Sam Kekovich (born 11 March 1950) is an Australian

media personality Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group as a result of the attention given to them by mass media. An individual may attain a celebrity status from having great wealth, their participation in sports ...

sports commentator In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...

, Australian 'Lambassador' and former

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

player. He is well known for his controversial behaviour, both on and off the field, and most recently for his series of satirical advertisements as the spokesman for

Meat and Livestock Australia Meat & Livestock Australia (M&LA) is an independent company which regulates standards for meat and livestock management in Australian and international markets. Headquartered in North Sydney, Australia; M&LA works closely with the Australian g ...

(MLA) to promote the

lamb Lamb or The Lamb may refer to: * A young sheep * Lamb and mutton, the meat of sheep Arts and media Film, television, and theatre * ''The Lamb'' (1915 film), a silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in his screen debut * ''The Lamb'' (1918 ...

industry.

The Kekovich brothers

His older brother is the former VFL full-forward

Brian Kekovich Brian Kekovich (born 7 January 1946) christened Branko is a former Australian rules footballer in the VFL/AFL, who played for two seasons with the Carlton Football Club. A strong, dominant, talented, and courageous player, who was able to pla ...

, who played two seasons of senior VFL football with

Carlton Carlton may refer to: People * Carlton (name), a list of those with the given name or surname * Carlton (singer), English soul singer Carlton McCarthy * Carlton, a pen name used by Joseph Caldwell (1773–1835), American educator, Presbyterian ...

, including kicking four goals in Carlton's 1968 Grand Final victory. Brian's career ended immediately after the Grand Final, due to a serious back injury he had sustained earlier in the 1968 season. His younger brother, Michael, recruited from Trinity Grammar, who was showing great promise at North Melbourne at the age of 16, played for the North Melbourne First XVIII on Thursday, 10 September 1970 against Footscray, in the first round of the 1970 VFL night premiership. North Melbourne lost 6.7 (43) to 14.13 (97). Michael also played in the North Melbourne Second XVIII team that lost the 1970 preliminary final to Melbourne, and he kicked one goal in a losing team. Michael was killed, aged 17, when he was hit by a motor-car whilst on a training run in High Street,

Doncaster Doncaster (, ) is a city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, it is the administrative centre of the larger City of Doncaster. It is the second largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield. Doncaster is situated in ...

(near Curnola Avenue) on Saturday evening 26 June 1971.

Football career

Kekovich started his senior football career with

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

(VFL) club

North Melbourne North Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne local government area. North Melbourne recorded a population of 14,953 at the ...

(Kangaroos) in 1968. The following year he won the club's

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

award and was the top goalkicker with 56 goals. He played a key role in the club's first premiership win in 1975 by assisting ruckman Mick Nolan by contesting boundary throw-ins, in which he won most of the hit outs against Hawthorn's top ruckman Don Scott. After playing 124 VFL games for the Kangaroos, between 1968 and 1976, he moved to Collingwood in 1977, but only played four games, retiring from the VFL that season. His football career did not end, as he switched to play in the

Victorian Football Association The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

for the Prahran Football Club; he played 26 games for the Two Blues and played in the 1978 VFA Premiership side against Preston at the

Junction Oval Junction Oval (also known as the St Kilda Cricket Ground, or the CitiPower Centre due to sponsorship reasons) is a historic sports ground in the suburb of St Kilda in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The oval's location near the St Kilda Junc ...

. In 1987, Kekovich signed to coach VFA club

Camberwell Camberwell () is a district of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross. Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles and a common of which Goose Green is a remnant. This e ...

, which had just been relegated to Division 2 following a winless 1986 season. Kekovich coached the Cobras for three seasons and he left the club after its winless 1989 season. He was included in the

Team of the Century, on the interchange bench.

Media career

He has carried on his flamboyant style into the media sector, being most notable for his 'rants' on the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

show ''

The Fat ''The Fat'' was an Australian sports based talk show television series, broadcast and produced by ABC TV.The series began on 6 March 2000, and ended on 18 November 2003. Program synopsis Host Tony Squires, with regulars Peter Wilkins and Rebec ...

'', a breakfast show on

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

radio station 3AK, as a radio presenter on Melbourne Sports Radio Station

SEN 1116 1116 SEN (call sign 3AK) is an Australian radio station in Victoria. Owned and operated by Pacific Star Network, it broadcasts a sports radio format from Lower Plenty to Greater Melbourne. First broadcast on 29 November 1931 as 3AK, the st ...

, in pre-match

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

coverage on

Triple M Triple M is an Australian commercial radio network owned and operated by Southern Cross Austereo. The network consists of 40 radio stations broadcasting a mainstream rock music format and 5 digital radio stations. The network dates back to th ...

, and on PTI Australia on

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. Kekovich's direct-to-camera TV

monologue In theatre, a monologue (from el, μονόλογος, from μόνος ''mónos'', "alone, solitary" and λόγος ''lógos'', "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes a ...

s are done

deadpan Deadpan, dry humour, or dry-wit humour is the deliberate display of emotional neutrality or no emotion, commonly as a form of comedic delivery to contrast with the ridiculousness or absurdity of the subject matter. The delivery is meant to be blun ...

and use wide-ranging cultural references. Created by the writers of ''The Fat'', the monologues were first piloted with AFL player

John Platten John Patrick Platten (born 17 March 1963) is a retired Australian rules footballer. Platten's career began in the SANFL, where he won a Magarey Medal with Central District, and also with Hawthorn, where he played in four premierships as we ...

and boxer

Spike Cheney Spike, spikes, or spiking may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Books * The Spike (novel), ''The Spike'' (novel), a novel by Arnaud de Borchgrave * The Spike (book), ''The Spike'' (book), a nonfiction book by Damien Broderick * ''The Spik ...

before the ABC asked Kekovich to perform. The 'rants' normally place in contrast many disparate or incongruous verbal images and ideas, ending with the trademark, "You know it makes sense. I'm Sam Kekovich." The ABC released a spoken word album, ''You Know it Makes Sense'', which was nominated for the ARIA Award for Best Comedy Release at the

ARIA Music Awards of 2002 The 16th Annual Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (generally known as ARIA Music Awards or simply The ARIAs) were held on 15 October 2002 at the Sydney SuperDome. Awards ARIA Awards ''Winners highlighted in bold with nomi ...

