Benden Rol Modeli Falan Olmaz

Benden Rol Modeli Falan Olmaz

Hürriyet — 9 January 2016
Interview by Uğur Vardan

In January 2016, Gümüşlükspor had just become champions of its amateur league group.

Nejat İşler was not watching from the stands.

He was the club president.

The situation already carried an obvious media story:

famous actor moves to Gümüşlük,

takes responsibility for a small amateur football club,

helps it become champion.

It would have been easy to turn that story into a heroic profile.

İşler refuses.

Asked whether people like him could become role models for similar local clubs, he replies:

“Benden rol modeli falan olmaz.”

He does not want to become a symbol.

He wants the work to matter more than the person doing it.

A Championship, but Not a Celebrity Story

Gümüşlükspor had defeated Turgutreisspor 1–0 and secured the championship in Muğla’s amateur competition.

İşler had taken over the club presidency in May 2015.

Only months later, the team had achieved promotion.

The obvious narrative would be:

Nejat İşler saved the club.

But his own account is less dramatic.

He says that he had already been involved with earlier administrations and that becoming president was partly the result of circumstances rather than a carefully designed personal mission.

That difference matters.

No Heroic Origin Story

İşler repeatedly resists stories in which he appears to have planned a meaningful transformation from the beginning.

The same pattern exists elsewhere in his career.

Acting was not described as a perfect childhood career plan.

Gümüşlük was not presented as a mystical destination.

Writing was not invented after illness.

And Gümüşlükspor was not a celebrity social-responsibility project designed around his image.

Things happen.

Then responsibility grows.

The Role-Model Problem

The phrase “role model” is particularly interesting because İşler has always been uncomfortable with moral elevation.

Actors are often expected to become:

examples,

public teachers,

moral authorities.

İşler rejects that position.

His answer does not necessarily mean:

Nobody should learn from what I do.

It means something closer to:

Do not turn me into the official example.

That is consistent with his broader resistance to fixed public identities.

Action Without Monument

There is a philosophical distinction here.

A person can do something socially valuable without demanding symbolic status.

In fact, the symbolic status can become dangerous.

Once somebody becomes “the role model,” attention shifts from:

the action

to

the person.

The football club risks becoming the Nejat İşler story.

İşler seems more interested in keeping it the Gümüşlükspor story.

“This Country Will Be Saved by Art and Sport”

The interview becomes more ambitious when İşler recalls a conversation after visiting Bodrum Mayor Mehmet Kocadon.

A member of the club administration had said:

“Bu ülkeyi sanatla spor kurtaracak.”

İşler agrees and expands the idea to:

art,

sport,

culture,

education.

For him, these are tools through which a different future can be built.

This is much larger than football.

Football as Education

In this model, football is not valuable merely because a team wins.

Its value lies in what people learn through participation.

Discipline.

Collective responsibility.

Failure.

Competition.

Belonging.

Shared rules.

Working with others.

This explains why İşler’s interest in amateur football cannot be reduced to fandom.

The club becomes an educational structure.

From Watching Football to Building Football

This marks a major change from the 2011 Esquire interview.

Then football was primarily personal.

İşler described himself as highly competitive when playing.

By 2016, the focus has shifted.

Now the important question is:

What can football do for younger people?

The movement is:

personal pleasure

→ organization

→ social purpose.

Gezi and the Younger Generation

One of the most revealing parts of the interview concerns Gezi.

İşler says that the experience changed the way he thought about younger people.

Older generations often complain:

“Nothing will come from these kids.”

His reaction was the opposite.

He says that during Gezi he looked at the younger generation and thought that they were impressive and deserved support.

This gives Gümüşlükspor a wider context.

The club is partly about creating environments in which younger people can grow.

Not Leading the Young, Supporting Them

There is an important difference between these two ideas.

Role-model logic:

young people should follow me.

İşler’s logic:

young people are already capable; give them support.

That difference is fundamental.

The first is hierarchical.

The second is enabling.

The Anti-Patron Position

İşler also adds an important condition to his support.

He is suspicious of people who use social projects to benefit themselves.

This is why his reference to support contains a warning against turning everything inward for personal gain.

That fits his discomfort with celebrity charity as branding.

Helping should not become another method of self-promotion.

