Frankie D'Cruz

PETALING JAYA: Tokoh Sukan Sieh Kok Chi wasn't for everyone, but those who enjoyed him loved him.

The former secretary-general of the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) was outspoken, often brazen and sometimes controversial. He always called things as he saw them and in the big book of Kok Chi's maxims, there was no place for those who feed off Malaysian sport.

Kok Chi was in his own words, "a doer, not a talker", and it was probably that quality that most set him apart from other sports administrators. He might have considered himself a "powerless old volunteer", who posed no threat to anyone, but many regarded him as a supremo who stood up for the downtrodden.

Kok Chi died as he lived: unapologetically, without fear or shame, leaving a stream of emotions and happy memories. He passed away on Saturday and many, including those at OCM where he had been a mainstay since the 1970s, did not know of his death until yesterday.

Sportswriter Haresh Deol said fibrosis left Kok Chi frail in recent years, and he avoided talking much as his cough and shortness of breath got in the way. He said Kok Chi had previously mentioned to him about how lonely life was, as most of his friends were no longer around.

Haresh said Kok Chi had also shared that he was still grieving over the death of his daughter, Shen-Nern, who passed away last October at the age of 47. His son is living abroad. Being a single parent, Kok Chi took his intellectually handicapped daughter with him to all the major multi-sport games under the jurisdiction of the OCM at his own expense.

This is the man who did not take a single sen from the OCM, a prized volunteer, if you may. He preached frugality and when he left OCM, there was reportedly a surplus of more than RM10mil in the coffers to help its members.

Kok Chi played a significant role in advancing the Malaysian Olympic movement and is the reason why the OCM is respected in the region. He was the man in the room throughout his tenure as OCM honorary secretary from 1992 to 2013, secretary-general (2013-2015) and assistant secretary general (2015-2018).

He saw it all first hand - the backflips, ethics, deep-rooted problems at state and national sports associations, the blind refusal to focus on development, the inability to grasp detail and make tough decisions.

Sieh Kok Chi played a significant role in advancing the Malaysian Olympic movement
and he is the reason why the OCM is respected in the region.

Principled, patriotic and a skilful administrator, Kok Chi brought intellectual heft in the country's lightweight sports administration and became a mentor to many.

Journalists remember their encounter with him vividly: the chaos of his office, with toppling piles of notebooks and files; the unstoppable flow of his conversation; and above all, his total lack of interest in anything other than facts and figures and profiles of national athletes.

To Kok Chi, Malaysia as a sporting nation, and OCM always came first. If you got in his way, he'd walk through or over you without a backward glance. He might have been scorned for his brutal honesty by some in the sporting circle but he had the confidence to say what he thinks, which is a relative rarity today.

The media enjoyed how straight and direct he could be with his views that inevitably made great stories.

In 2019, Kok Chi virulently expressed his displeasure against office bearers of national and state sports associations who hung on to their posts for many years. He famously said: "There is no hope in Malaysian sports, and I have wasted my entire life in this profession."

His scathing remark was made during the Malaysia Athletics Federation elections that saw many officials of state affiliates, aged above 60 years old and holding positions for much of their lives, electing the new office bearers. When he was inducted into the OCM Hall of Fame in 2019, he said: "Frankly, I am embarrassed because there are many more deserving athletes and medal-winning teams who should have been inducted.

"I volunteered to serve OCM and the athletes and, if the sports people think I have done well, I was only doing my duty to the best of my ability and as such do not deserve anything else."

He received the Tokoh Sukan award in March for his yeoman service to the nation that included the establishment of OCM's administrative structure, the OCM trust fund and the creation of the funding and reimbursement policy for "B" category athletes.

Kok Chi excelled as a national water polo player and won silver in the 1965, 1967 and 1969 Seap Games (now Sea Games), and retired at the age of 32 after taking part in the Asian Games in 1970. He was back at the Sea Games in 1999, leading the Malaysian contingent as the chef de mission to Brunei.

The former civil engineer with the drainage and irrigation department served as the secretary of the Selangor Amateur Swimming Association (1971-1974) before becoming the secretary of the Amateur Swimming Union of Malaysia from 1975 to 1982. He then spent 10 years working as a volunteer at OCM, assisting the then secretary Thong Poh Nyen before replacing him in 1992.