Sporting History
Played for Carlton Blues 1982-1988 (107 games)
Board member 1997-2008
Family
Wife: Lisa Cahill (nee Bortoli) (30/11/1964)
Sons: Anthony Bortoli (17/02/1987) and Damian Cahill (03/04/1994)
Answering the Call
When I first got the call, I was amazed to say the least. Since the whole mess of the salary cap breaches and subsequent scandal at the footy club a few years before, I was pretty much black-listed everywhere. I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t involved in that catastrophe, but you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the media.
Whenever things like this take place, everybody loves to have one person to take all the blame (even if they weren’t doing anything outside of the rules, as I frequently pointed out to all the reporters who came by the house looking for a scoop). Unfortunately, I wasn’t the most popular guy around in the first place, got made the scapegoat and just months later no-one wanted to be associated with me at all. So much for being a valuable member of the board for twelve long years.
That alone would’ve been disheartening, but I was soon to discover that the impact of what some had dubbed “The Carlton Fraud Saga” wasn’t just in footy circles either. I took my firing for what it was and had begun to make some enquiries to all of the various places where I’d worked before, expecting they could give me something to fall back on. It seemed nobody wanted to even know my name anymore.
Anyway, when the wife told me there was a bloke on the phone looking for financial advice, I thought “yeah sure, just another person trying to get something for nothing at my expense” and didn’t take it too seriously. For some reason my phone number seems to be the first one given to people whenever they want free advice.
For whatever reason, I decided I’d at least answer the call and see what he was on about. Turns out that would lead to the biggest opportunity I’d had in quite a long while.
“Hello, who is it?”
He told me his name and why he was calling. I was going to stop him right there and tell him to go and look somewhere else but he just kept speaking.
“I’ll explain all this in a bit more detail later but I was wondering if you’d be interested in a job working with me. If you’re not interested, I totally understand that and I do apologise for interrupting your weekend.”
Okay. What the hell was this all about? I was intrigued to say the least.
“…hello? Are you still there Mr. Cahill?”
“…uh, yeah. What kind of job are you talking about?”
“I’m not sure if you know much about professional cycling, but I’m the main sponsor and owner of a small Australian cycling team. I’ve had a bit of trouble with the team’s, er, finances in the last couple of years and I was hoping for someone with a bit more experience with both finance and professional sport to help me manage the team. Is this something you might be interested in?”
I was stunned to say the least. Hundreds of questions must have been going through my head at this point, like “What exactly does managing a cycling team involve?”, “How much are you offering me”, and perhaps most importantly “How did you get this number?”, but despite all of those pertinent questions, what I ended up saying was… “Yeah.”
“Great! Any chance we could meet up sometime this week to discuss this further in person?”
And with that began what would become the next important phase in my life.
Before I keep on going I should introduce myself. The name’s Dwayne Cahill, and I grew up in Shepparton, country Victoria. I have two kids with my lovely wife of twenty-six years, Lisa. We met back when I was just starting my VFL career for my beloved Carlton in 1983. In those days there wasn’t as much money in footy, so I worked part-time for a large consultancy firm and also tried to study whenever I had the time. She used to work in the restaurant just opposite my office building. Fair to say though, it took a while for me to make up for a bad first impression.
We’d just won a close game at the MCG and I went with a few of the boys for a night out in the city. In a few hours time I was in a pretty bad state. The rest of the guys had already moved on and Lisa says she found me throwing up outside in a back lane. All I could remember the next day was the angelic face of the lady who would one day become my wife, who felt sorry for me and made sure I got home safely. You couldn’t possibly imagine my embarrassment when I saw her a few days later when I was leaving work.
My first son Anthony is a very successful businessman. Due to the stigma attached to my surname in recent times, he decided he would use his mother’s maiden name instead so that he would have a better chance of getting a good job. Smart kid. I’d like to say that I taught him everything I know, but that wouldn’t even begin to cover most of what he does. Being successful comes with its’ drawbacks though; we almost never get to see him at home because he works so hard.
My other son, Damian – now that’s a different story entirely. He’s more quiet and reserved, and at the moment is studying journalism at university, but doesn’t really know if he’ll continue with it. I sometimes worry about him because he tends to keep to himself quite a bit, but Lisa says that’s just the way he is and there’s nothing to be concerned about. He’s a good kid, so I trust he’ll be fine when he finds what he wants to do.
I’ve never been in this restaurant before. This had better be worth it, it looks really expensive and… wait a minute… is that the guy I’m meant to be meeting?
“Um, Michael?”
A faint voice responded to my left.
“Dwayne? Over here, mate!”
Ok, not who I was talking to but at least he’s here. We shook hands and quickly got down to business.
“Hi, thanks for agreeing to meet with me at such short notice. I guess you’re wondering what all this is about, eh?”
He’d got that right. I’d done a bit of research into the local cycling scene but still didn’t have much of an idea what I was in for. He explained that he was Michael Drapac, the man behind the Australian continental cycling team Drapac Professional Cycling.
“I’m going to be honest with you here Mr. Drapac, I’ve never even heard of your team before today.”
He laughed. That was a relief; for a moment I thought he might have been offended by my remark.
“That’s ok, most people outside of cycling don’t know much about us either”
He went on to explain a bit more about their team and how it came to be formed. I’ll give you the short version. Michael is the managing director of a Melbourne-based property investment and development company, the Drapac Group.
He started up Drapac Cycling in 2004 when he realised that his sons’ junior cycling careers were starting to get serious, and wanted to create a team based on better rider development and wellbeing than what was being provided at the time.
After a humble beginning, the team has grown and gradually become one of the strongest continental teams in the world. Now, they were looking to take the next step and become a professional continental team in the next few years. That’s where I come in.
“We need someone with expertise in taking a sporting club fully professional. I’m prepared to offer you a job as the team’s general manager. If you accept, you’ll be second-in-charge to me and will be responsible for managing the team finances…”
Wow. Could this really be happening so suddenly? As he spoke he slid a contract across the table.
“…with the rest of our team. What do you say?”
Though I had my reservations, I knew immediately that this was the kind of chance that would only come along once. To step back into a similar – albeit bigger – role to what I had when I was with the Blues. This was just what I needed.
A few weeks later, it was my first day at team headquarters and Michael had just finished introducing me to the team staff when I noticed a man speaking on the phone in Italian.
“I don’t think you introduced me to him, did you?”
“Who? Oh, I didn’t think he was going to be here today. Dwayne, this is our sporting director Agostino Giramondo. He’s basically the team coach for when they’re on the road”.
There was an awkward silence before Michael assured me...
“Don’t worry, he speaks English.”
“Oh sorry. Nice to meet you Adriano!”
I really wasn’t much good at making first impressions. Fortunately he was nice enough to forgive me for that one.
Edited by OZrocker on 01-10-2014 17:36
The second post has now been properly formatted and added above. Next thing to come will be the team and staff previews, riders objectives and our early season schedule. Should all be up in the next couple of days so watch this space!
