Here lies a tyrant
19 Feb 2013
MARK KEOHANE, writing in Business Day Sport Monthly, says former South African rugby chief Louis Luyt was a power-hungry egotist who did more harm than good in his role as leader.
Louis Luyt is dead but the lie that defines his legacy to the game as legendary must also be buried. He was destructive in everything he did as president of the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) and motivated by his own agenda and ego and he was a risk to the future of the game.
He functioned on fiction because only he knew what was closer to fact.
This is a condemnation of Luyt the Sarfu president. It is not a reflection on his right to be respected as a father, husband and friend.
He was a crass leader who thrived on the humiliation of others and he caused pain to many people with decisions that were not based on rugby but on his own insecurity and paranoia. There can’t be reward for lacking emotional intelligence and there can never be justification for the chaos.
Luyt’s legacy was a dictatorship that threatened more than a sport’s unity. He harmed the sport and he embarrassed the sport without consequence or without remorse. He did it regularly and saw it as refusing to be intimidated.
He was a reminder of everything the world detested in apartheid South Africa but he survived on the fears of those who were uncertain about the future and ill-informed and still related to noise as leadership, when introspection and reflection were words more appropriate to change. A legacy is earned through innovation and the impact of an action; not an ability just to react.
Luyt was a fighter and his strength was based on survival. Sarfu needed calm and vision and he provided chaos and confrontation.
It suited his needs because the noise was part of the illusion that he was taking charge of rugby’s future. He was a fascinating character because of his contradictions, but he was not good for the game and he stifled progress through his inability to transform his own thinking. He was unsure about his status and he always overcompensated with boasts when unsure, be it because of lack of knowledge or because he threatened his ability to use Sarfu to define his influence in a community that used his voice when necessary but never fully endorsed him as part of the exclusive brotherhood.
This was down to class and not race. It was this lack of acceptance that tortured him. But he knew about survival because of a background that battled poverty. Wealth would also be measured on status and worth. To get there he would fight. So he fought because that meant not allowing for discussion and not risking being exposed on an intellectual level.
He was a clever man but he lacked introspection because of insecurities in not having a high schooling. It meant he only knew how to make statements.
In his world that was strength. To ask a question was to invite trouble.
Leadership is at its most seductive when those in charge can take pleasure out of another’s achievement. Luyt could never do that because he could not even take pleasure out of his own successes.
He had an incredible work ethic, which intimidated and compensated for an inability to see beyond what worked for him personally and as a leader. He also blurred the power of knowledge with the gathering of information on individuals to further entrench his presidency. He had menace when there should have been mentorship. He never made an apology for any of his actions and a man who always thinks he gets it right is a man who is rarely getting it right.
He embraced those vulnerable to his projections of strength and bullying and he never saw the contradiction in how he applied the morality of the God-fearing man and the lack of morality in his manipulation of people.
We once debated loyalty and he was absolute. People, he said, crossed him once and thought they had won. He told them to enjoy the feeling because he would make sure they spent the rest of their lives reminded of what price to pay for betrayal in loyalty.
His life was interesting but he was too preoccupied in the potential of others to be the enemy that he found a reason to justify an agenda that in turn would justify a reaction for a confrontational engagement.
His ego would never allow him modesty and he insisted he had earned the right to be called doctor. Titles and status are what he felt defined his characters. His actions were for gain. When was it ever about rugby?
His rugby world was a creation to compensate for what he felt he lacked in a personal space. He could be charming but his charm was too often determined by the personal gain. He bored easily if he was not the primary beneficiary. His mind was always busy but the intent wasn’t always flattering and he excused any criticism as a necessary to protect the game from those who didn’t understand it. He blamed the government and rugby was his status for greater acceptance in an Afrikaans elite that would never see him as their equal.
The bully was his default mechanism and if he was full of bravado he didn’t have to front his fears of being inferior. He did not trust anyone but celebrated just how many enemies he had. Enemies caused fear. Friends could only cause confusion.
