Jim Stynes
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Jim Stynes (born April 23, 1966) is an Irish-Australian Australian rules football player. Though he had no contact with the sport until the age of eighteen, he went on to become one of its most successful players.
Football Career
Stynes was born in Dublin, Ireland and played Gaelic Football as a boy, a sport with some similarities to Australian Rules. Stynes' first contact with Australian Rules came in 1984 when he answered an ad in a local paper from the Melbourne Football Club seeking talented Gaelic footballers as possible recruits. Stynes suitably impressed Melbourne officials and he was brought to Australia to undergo a crash course in Australian Rules before making his debut for the Melbourne underage team in 1985.
At first, Stynes was a slow developer but the Melbourne coaching panel's perseverance with him paid off when Stynes made his senior debut for Melbourne in 1987. Stynes would eventually play 264 games with Melbourne before his retirement in 1999, placing him second on Melbourne's all-time games tally.
Of the 264 games, 244 were consecutive (an Australian Football League record) and the honours he achieved during his career included the 1991 Brownlow Medal (which is awarded to the Best and Fairest player in the AFL), four club Best and Fairest awards with Melbourne and All-Australian honours in 1991 and 1993.
Following retirement, Stynes assumed the role of an anti-racism officer within the AFL, a cause close to his heart due to his declared astonishment at the level of racial abuse he (and players of non-Anglo background) had experienced throughout his career.
The Australian Rules International Trophy is named the Jim Stynes Cup in his honour.
Charity Work
After finishing his AFL career, Stynes began to concentrate primarily on his youth charity, the Reach Foundation (http://www.reach.org.au/index.php?id=1). Reach looks to help teenagers at risk of suicide or depression, and has become a prominent youth worker in Victoria, Australia. The aim of Reach is to support young people on their journey to find their own truth, and to follow their dreams. Reach achieves this by creating a "safe space" for groups of young people to develop trust, openness and the freedom to express their concerns, perceptions, fears and aspirations and to recognise that they are not alone.
In 2003, Stynes was named Victorian of the Year and has worked on government advisory boards including the 1997 Victorian Government Suicide Task Force and he currently sits on the Federal Minister For Youth’s Youth Advisory Consultative Forum Committee.