For my international readers: parts of this article may be somewhat confusing because much of the discussion is in reference to a well known football player in our national league here in Australia (the AFL). Just know that he's a champion athlete and a champion person and you'll get the rest.

So, the other night I went to Robert Harvey's testimonial dinner hosted at Telstra Dome by the St. Kilda Football Club. Rob and I have been friends for a long time and apart from training him for three years when I worked at the club, he has trained on and off in my gym every summer for the last ten years.

To be honest, I'm not a massive fan of the formal, social function, so it was with under-whelming enthusiasm that I put on my suit (me and suits are kinda like oil and water) and headed out the door. Don't drink, don't smoke, don't 'party', can't dance, not into close-talkers in loud rooms, and not a big fan of drunk blokes getting in front of a microphone and talking mindless crap. As they do.

I'm more of a 'make an appearance, shake a few hands, be seen for an hour or so, and politely and discretely sneak out the back door while all eyes are focused elsewhere' kinda bloke.

"No Sam, I was there all night; you must have missed me."

So when Rob's wife Danielle rang me and asked if I would like to attend, my thoughts were 1) yes I'd love to come along and honour the great man and, 2) I wonder if I will be able to slide out the back door by nine, nine-thirty. Love Rob; don't love the formal sit-down function with nine hundred speeches and the overly-enthusiastic, hilarious MC. Who isn't (hilarious).

So me and my not-very-good attitude arrived at Telstra Dome at seven-thirty and walked into the auditorium. I had naively assumed that there would be a couple of hundred friends, family, team mates, club people and fans to honour the Champ. There wasn't.

There was a crowd of about fourteen hundred!

I soon learned a few things:

1. I was sitting with Rob's in-laws, ten feet from Rob, three feet from the stage; there would be no early departure.

2. People had paid up to $600 a seat to attend and over two thousand people(!) had missed out — so I was privileged to be there (okay, I felt guilty enough).

3. I was actually going to enjoy myself (shock, horror — the boring old anti-social fart was having fun).

So the bloke with the less-than-ideal attitude had a great night, sat with some fantastic people, laughed his guts out (why am I writing in the third person again?) and learned a whole bunch about humility, friendship, generosity, work ethic, (good) attitude and what it takes to be a champion person, not just a champion athlete.