David Parkin


David Alex Parkin, OAM is a former Australian rules footballer and four-time premiership coach.

Pre-football career

He attended Melbourne High School and during his time there, was the school vice-captain and captain of football.

Playing career

Parkin was a tough back-pocket player who played 211 games for the Hawthorn Football Club in a career spanning from 1961 to 1974. He won the Best and Fairest award for Hawthorn in 1965, and was captain of the club from 1969–1973, including Hawthorn's 1971 premiership winning side. He represented Victoria 5 times at interstate football.

Coaching career

Parkin went to Western Australia and captain-coached Subiaco in 1975. He was back at Hawthorn as Assistant coach to John Kennedy in 1976. Kennedy retired at the end of 1976 and Parkin was promoted to senior Coach.
Parkin was an innovative coach, first with Hawthorn, becoming only the second person to coach Hawthorn to a premiership in 1978. He coached Carlton in his first stint from 1981–1985, winning back to back premierships in 1981–1982. He coached Fitzroy from 1986–1988, making the preliminary final in his first season at the Lions, but failing to reach the finals in the following two years, returning to Carlton for another stint between 1991–2000. He was named Carlton's Coach of the Century, and is regarded by Carlton supporters as the club's greatest ever coach, during this second stint he won the 1995 premiership. He also took Carlton to Grand Finals in 1993 and 1999 which they lost to Essendon and North Melbourne, respectively, at the end of the 2000 season he retired as Carlton coach and handed the coaching reins to Wayne Brittain.
Parkin then returned to Hawthorn in 2001 as director of coaching under coach Peter Schwab. In 2003 he wrote a controversial article in the Herald-Sun labeling six Hawthorn players as Mummy's Boys because of their lightweight frames. Parkin believed players should be bigger, heavier and stronger. Three of those he listed, namely Michael Osborne, Rick Ladson and Chance Bateman went on to play in Hawthorn's 2008 Premiership.

Statistics

Playing statistics

! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1961
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1962
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1963
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1964
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1965
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1966
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1967
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1968
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1969
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1970
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1972
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1973
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1974
! colspan=3| Career
! 211
! 21
! 23
! 2199
! 250
! 2449
! 484
!
! 0.1
! 0.1
! 13.2
! 1.5
! 14.7
! 2.9
!
! 51

Coaching statistics

! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1977
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1979
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1980
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1983
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1984
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1985
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1986
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1987
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1988
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1991
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1992
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1993
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1994
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1996
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1997
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1998
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|1999
! scope="row" style="font-weight:normal"|2000
! colspan=2| Career totals
! 518
! 306
! 210
! 2
! 59.27%
! colspan=2|

Post-coaching career

Parkin is currently a media commentator who has appeared on Talking Footy on the Seven Network and a commentator for ABC Radio. He was a panellist on Fox Footy's now defunct show, Fox League Teams.
He is a lecturer in Sports and Exercise Science at Deakin University, Melbourne campus. In honour of his significant contribution to Australian society in leadership, sport and education, Deakin University also established the annual David Parkin Oration for Sport and Social Change. He holds a Bachelor of Education from the University of Western Australia.
He was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent surgery in March 2009.

Recognition

He received an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2013. In 2002 he was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2010.