It seems we have a long way to go in this country to learn the lesson that one punch can kill, if the reaction to the Nick D’Arcy affair is anything to go by.

It wasn’t long ago on the Sunshine Coast that there was an outcry over the death of a promising young Caloundra man, Josh Mill, after he was allegedly punched to death in the main street of the CBD.

Yet yesterday on talkback radio and on the Daily’s website, many were pleading for Nick D’Arcy to be spared the “horrible penalty” of being banned from going to the Olympics after he allegedly broke a former swimmer’s jaw and nose in a pub brawl in Sydney on the weekend.

On radio, the almost universal reaction was that banning D’Arcy from the Olympics would be too harsh a penalty for the rising young star.

I don’t know Nick D’Arcy at all – and really it doesn’t matter what sort of bloke he is.

The bottom line is, what sort of message will it send to young, impressionable fans if he is found guilty and action is not taken?

But should D’Arcy, a 20-year-old, be the vehicle for that message?

What about all the other sporting heroes who have repeatedly let us down over recent times?

We have had many, much older and supposedly more mature, sporting role models setting terrible examples for young fans.

But should we really be surprised?

Are they not just a symptom of what is a much wider societal problem.

The problem with young people drinking in this country goes way beyond one night involving Nick D’Arcy celebrating his hard-earnt admission to the Australian Olympic team.

As has been highlighted by other shocking cases both in Queensland, and interstate, when you combine excessive amounts of alcohol or drugs with anger, the results can be devastating – even with just one punch.

And as a community we have a collective responsibility to better understand that – and to teach our young that violence is never acceptable and that the consequences can be life-changing.

I feel for the D’Arcy family. By all accounts, his parents are good people who have done the hard yards to raise their son right and help him to achieve sporting excellence beyond which most of us could dream.

While it would be easy for Olympic officials to use young Nick as a messenger for their no-violence mandate, I wonder whether it is fair to him – or more particularly his family and supporters.

If the allegations against the young swimmer are proven, it may be punishment enough that he knows he has let down himself, his family and the wider community.

For Olympic officials, a number of issues come into play.

As AAP senior sports writer John Coomber noted yesterday, Australia’s Olympic bosses have a serious dilemma on their hands, regardless of whether D’Arcy is found guilty of assault.

He points out the legal process is unlikely to have have run its course by the time D’Arcy is scheduled to join his team-mates at the pre-Games camp in Kuala Lumpur on July 23.

Even more pressingly, there is a team camp in Canberra on April 23, two days after D’Arcy is scheduled to make his first court appearance.

The AOC now has to weigh D’Arcy’s presumption of innocence against the wider interests of the team as a whole.

It has a duty of care towards the other 450 or so members of the Olympic team, whose best interests it represents.

This is why it has moved to hold its own investigation, jointly with Swimming Australia, before the court process gets underway.

AOC president John Coates, a lawyer, knows this one decision has the potential to be one of the trickiest in his long career.

Regardless of the outcome, the message out of all of this is that we must play a more active role in teaching our kids the terrible consequences that come with excessive drinking and resorting to violence.

And we have to make real inroads into a culture which says we celebrate sporting success and achievement with heavy drinking.

Australian swimming has, in comparison to other sporting codes, had few scandals involving excessive alcohol consumption.

It would be a tragic if such a clean-looking sport starts to adopt the sort of behaviour seen by some of the participants in football codes.

We owe our kids a better legacy than to teach them that excessive alcohol and violence is acceptable in any form.