Dennis Cometti told Bruce Mcavaney to ease into retirement
Bruce Mcavaney says Dennis Cometti told him to have a “soft landing” in retirement, advising him not to stop broadcasting all at once. The sports commentator said he does not think he will ever completely retire, even as he begins thinking about trimming back work by degrees.
Cometti’s advice to Mcavaney
McAvaney said the advice came from a “dear friend” and former AFL broadcasting colleague after Cometti stopped doing the AFL with him. “Bruce, best to have a soft landing. Don’t just stop. Do it by degrees,” McAvaney recalled Cometti saying.
He said he may take five per cent off his workload each year instead of stepping away in one move. At 72, he was also gearing up for Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games in July, while continuing a career that has stretched for over 45 years covering Australia’s biggest sporting events.
Who Do You Think You Are?
McAvaney was speaking while filming an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, where he stood on land that had been owned by his great-great-great-grandparents on his father’s side. He said the experience was more emotional than he had expected.
“Two or three times during the couple of weeks of the shooting I probably did get a little bit overwhelmed by it all,” he said. “I felt very teary.” He also learned that his great-great-grandmother had endured two terrible tragedies, one involving a child.
He said the filming brought family memories back sharply. “I think about them a lot anyway, but not as intensely as this,” he said of Betty and Roy, his parents, who died in 2004 and 2009.
Family, work and health
McAvaney said his parents left school at 13 and that his mother was his “greatest supporter.” He described a childhood in which his family lived in a Housing Trust home and his father bought the family home very late in life.
He said his wife, Annie, understands the demands of his work and that they discuss life balance often. McAvaney, who was diagnosed with lymphocytic leukaemia in 2014, said his doctor had warned that stress is not good for anyone, particularly with his condition.
The result is a retirement plan that looks less like a clean break than a gradual step back. McAvaney is not describing an exit date; he is describing a scale-down, and that leaves his future on air tied to how much work he chooses to keep.