He was convinced he needed no one to survive but he never understood that to survive is not to necessarily inspire. Not that it would have been a consideration. He was angry that he was disliked although he denied it and there was an element in him that deliberately added to the dislike. The man who made rugby his kingdom was always aware that the boy in him wanted acknowledgement and reward.
He never found his place in South African society and always felt he had been short-changed. If he wasn’t getting the recognition then why would he celebrate anyone else.
He took nothing from the game unless he was the beneficiary. He justified everything in the name of Springbok rugby and the Afrikaans culture and he manipulated the game that represented the culture more than a sport. Where most would find a smile he found suspicion.
I liked him but he was not happy.
I always got the feeling he wouldn’t even allow for that because that could be an admission he had not won.
He was always in conflict and his tenure was about fighting whoever he felt provided a cover to the real issue, which was his insecurity.
He took but he gave little.
It is one thing to preach from a self-made pedestal but a leader of men is also an inspiration to the very men he leads.
He wanted mystique but then couldn’t resist telling you what he had done for South African rugby. He created an identity he believed would give him acceptance and he alienated every dominating personality.
He was a preacher of what he wanted portrayed, yet the intention to be liked and revered was not something he could ask for, so as he lost a disciple who realised the legend is what makes the man but the actions of the man that confirms the flaws in the legend.
If the game was his passion and the future of the game was his only concern we would be talking about his vision, his succession plan and his leadership.
The story would be of the guy who turned rags into silk but knew God. It is embarrassing. The only thing he gave rugby was conflict and blood. He adopted a militant style approach in which he spoke and never allowed for a response.
He stripped players of power and humiliated them and threatened their futures in the media. In a country where fear and conflict were positives that someone was in charge, he put himself in charge of the game and was never asked what he was actually going to do to make it the game for all South Africans.
He used the divide and rule among blacks and whites because he recognised weakness in an individual and played the vulnerabilities to facilitate whatever outcome that comes with uncertainty.
He took Nelson Mandela and the government to court to prove he was still a white Afrikaner who would not be intimidated by the black government.
He made sure it was a page one report.
He did it, he said, to show Afrikaners still had a voice and still had fight. He then used rugby as the punching bag.
He used culture, white fears and black unknowns to have so many applauding his strengths. But it was never about resolution or calm. It was about conflict and chaos because when there is no fight then there is usually reflection. In a fight there is only time to react.
Luyt’s legacy conflicts with every single entity that makes up the fabric of the game. He took the game he supposedly loved and made it his own game. He was an untouchable because he manipulated the executive structure – and when fear no longer sufficed neither did his games inspire even laughter.
He still couldn’t see the moral crime in subjecting Mandela to take the witness stand. He claimed victory but it also confirmed stupidity.
He tried so hard to create an identity of the Lions but he was a railway clerk whose arrogance and defiance was a misrepresentation of the culture whose silence he interpreted as a fight.
He fired by fax and turned the most disgraceful of acts into a kind of legend which applauded a man who was prepared to make the hard calls. All he knew was hardship and that is all he gave back to South African rugby.
It is disgusting that he was allowed to operate in such isolation and as a law unto himself. He clearly had a mind that favoured his own survival but emotional intelligence is the result of an environment and tutorship and being taught, not self-taught.
He never added value to the game’s evolution. There is no legacy to applaud. His rugby administration was a contradiction. Morality was as interpretive as was loyalty and betrayal.
Rugby was the platform for Luyt to turn a lost soul into a tortured one and he tried to make everyone believe that his soul knew only sacrifice.
He was a sad man because not only did he derive pleasure at the expense of others but the ultimate humiliation was of his own doing because his identity and influence believed there was substance to his existence, but he could never get what he thought was a show of strength. And arrogance was ignorance and in degrees of ignorance the worst form is when there is a belief that all the ugly qualities that make a leader uninspiring are presented as strengths of a no-nonsense leader.
Luyt did not entertain minds that would expose the limitations of his own and it is one thing to fight but another to succeed without a fight.
