Demons' brave heart
By Mike Sheahan
Saturday, October 23, 1999
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IF YOU follow Melbourne, you embrace David Schwarz. Simple as that.
He's everything supporters want in their heroes: brave and exuberant, honest yet spectacular.
He wears his heart on his sleeve, and, most of all, he can turn a game with a pack mark or a torpedo punt that soars like Darren Bennett's best.
He has touched hearts, too.
Schwarz was poised to challenge Wayne Carey as the competition's superstar after the 1994 season and before the first of three knee reconstructions.
He was four seasons getting body and mind right before rekindling memories of the early days this year by playing all 22 games and winning the club championship for the first time.
If the supporters voted on the captaincy, he would be a certainty to succeed Todd Viney next year.
They don't, and it's not a popularity contest.
The Melbourne captaincy will be decided on the loose mix of perceived leadership qualities, capacity to influence a game, and maturity and responsibility.
In Melbourne's case, it is a classic head-to-head contest between Schwarz, 27, and David Neitz, who will turn 25 in January.
The conservatives will back Neitz, and he is the likely preference of coach Neale Daniher, given the similarities in personality and demeanor.
Schwarz may be seen as the riskier proposition, but, as they say in business, the bigger the risk, the greater the return, and teams that have tumbled from fourth to 14th should be taking risks.
The man himself was surprisingly measured yesterday when questioned on the captaincy.
No one in football has a reputation for greater honesty or spontaneity, yet Schwarz spent a minute or two carefully and painfully saying nothing this time.
'I'm probably, ah, I'm probably . . . interested in it, but I don't want to, don't want to . . . be selfish and say 'yep, I want it'.'
This from a man who said on Talking Footy that teammate Travis Johnstone needed to 'pull his finger out'.
'It's not a burning desire, but it's certainly something I've thought about, and we'll just have to wait and see.'
David Schwarz, fresh from a pep talk from his new business managers and advisers, IMG. We pressed on in search of the old Schwarz.
'Look, who doesn't want to be captain?' he finally said.
'Being captain would be probably the greatest honor I could achieve.
' That's more like it. 'Yeah, I'm a bit of an extrovert, I guess.'
That he is. As recently as Caulfield Cup day, he was seen at the track in blue sunglasses that created more glare than they kept out.
Until a couple of months ago, his Saab carried the number plates THEOX, the nickname given him by former skipper Garry Lyon when he resumed playing for the Dees in 1997 at 113kg, 10kg above his current weight.
The plates were removed while the car was parked in Chapel Street, Prahran, one night late in the season.
Given his car had been broken into four or five times in a matter of months, he was starting to wonder whether the plates were a cryptic invitation to car thieves.
It has been a coming of age of sorts for the big centre half-forward.
He took a decision mid-season to abstain from alcohol for the remainder of the season, won the best and fairest (by one vote from Shane Woewodin), and joined IMG.
Despite the strong ties established with John Riordan during the past nine years, he responded to overtures from IMG's John Longmire, the former North Melbourne player, to jump aboard.
He is on the way to a masters in marketing, has bought into a Port Melbourne hotel, and is eyeing a media career.
A group of five, including Schwarz's teammates Paul Hopgood and Matthew Febey, has taken the lease on the Blarney Stone.
The pub has been gutted and will reopen late next month as the Hurdle Bar.
Schwarz is planning on another four years at league level after his best season since 1994, when Melbourne finished fourth and he was third in the best and fairest.
'I knuckled down and got better results,' he said.
'When you come that close to losing it, which I did in '97 (after his third reconstruction), you realise you can't take the game for granted.'
Hence the jubilation when he was named club champion this year.
Schwarz had 20 of his friends, including a group of long-time mates from Sunbury, at the function at Melbourne Park, and his famous mother, Mary.
There was pandemonium when Schwarz survived Woewodin's challenge, and tears when Mary Schwarz reached the son she raised single-handed since he was eight.
'Mum cried, gave me a hug, said 'I'm very proud'.
It's always hard when you see your mum cry.'
It was a moment of triumph for mother and son given their joint pain last summer when the Demons explored the idea of sending Schwarz to Richmond in exchange for Wayne Campbell.
The coach drives you pretty hard, doesn't he?
'He does. (But) I need to be ridden. I need a bullet up me bum at times. I need to be kept on track, kept in line.
'They know, to get the best out of me, they need to ride me hard. I'm like one of those horses that gets to the 600m that needs to be whacked because I'm a one-pacer.'
The one-pacer found a bit of zip this year.
He may never reach the heights of '94 again, but, at 27, after 40 of a possible 44 games during the past two years, he is back as a front-liner at Melbourne.
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