through pain, push through the hurt… There's an awesome amount of pride and passion that goes into that."

Unfortunately, rugby and cricket have now become "corporate" sports, though, Stevenson says, which have become "skewed more towards the dollar than the soul of the game".

The "completely unhinged" New Zealand media's coverage of a Wellington nightclub altercation involving the English cricket captain during the recent Ashes cricket tournament is, for him, supporting evidence of this tonal shift.

"Everyone had bought into the marketing exercise and forgot that at heart there's true sport and nuance and subtlety, and cricket is one of those sports that lends itself to that."

Seeming disregard for the "long-term damage" of teenagers becoming sponsored athletes is something Stevenson finds concerning.

"I think we've lost our way when it comes to treating our kids as if they're just a future employee of a big corporate sport."

Instead, we should be helping kids to discover a sport that they love and can participate in for life, he says.

Sports clubs have the power to be "really important community hubs" where people of all ages can socialise, get active and, together, take a break from "the distractions and the noise of this world".

"You don't want [rugby] just to be a sport where a handful of kids get picked every year out of the best schools in the country, and they become professionals, and that's it.

"To watch another rugby club die, or another cricket club dying... Sport at that level is withering on the vine. I think it's beholden upon those who are involved in the big sports, the national sports organisations, to make sure that they stem this trend."

Stevenson - who acquired the nickname 'Sumo' as a "chunky kid in Speedos" back at the Whangarei Heads Surf Lifesaving Club - says the commercialisation of rugby and cricket has come with a lot of "bollocks".

In contrast, the sport of trail running, through which he's met a great community of people, has a "purity" to it.

This summer, though, some "very sore" ribs are slowing down the solo father of two, who just before New Year's Eve took a fall while running on Central Otago's Lake Dunstan Trail.

"Halfway down, I was trying to enact a ninja role, and I suddenly remembered I'm not a ninja, and then my shoulder remembered it, too. For some reason, my ribcage took most of the punishment. It was a long run back after that."

'Run to You' by Bryan Adams:

The first two cassettes Stevenson ever bought - in one transaction at the Auckland music store Marbecks - were the self-titled debut of teen singer Tiffany and Bryan Adams' "cracking" album Reckless.

Its big radio hit 'Summer of 69' is a great song, he says, and 'Heaven' is "so romantic", but 'Run to You' is the most nostalgic.

"Memories flood back of little youthful crushes that you had and first kisses… and it's a belter."

'Lone Star Song' by Grant Lee Buffalo:

Stevenson was 16 when he packed the CD of Grant Lee Buffalo's 1994 album Mighty Joe Moon and travelled for the first time to his mother's birth country of South Africa. What followed was a "very formative" year at a pioneering multiracial high school specialising in outdoor education.

"Africa never leaves you. Africa gets in your nostrils, and it gets in your blood, and it stays with you between your toes when you leave. I just met the most extraordinary group of people that year and had this quite amazing experience… This CD I had with me that year, and I just adore it."

'Love Is Stronger than Death' by The The:

"I love their album Dusk, and I just think this is just a beautiful song."