The Player Who Received a Red Card

One small football detail is unusually revealing.

When a Gümüşlükspor player was sent off, İşler says he told him not to disconnect emotionally from the match:

take your shower,

come back,

watch the rest with us.

This is a minor moment.

But it reveals the kind of club culture he wants.

A mistake does not cancel belonging.

The player remains part of the group.

Competition Without Exile

This is a useful social principle.

Sport produces winners and losers.

It also produces mistakes.

A red card could easily become:

anger,

blame,

isolation.

İşler instead emphasizes continued participation.

You made the mistake.

You are still with us.

That is a very different model of authority.

The Accident After the Championship

The championship celebration also produced one of those moments that celebrity media loves.

İşler injured his head while rushing toward the pitch during the celebration.

Contemporary reports describe him receiving medical attention and then continuing to celebrate with the team.

The image was dramatic.

But it should not become the meaning of the event.

The championship matters more than the bloody photograph.

The Media Loves the Symbol

This episode is another useful example of the difference between event and image.

The actual event:

a small amateur club wins its group.

The media image:

famous actor celebrates with blood on his face.

The second travels further because it is visually dramatic.

The archive should restore the first.

Amateurism as a Moral Category

This interview should be read beside the December 2015 Gümüşlükspor conversation.

There İşler said he valued amateurism and did not want the club simply transformed into another professional organization.

Amateurism, in his usage, is not incompetence.

It is activity that still retains direct connection with:

place,

participants,

enthusiasm,

community.

Winning Without Becoming Professionalized in Spirit

The championship creates a test.

Success can change an organization.

Once the team wins, new ambitions appear.

More money.

Higher leagues.

Professionalization.

The challenge is to progress without losing the qualities that made the club meaningful.

This tension will remain throughout İşler’s Gümüşlükspor period.

The Outsider Becomes President

There is still something deeply ironic about the situation.

For years, İşler had been publicly imagined as:

anti-authority,

unmanageable,

individualistic.

Now he is:

club president,

speaking with a mayor,

managing players,

thinking about youth education,

building organizational continuity.

Again, the public mythology fails to describe the working reality.

Authority Without Role-Model Status

What makes the situation especially interesting is that İşler accepts authority while rejecting symbolic authority.

He is willing to be:

president.

He is unwilling to be:

role model.

These are not contradictory.

The first is a job with responsibilities.

The second is an identity imposed on the entire person.

İşler trusts the role more than the myth.

A Useful Comparison with 2003

The pattern resembles the earliest archive entry.

2003:

people call him a leading man.

He says:

I am an actor.

2016:

people suggest he is a social role model.

He says:

do not make me one.

The category changes.

The resistance does not.

A Useful Comparison with 2015

The December 2015 interview focused on discovering the difficulty of administration.

“This is harder than it looks.”

January 2016 gives us the first visible result:

the club becomes champion.

But İşler does not use success to construct a heroic story about himself.

That restraint is significant.

A Useful Comparison with May 2016

The May 2016 Uğur Vardan interview gives this behavior a deeper philosophical explanation.

After facing mortality, İşler says he wants to spend more of his life doing things that are not only for himself.

Gümüşlükspor becomes one of his examples.

That gives us a useful sequence:

2015: responsibility begins.

January 2016: responsibility produces a visible result.

May 2016: İşler explains why contribution has become philosophically important.

Contribution Without Sanctification

Taken together, these interviews offer a mature model of social contribution.

Do something useful.

Accept responsibility.

Use your visibility if it helps.

But do not turn yourself into a saint.

That seems to be İşler’s preferred balance.

Why This Interview Matters

The January 2016 Hürriyet interview is valuable because it prevents the Gümüşlükspor period from becoming a simple celebrity-success story.

Yes, the team becomes champion.

Yes, İşler’s fame brings attention.

But his own interpretation moves attention away from himself.

The most important statements are not about winning.

They are about:

young people,

education,

art,

sport,

culture,

belonging,

responsibility.

And his refusal of “role model” status connects directly to one of the strongest themes in the entire archive:

Nejat İşler repeatedly accepts work while resisting the identity people want to build around that work.

Actor, yes.

President, yes.

Organizer, yes.

Role model?

No.