Ben Cousins, Australian footballer
Benjamin Luke Cousins (born 30 June 1978) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for West Coast and Richmond in the Australian Football League (AFL).
Cousins is listed by journalist Mike Sheahan as one of the fifty greatest players of all time. During his 12-year, 238-game career with West Coast, he won several of the league's highest individual awards, including a Brownlow Medal, Most Valuable Player and a premiership medallion. He was also selected six times in the All-Australian Team and represented Australia in the International Rules Series. He was West Coast's club champion for four seasons and captain for five seasons.
Cousins' football career was marred by highly publicised off-field incidents involving recreational drug use, traffic convictions and association with criminal elements. On several occasions he was fined or sanctioned by West Coast, culminating in his contract's termination in October 2007. The following month, he was banned from AFL for one year by the AFL Commission for "bringing the game into disrepute". Amid predictions that he would remain undrafted, Richmond claimed Cousins with the last pick of the 2008 draft. He played 32 games across two seasons at the club, retiring from the AFL at the end of the 2010 season.
Cousins co-produced a documentary film titled Such is Life: The Troubled Times of Ben Cousins, saying he hoped it would serve as a cautionary tale against drug use. Released days after his retirement, it went onto become "one of the most-watched documentaries in Australian history." Post-football, Cousins continued to struggle with his drug addiction and have run-ins with the law, and in 2017 he received a 12-month prison sentence for a variety of offences.
1978Jun, 30
Ben Cousins
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Events on 1978
- 11Feb
Aristotle
Censorship: China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. - 27Apr
Watergate scandal
Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes. - 25Jul
In vitro fertilisation
Birth of Louise Joy Brown, the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation, or IVF. - 22Oct
Pope John Paul II
Papal inauguration of Pope John Paul II. - 18Nov
Jim Jones
In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo Ryan is murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier.