He has been battered and bruised in Noumea, been saved by a Singing Cowboy, bluffed his way to a one-on-one interview with Greg Norman and gagged premiers and mayors but Benny Pike has no real regrets.
Why? Because he’s been all around the world through sport and made countless friends along the way.
And although he has recently turned 72, the former Olympic boxer doesn’t look like slowing down.
We met for a coffee and an apple juice at the appropriately named Benny’s at Coolum on the Sunshine Coast and Benny had just rushed from a frustrating meeting to discuss fund-raising efforts for the Australian Commonwealth Games team heading to Glasgow this year.
“The meeting was called off at the last minute. I told them if they’re going to cancel a meeting to do it the day before,” he said.
“I have a lot of meetings but you do what you have to do.”
A proud Queenslander and even prouder Sunshine Coaster, Benny says he has stayed reasonably fit through his 60s by staying mentally active and walking.
“I walk every day,” he said. “You don’t have to set any world records but I reckon you have to get up and do some exercise while you can.
“I love the Sunshine Coast. My grandmother and mother were born in Kennilworth and my parents had the Beach House in Hastings Street at Noosa. It became the famous Annabel’s restaurant.
“My grandmother owned a big three-storey guest house, San Elanda, in Tewantin, right where the Noosa Shire Council offices are now. It burnt down in about 1957.
“We’ve always been Noosa people. I’m proud that Australia’s oldest living Olympian, 1956 canoeist Bryan Harper lives at Noosaville. He’s 99.”
Benny’s journey in sport started at the Nambour Civic Centre in 1971 when he had his first fight as a just-turned 17-year-old. A year later, he was invited to box in Noumea.
“I got flattened,” he said. “Completely outclassed. Then I found out the other bloke was the French champion and I said to (boxing official) Arthur Tunstall ‘Did you know he was the French champion?’ and he said ‘Yes, but if I’d told you, you wouldn’t have got in the ring’.
“The next morning I was having a swim in the ocean and I thought ‘you know, this isn’t so bad after all’.”
Boxing took Benny to Tahiti, Fiji, New Zealand, Yugoslavia and eventually to Moscow for the 1980 Olympic Games
The Moscow Games were torn apart by politics. Russia had invaded Afghanistan and some countries boycotted the Games in response. The Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser urged our athletes not to go but Benny was among those who went anyway.
“We certainly didn’t get any welcome home,” he said. “Last year the government put on a thing in Canberra to honour the Moscow Games athletes but no one from the Prime Minister down to the Sports Minister said sorry for the way we were treated.
“And we had to pay our own travel and accommodation costs to the Canberra event. Gee, thanks.”
In November 1980, Benny was “pulling beers at the Maroochydore Hotel” when his mother (Fay) called to say a man named Richard Bowly from Carlton and United Breweries wanted to talk to him.
“I went down to Malt Street in the Valley to see Richard and he said he wanted to have different CUB pubs sponsoring different sports.
“I went with Richard and Mum to the Homestead Hotel (at Boondall) and when we arrived, there were TV trucks everywhere and there was Dawn Fraser and a boss of the Commonwealth Games and Richard gets up and says CUB are going to raise sponsorships for the athletes, not the Games organisations.
“I turned to Mum and said ‘hey, that’s my idea’. I was dumbfounded. Then Richard says ‘This is Benny Pike. He’s my right-hand man and he’s going to drive this whole thing’.
“I said to Mum, ‘what just happened?’ and she said ‘It looks like you’ve got a job’.”
And Benny is still raising funds for Australian athletes. “That’s what it’s all about,” he said. “The athletes.”
The story of the singing cowboy is typical Benny Pike. “They were kicking off the Noosa Triathlon in 1983 and they asked me to do the commentary at the venue. No pay, just accommodation,” he said.
“I had no idea what a triathlon was but I agreed. There were only 35 or 40 competitors and at one stage they disappeared into the canal for the swim leg and I’m sitting there wondering what I’m supposed to commentate on.
“A bloke walked up carrying a guitar and wearing a big hat and says ‘I’m the Singing Cowboy from Pomona, do you want a hand?’. I said ‘Yes please’ and he gets up and starts singing. He got the crowd clapping and dancing.
“I never did get his name.”
Benny did the Noosa Triathlon, now one of the biggest in the world, more than 30 times and never got paid.
In 1986, Benny was at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games doing commentary work on the boxing and ducked down to Turnberry to watch the final round of the British Open golf championship, won by fellow Queenslander Greg Norman.
He used his Games media accreditation to bluff his way into a one-on-one interview with the Shark and sent it back to Brisbane’s 4BC radio station.
Benny still organises fund-raising functions for Australia’s athletes but has one golden rule: No politics.
In the early 1990s he was hosting a function on the Sunshine Coast and then premier Wayne Goss (premier from 1989 to 1996. He died in 2014) turned up and thought he might make speech.
“I said: ‘No speech, Mr Premier, no speech’. His deputy wasn’t happy but Mr Goss was fine with it.
“A little while ago, I was doing another function up here and the mayor wanted to come along and make a speech. I said: ‘If they want to arrive with a nice big cheque, they might get to speak. Otherwise, no chance.
“What we do is all about the athletes, not the politicians.”
And a final thought on life in general?
“I think I’ve had a good life,” he said in an earlier interview. “I look at my friends – and I’ve got plenty of mates.
“Friends, travel, mixing and mingling. I can’t complain.”
Barry Dick was a journalist at The Courier Mail and Sunday Mail for 43 years, before retiring in 2015. Most of that time was spent on the sports desk in a variety of roles including sports editor, digital sports editor, Rugby League editor and chief Rugby League writer. While Barry was the first full-time Australian football writer for The Courier Mail in 1973, his true passion was always Rugby League and he covered a myriad of Grand Finals, State of Origins and Test matches. Barry was inducted into the Media Hall of Fame on March 27 2017.