A day before his death no one cared for his rants. A day after the myth is magnified. The platitudes have been predictable and inoffensive but the inane nature is more insult than compliment to the King of Ellis Park and self-proclaimed King of the Rugby Jungle.
In death he did no evil. In life he only knew evil.
Luyt’s final act as South African rugby chief was to embarrass the intellect and integrity of Afrikaans-speaking South Africans who are excited by inclusion on the world map and not offended that it was not listed as the chosen planet.
The good doctor was so insecure at what he hadn’t experienced because of his environment that he believed titles would create the illusion of intelligence and that fear was just another way of making sure no one disputed he was the boss.
His decision to humiliate one of the world’s saints was the act of a sinner; alternatively a man who was showing his lack of class, education and upbringing. His attempts to justify his action and his conviction in doing so belong on The Jerry Springer Show.
He always spoke of not needing to be popular and then he found something in popularity that he sold to himself as weakness.
Come to think of it, he rarely spoke about what was good for South African rugby. He always spoke about what he was doing for South African rugby and he created the chaos and never had time to explain what it was that kept him so busy. He didn’t give South African rugby professionalism. He didn’t care. In the last few years all he did was condemn the government. He manipulated the weakness in rugby’s administration to impress his strength.
He was an impostor as a leader and the game deserved so much more. Luyt, when he lived, benefited from the illusion of his leadership.
Don’t allow the lie to continue.
– This article first appeared in the March issue of Business Day Sport Monthly, which is distributed FREE with the newspaper on the second last Friday of every month.
748 Comments
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19 Feb 2013, 13:37 pm
@RL-396: G10 will be very happy with this Bulls team.
I actually think the Stormers have a good chance of winning the opener.
19 Feb 2013, 13:37 pm
@RL-396:
Nope, might have viewed it differently then.
Bulls are probably favourites at home, but sorry, that team doesn’t instill fear in you does it?
You must back your Sharks against them, surely?
19 Feb 2013, 13:40 pm
@Sharks_are_gonna_get_you-401:
How can the Bulls be favourites?
The Brokebacks have won their last 3 visits to Loftus.
Stop lowering your expectations.
19 Feb 2013, 13:41 pm
@west indies cricket board-20: enjoy chatting to yourself,mate.
19 Feb 2013, 13:42 pm
@Jeez-399:
The Sharks showed glimpses of it at the end of the comp last year, pretty to watch.
19 Feb 2013, 13:43 pm
@nortierd-392:
The Bulls will always be faves at home…..
Tis sad, but tis the nature of this competition
And the guppies will be FIRM faves next weekend.
You have to (and really should) win your home games.
19 Feb 2013, 13:44 pm
Steggmann is my concern …..
Grateful to blouballs no Jan Serfontein and that he has stuck with Spies and M Steyn….
Blouballs gonna skop en jag…..
Not a fark they gonna open it till very late in the game…
19 Feb 2013, 13:45 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-406:
Guppies, yes, they had our measure last year.
Let’s see how they cope without their best loosies, like we had to last year
19 Feb 2013, 13:46 pm
@Sharks_are_gonna_get_you-401: the hoops will walk it – currie cup champions – conference champions – the team tipped to finish the pool stages in #1 position. How can they not.
@nortierd-402: eish, it is not good to be so wrong. It will feel like a home match remember – DHL shirts outnumber bully horns.
19 Feb 2013, 13:46 pm
@NZINCHINA-379: thanks. I’m surfing a wave of self righteous indignation
19 Feb 2013, 13:48 pm
@BrumbiesBoy-345:
Yeah the distance seems to be 7 metres. Not necessarily the guest loo as his house has stairs so I would imagine that the guest loo would be downstairs.
Huge house so not clear, but we will eventually get all of that as the graphic artists will seek to recreate the events.
The dynamic of ‘if I can’t have you then nobody will’ is also at play here to some extent.
Careful analysis of events that made the news paint a picture of man that felt that he was above the law. I listened the other day to an interview he did when explaining that a former girlfriend accused him of assaulting her. He was pretty neat in his explanations, cushioned everything nicely with side comments.
