Damian Drum

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Damian Drum

Personal Info
Birth	July 28, 1960, Shepparton, Victoria
Recruited from	Congupna
Playing Career¹
Debut	1982, Geelong vs. , at
Team(s)	Geelong (1982-1989) 63 games, 34 goals
Coaching Career¹
Team(s)	Fremantle (1999-2001) 53 games - 13 wins, 40 losses
¹ Statistics to end of 2005 season
Career Highlights

Damian Kevin Drum (born July 28, 1960) is an Australian football coach and politician. His most notable coaching appointment was with Fremantle in the Australian Football League, but turned to a political career after being sacked in 2001.

Drum was born in Shepparton. After graduating from high school, he became a carpenter and joiner. At the same time, he embarked on a football career, and was drafted to the then-VFL's Geelong Football Club in 1981. Over the next nine years, he played 63 games for Geelong. While playing football, he also operated his own business selling sheds and garages. After his retirement from football in 1990, he quit his business and took up a coaching position with Port Melbourne Boroughs in the Victorian Football League.

In 1994, Drum moved to Sydney, taking up a position as the assistant coach of the Sydney Swans Australian Football League club, under coach and former player Ron Barassi. After five years in this role, Drum was approached by Fremantle, who had not renewed the contract of their first coach, Gerard Neesham. Drum had been one of the most highly anticipated coaching recruits of the season, and some were surprised that he signed with the struggling Dockers. He had been expected to sign with the Collingwood Football Club the previous year, but the deal had fallen through.

Drum coached Fremantle for three seasons, in which the side suffered a marked lack of success. In his first season, the club finished 15th (second-last). Though there was some slight improvement in his second season, in which Fremantle won several high-profile games, the club nevertheless struggled, and finished twelfth. However, it was the 2001 season, in which Fremantle lost the first 9 games under Drum that sealed Drum's fate. He was sacked after Round 9, and replaced by former Fremantle player and inaugural club captain Ben Allan, who didn't fare much better, with the Dockers still winless after Round 17 (in a 22-round season).

After losing the Fremantle job, Drum moved back to Victoria, and took up a position as coach of the Bendigo Diggers team in the Victorian Football League. The situation was similar to Fremantle - the Diggers, a relatively new club, lost the first eleven games of the season. At the end of the season, Drum decided to retire from football and move into politics, successfully seeking National pre-selection for the Victorian Legislative Council seat of North Western Province at the 2002 state election.

[edit] Political life

Drum had the misfortune of running for office amidst the Liberal-National coalition wipeout of 2002, in which an array of seats across the state fell to the sitting government, and numerous shadow ministers lost their seats.

Drum was elected amidst a landslide loss by the Liberal and National conservative parties, which had been in coalition until not long beforehand, in favor of the governing Australian Labor Party. Drum himself faced a significant challenge, but managed to scrape over the line in a closely fought battle with Labor candidate Marg Lewis. While the National Party lost comparatively few seats, the demise of the conservative coalition meant that they had numerous portfolios to fill, in order to replace all those that had been occupied by the larger Liberal Party. Despite being a newly elected member with no previous political experience, the coalition was in dire need of people to fill the positions of those who had been defeated, and Drum found himself Deputy Leader of the National Party in the Legislative Council, party Whip, and Shadow Minister for Youth Affairs, Education Services, Sport, Recreation, Racing, Consumer Affairs and the Commonwealth Games. Drum has also been a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee since 2003.

In 2003, in a conscience vote (a rare event in Australian politics), Drum voted against the passage of a bill legalising stem-cell research on excess IVF embryos.

Drum's nephew Marcus was picked up at number 10 in the 2005 AFL National Draft by the Fremantle Dockers.

Preceded by Gerard Neesham

Fremantle Football Club coach 1999-2001

Succeeded by Ben Allan