. Kekovich has performed these 'rants' in commercials for

North Melbourne Football Club The North Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Kangaroos, is a professional Australian rules football club. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Kangaroos also ...

membership drives and

Dan Murphy's Dan Murphy's is an Australian liquor store owned by Endeavour Group, with over 250 stores across the country. The business was founded in 1952 by winemaker Daniel Francis Murphy. Dan Murphy's competes principally with Coles Group brands First ...

bottle shop A liquor store is a retail shop that predominantly sells prepackaged liquors – typically in bottles – usually intended to be consumed off the store's premises. Depending on region and local idiom, they may also be called an off-licence ( ...

s. From 2005 to 2014, Kekovich headed a well-known annual

advertising campaign An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ideas, beliefs, and conc ...

for

in the lead-up to

Australia Day Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Observed annually on 26 January, it marks the 1788 landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove and raising of the Union Flag by Arthur Phillip following days of exploration of Port Ja ...

encouraging people to eat more Australian lamb. The advertisements were delivered in the style of Kekovich's deadpan rants, and often made satirically outlandish statements un-Australianism. The first such advertisement drew particular controversy, when he labeled

vegetarians Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetarianism ma ...

as being un-Australian for not eating lamb on Australia Day, provoking outrage from

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

s and groups such as the Australian Vegetarian Society; but the Australian Advertising Standards Bureau allowed the ads to remain on the air, ruling them to be satirical, despite viewers' complaints. Many of the subsequent ads have also drawn complaints from viewers, but all have been dismissed by the Bureau. In the Australia Day commercial promoting lamb for the BBQ, which featured

Richie Benaud Richard Benaud (; 6 October 1930 – 10 April 2015) was an Australian cricketer who, after his retirement from international cricket in 1964, became a highly regarded commentator on the game. Benaud was a Test cricket all-rounder, blending l ...

, Kekovich made an appearance along with "

Captain Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

", "

Ned Kelly Edward Kelly (December 1854 – 11 November 1880) was an Australian bushranger, outlaw, gang leader and convicted police-murderer. One of the last bushrangers, he is known for wearing a suit of bulletproof armour during his final shootout wi ...

", "

Burke and Wills The Burke and Wills expedition was organised by the Royal Society of Victoria in Australia in 1860–61. It consisted of 19 men led by Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills, with the objective of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the s ...

", and

Ita Buttrose Ita Clare Buttrose (born 17 January 1942) is an Australian TV network chairperson, television and radio personality, author and former magazine editor, publishing executive and newspaper journalist. She was the founding editor of ''Cleo'', a ...

. He continued in the Lambassador role into the next decade, appearing in the Australia Day lamb advertisements as knocking down the interstate walls in 2021 and as the head of the National Lamb Rollout in 2022. Kekovich was an executive producer on the Australian film '' Blinder'' released in 2013. Shot around

Torquay, Victoria Torquay is a seaside resort in Victoria, Australia, which faces Bass Strait, 21 km south of Geelong and is the gateway to the Great Ocean Road. It is bordered on the west by Spring Creek and its coastal features include Point Danger and Ze ...

, the film is about a legendary former local footballer, Tom Dunn of the Torquay Tigers. In October 2018 Kekovich appeared on Facebook advertising supporting the

Australian Conservatives The Australian Conservatives was formed in July 2016 as a conservative political activist group in Australia and as a political party in February 2017. It was led by Cory Bernardi, who had been elected to the Senate for the Liberal Party, b ...

political party, with an aim to air the ads on TV. The MLA criticised the use of the term "lambassador" to describe Kekovich in the Australian Conservatives ads.

Albums

Awards and nominations

ARIA Music Awards

The

ARIA Music Awards The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (commonly known informally as ARIA Music Awards, ARIA Awards, or simply the ARIAs) is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Austr ...

are a set of annual ceremonies presented by

Australian Recording Industry Association The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) is a trade association representing the Australian recording industry which was established in the 1970s by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing th ...

(ARIA), which recognise excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of the

music of Australia The music of Australia has an extensive history made of music societies. Indigenous Australian music forms a significant part of the unique heritage of a 40,000- to 60,000-year history which produced the iconic didgeridoo. Contemporary fusions of ...

. They commenced in 1987. ! , - ,

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

, , ''You Know It Makes Sense: The Wisdom of Slammin Sam Kekovich'' , , ARIA Award for Best Comedy Release , , , , , -

References

External links

View the Kekovich Lamb Ad and more at the Meat and Livestock Australia websiteVote Lamb WebsiteSam's Official WebsiteMeat and Livestock Australia
*
Blinder, The Movie
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kekovich, Sam 1950 births Living people Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia) North Melbourne Football Club players North Melbourne Football Club Premiership players Syd Barker Medal winners Australian rules football commentators Collingwood Football Club players Prahran Football Club players Myrtleford Football Club players Camberwell Football Club coaches Australian people of Serbian descent People from Manjimup, Western Australia One-time VFL/AFL Premiership players