He threatened someone that he will ‘break this legs’; which is very interesting choice of words. Of course that’s not all he said, but you can see where I’m going.
19 Feb 2013, 13:48 pm
No Arno Botha
No Jan Serfontein….
a mediocre 12 and 13
a skop en jag artist at 10
a soft c ock at 8…..
It is just that damn Fortress Loftus that is a concern.
No one swaggers into the Cathedral…….
Always show respect, even if you a non believer…..
Steggmann may cause Stormers the brerakdown blues….D Fourie and Kolisi got a tough job to contain the Brussel Sprout clone….
Stormers by 4
19 Feb 2013, 13:49 pm
@grant10-407:
I agree they could have picked a much bettet team. Serfontein and Mapoe could have been lethal! Visser at 15 could have been a better selection too…
19 Feb 2013, 13:50 pm
@grant10-407: I read your post on how Ludeke outsmarted you with his Steggies selection – fear not for it was not too difficult to get one over you – AC saw it coming from a mile away and chose two fetchers to counter our Steggie – only mistake AC made was not selecting a hooker in his starting xv.
19 Feb 2013, 13:50 pm
@The Rangerman-51: I thought they won promotion into the CC .
19 Feb 2013, 13:53 pm
@S_K-415: sit my little `@@”>
19 Feb 2013, 13:57 pm
@RL-414: Stormers should have taken Minnie as well young Sharkie
19 Feb 2013, 13:57 pm
*lol* I see Keo has well and truly drank himself drunk on the Watson koolaid. You have no credibility as a journalist.
19 Feb 2013, 14:00 pm
Chrissakes… There’s some self righteous holier than though prats here.
I am not surprised in the slightest… What with all the King Watson freedom fighter fans and the exclusive everyone else in SA is a refugee Stormer supporters on this Stormfront propaganda…
Thank goodness there a few pockets of real honest rugby supporters still here… mainly Sharks supporters but also a few good Bulls too…
The rest is like an emo sea of white and blue in a popper frenzy….
19 Feb 2013, 14:01 pm
@grant10-412:
My thoughts exactly.
Stormers by 4
19 Feb 2013, 14:01 pm
@John Galt-61: History is littered with articles long after the demise of dictators.Does that make historians cowards now? It’s important for generation after generation to see these dictators for what they were.
19 Feb 2013, 14:02 pm
@Heavens Game-419:
It’s only due to your parole conditions that the Shark supporters are honest
19 Feb 2013, 14:02 pm
@grant10-417: Minnie is overrated and his ears do not work properly – tell AC to make an offer for Jaco Kriel. Whata talent he is.
19 Feb 2013, 14:04 pm
@Sharks_are_gonna_get_you-401: the bulls are always favourites at Loftus ,Tyrone.
19 Feb 2013, 14:04 pm
@stormersboy-393: Fairmont v Settlers the derby lol
19 Feb 2013, 14:04 pm
Cant wait till saturday when the mighty dynamite take their first steps to immortality…
Also looking forward to Friday night where I will beyond doubt be rooting for the Bulls…
Lightning cant strike twice at Loftus and I reckon the light blue are going farken to send them Brokebacks homeward ta think again….
19 Feb 2013, 14:06 pm
@RL-423: yes….good oke that Kriel….and I want L Cronje back too….
19 Feb 2013, 14:06 pm
@nortierd-422: Ag, fark off plod…
19 Feb 2013, 14:07 pm
Pity Brussow not there to send the Sharkies in a spin…
19 Feb 2013, 14:09 pm
@grant10-427: no ways we gave you Jantjies and that is enough.
19 Feb 2013, 14:11 pm
@keo-425:
Why did you decide to write this article a mere +- 18 days after Dr Luyt passed away?
Based on your own description, you are of ‘mixed descent’ or differently stated ‘kullid’
And if you are from CT, then you are a Cape Kullid, right?
