The chance to break down barriers between young Indigenous students and members of the NSW Emergency Services was the idea behind the Col Dillon Cup, which celebrated its 10th anniversary on Friday.
The one day OzTag tournament was played at 5Sports next to Endeavour Sports High School, with teams of Indigenous students from Endeavour and Port Hacking high schools taking on teams made up of police officers and firefighters from around Sydney.
The tournament was originally founded in 2008 by former NRL player Rod Silva, a 24-year veteran of the NSW Police in hope of combating the negative relationships and attitudes he experienced with police as a young Aboriginal man.
“As a young Aboriginal boy growing up fearing the police, I just wanted to make sure the next generation didn’t have the same dramas that I did,” he said.
“The bloke who it’s named after, Col Dillon, I met him at an Indigenous leadership program in Canberra. He was the after dinner speaker and there were about 80 Aboriginal men from all walks of life there. I was the only cop there so I felt like he was telling me his story to make me want to do something for the next generation. He inspired me and we came up with this.
“These kids, unfortunately the history between the cops and Aboriginal people is really bad. I’m just hoping this next generation will know the cops not only in the uniform but out of uniform in a social setting instead of something bad happening. And that they don’t have to fear them.”
Silva’s daughter, Marlee, a former Port Hacking student and representative player, took over as tournament director for the first time this year, culminating in a focus on female participation.
“I think dad was a little bit relieved to pass it on just because he’s got so much on his plate but also proud to see that evolution from that to now. When it first started I was in year seven and I was helping mum cook the barbecue and now I’ve gone from that to this,” Marlee said.
“It’s really nice. He said to me how proud he was how I’ve organised it. I tried to not ask him for too much help because I wanted to prove I could do it. It’s the first year we’ve transitioned this way and it’s only going to get bigger.
“My dream is to have a team from every school in the shire. That’s what I’m going to focus on.
“It’s more about having those opportunities for non-Indigenous people to meet kids and for the Aboriginal kids to have a familiar face in the police uniform and not be intimidated by it. And realise that cops aren’t bad.
“The whole purpose is to break down barriers. Dad always tells the story that he joined the police force to combat what he experienced as a young Aboriginal man and be able to change it from the inside. So it’s really about having conversations and the last couple of years we’ve seen kids sit down and have a sausage sandwich with a cop which just doesn’t happen otherwise.”