There’s a few iconic figures in the sport’s history who have been seen as rebels or unconventional men and who have happily played up to the image. Lumumba was a real-life Geoff Hayward (The Club), who in turn was based on Brent Crosswell.
Once an image sticks, it’s hard to live down or alter - so yeah, why not play along with the game? You might as well carve a niche and be remembered, rather than be one of the plethora of 200-game stalwarts who don’t live long in the public mind. I can see that role being particularly attractive for someone who so clearly struggled for personal identity and security from an early age.
Yeah that's it. He's a guy who grew up in the housing commissions of Fitzroy (which can still be sketchy) in the 80s and then played for Claremont (the most affluent club in the most wanky suburbs in Perth). Is Brazilian though. Stands out too. Good at football but into different music and things like revolutionists and books.
He wasn't the most intelligent man alive and he wasn't a good speaker, but I always respected him giving that stuff airtime. It's a bit more interesting than some bloke on Fox Sports who's seen as 'grounded' because he likes fishing or 'cool' because he wears check shirts and knows about alternative acts like The Beatles and You Am I... at least he put himself out there and thought a bit differently.
I played amateurs for a year at a uni club and my reputation was I was so skinny I got winded every time the bags came out and did Arts. Easy to take that in your stride and see it as unique and a point of difference amongst the blokes who just played because their mate did sports science or economics there. I remember drinking a Coopers one night down someone's accommodation after training and people commented on it when they drank Export. I mean it's Coopers, not a sour-bitter Saison in a 703ml bottle in the shape of the Brussels Art Museum imported for $13 a bottle.
At clubs there's the fat bloke, the hero, the 'smart' guy, the bumbling fool, the tall gangly dude everyone assumes is dorky just because he looks that way. People play up to it.
In uni classes people would comment on me as being the bloke into footy, in classes that had 12 girls and a gay bloke. Ya know.
As you said, someone who never had identity and felt so confused about who he was, where he belonged, what he was actually supposed to be doing... it's easy to accommodate your 'serious, unique' side is easy if you're the guy who points out shit people shouldn't say.
Ultimately he felt bullied at a professional work environment. Yeah it's a footy club. The line's are blurred. But he had a right to stand up for whatever hw wanted to. Three years later and the AFL would have shat themselves about a bloke's nickname being 'Lesbian' and it would have been aided in Heritier Lumumba's side or just swept under the rug.
Ultimately he's just a dude very lost in Australia, who was probably talented at the wrong thing.