19 Feb 2013, 14:11 pm
@Heavens Game-428:
BOOM …..goes another ATM bombing
19 Feb 2013, 14:16 pm
@Heavens Game-426: who cares who you root for! go ahead and knock yourself out,
19 Feb 2013, 14:16 pm
@nortierd-432: And BOOM goes another Bobby’s lunch….
Followed by “Light” thuds as squad’s of “elite” fatty boom booms in blue do their version of “Rapid” Response to crime…
Ye… The Blue Teletubbies… SA’s version of the “Thin” Blue Line
19 Feb 2013, 14:16 pm
@Heavens Game-426:
Cant wait till saturday when the mighty dynamite take their first steps to immortality…
Thanks for giving me a laugh.
Remember when you write your love letters to Lambie and co. don’t press to hard, crayons snap.
And ask them to please not choke in the big games this year again, your heart won’t take it.
Luckily the Lions can’t upset them again this year, so it’s one less loss to bear
19 Feb 2013, 14:19 pm
@nortierd-435: SA’s “finest”…
19 Feb 2013, 14:19 pm
@Heavens Game-436:
At your service….
19 Feb 2013, 14:23 pm
@nortierd-435: Guppies…….
Like the genius Sharks_Lover, who in attempting to deny it is HE who is blogging here once again, admits it as well, all in one sentence.
Nofuckingeinsteins….
19 Feb 2013, 14:25 pm
@nortierd-437: Noshit Sherlock… Of course service is the key word in SAPS, yes?
19 Feb 2013, 14:25 pm
@The Rangerman-58: Hi Ranger.You well?Liked last sentence of your post
19 Feb 2013, 14:26 pm
@nortierd-435: it is true, the Lions took away 4 vital points from the guppies last year – all water under the bridge now – but this years queens are 10 points in the bag
19 Feb 2013, 14:26 pm
Ag Keotjie, jy moenie so worry nie.
Daai kwaai oom Louis sal jou nie weer pla nie.
19 Feb 2013, 14:28 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-438: I see that now not only are you an alleged “Doc” in Mind quackery – the dog eared, well thumbed, 1st year DSM-IV under your pillow notwithstanding, you are also a legal expert too…
Farkme these brokeback supporters are so cleva… Captains of Industry, “Docs” and Advocaats… Farken too much cleva…
19 Feb 2013, 14:28 pm
@ufo-66: No Ufo.You are the voice
of reason here.If you go the baddies will have won.
19 Feb 2013, 14:29 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-438:
Sounds like the Poodlefucker.
19 Feb 2013, 14:29 pm
e — David Smith
(@SmithInAfrica)
February 19, 2013
Pistorius: My continued
incarceration will be of “no benefit”
to the state. Release would not
disturb the public order.
19 Feb 2013, 14:31 pm
@Heavens Game-436:
HG
You can relax.
I won’t be turning up at your door with some cuffs.
I only chase the Master Mind, the main brains of the operations.
I therefore immediately discount ANY Shark supporter.
I reckon, if you are so thick to support the Sharks then you are are definitely not mastermind material
19 Feb 2013, 14:32 pm
@ryecatcher-444: Farken calm your hormones kehla… You sounding more and more like a Storming brokeback every day…
A week of Raw Sharkfin soup for you to regrow those Last Outpost ballas before its too late….
Accompanied by 10 Hail Sharks and 20 We are Dynamites after every meal…
Quick quick…
19 Feb 2013, 14:32 pm
@Heavens Game-439:
Depends
If I’m in the middle of my barrel of Kentucky, take a seat, I might get to you today, otherwise come back tomorrow
19 Feb 2013, 14:34 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-438: I never did admit anything of the sought, SL lives in PMB, I happen to live in Balito.
Should you not go back to your street corner as HG would say?
You sit online crying about the sharks all day like a ***** who lost her *****, thou protests to much little girl.
And for you info me telling HG there are numerous injuries to the csharks at present is not crying about it or using it as an excuse, STOP BEING A DRAMA QUEEN, AND WHILE UR AT IT TAKE UR BUM CHUM POODLE ****** AND GET LOST.
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