Anand Ram­per­sad

Had Rod­ney "Mighty Midget" Wilkes, this coun­try's first Olympic medal­list won his medals with­in the last 25 years, he would have been a cel­e­brat­ed hero. His fu­ner­al would have at­tract­ed the who's who from both the sport­ing and non-sport­ing fra­ter­ni­ty. He would have been known by politi­cians, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and the gen­er­al pub­lic. The State would have award­ed him large sums of mon­ey among oth­er forms of recog­ni­tion. He would have been a pop­u­lar face in the me­dia en­dors­ing var­i­ous forms prod­ucts and would have been a house­hold name with every­one know­ing his ac­com­plish­ments.

How­ev­er, his ac­com­plish­ments came at a time when sport was on­ly im­por­tant to those who had a vest­ed in­ter­est in it. Those who resided out­side the sport­ing are­na viewed sports more as leisure ac­tiv­i­ties and spec­ta­cle events such as friend­ly ri­val­ry and a space to have a lime and a good time.

Sports was not seen as an im­por­tant ve­hi­cle for sus­tain­ing a liveli­hood, achiev­ing eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment through the es­tab­lish­ment of a sport in­dus­try and or so­cial de­vel­op­ment as in build­ing so­cial cap­i­tal and cor­rect­ing some of the so­cial ills in the so­ci­ety. Sports was def­i­nite­ly a sec­ondary in­sti­tu­tion in so­ci­ety. All ath­letes had to work to en­sure that they had a liveli­hood.

Wilkes worked as an elec­tri­cian. Train­ing came af­ter work. Fa­cil­i­ties were not of the stan­dards as they are to­day es­pe­cial­ly the ones that are made avail­able to elite ath­letes. There was no elite ath­lete pro­gramme where fund­ing is pro­vid­ed to meet the costs of train­ing and oth­er re­lat­ed ex­pens­es. Pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor or­gan­i­sa­tions did not pro­vide the same lev­el of fi­nan­cial sup­port as is pro­vid­ed to­day. Against this back­ground, one can­not help but pon­der over the great­ness of his ac­com­plish­ment.

There was a lot of out­pour­ing of sym­pa­thy on the pass­ing of Wilkes, es­pe­cial­ly the un­for­tu­nate con­di­tions un­der which he resided. It was com­mend­able that the Min­istry of Sports pro­vid­ed a month­ly stipend for him to meet his liv­ing and med­ical ex­pens­es in the lat­ter part of his life as well as as­sist in his fu­ner­al ex­pens­es. The ques­tion we have to ask our­selves is how we re­spond to sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions in the fu­ture. Should we re­turn to our state of dis­in­ter­est, wait and then go through the same rit­u­al of lament­ing that noth­ing tan­gi­ble was ever done for our sport­ing he­roes of the past? Or do we be­come proac­tive and find cre­ative ef­fi­cient ways to recog­nise our sport­ing he­roes of yes­ter­year.

It is hoped that the lat­ter is adopt­ed and a work­ing group is es­tab­lished com­pris­ing mem­bers of the Min­istry of Sports, the Sports Com­pa­ny, To­ba­go House Au­thor­i­ty, The Min­istry of the Peo­ple, Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment, First Cit­i­zen Sport Foun­da­tion, TTOC and the pri­vate sec­tor. The pur­pose of this com­mit­tee is to es­tab­lish the way for­ward on pro­vid­ing as­sis­tance and ser­vice to these for­mer na­tion­al ath­letes.

For starters a reg­istry and so­cial sta­tus of all ath­letes who have rep­re­sent­ed the coun­try across all sport­ing dis­ci­plines should be es­tab­lished. Such a reg­istry should not be dif­fi­cult as the re­spec­tive na­tion­al sport­ing bod­ies (NSB's) and na­tion­al sport­ing or­ga­ni­za­tions (NSO's) should be able to pro­vide such in­for­ma­tion from their own records. Such a reg­istry should not be lim­it­ed to per­sons who have medalled. One of the ma­jor philo­soph­i­cal cul­tur­al chal­lenges we face is that our so­ci­ety fo­cus sole­ly on win­ners. There­fore, per­sons who rep­re­sent but do not medaled are short­changed in their recog­ni­tion if they re­ceive any at all. Once a per­son rep­re­sents the coun­try she/he is a win­ner and that must nev­er be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed or for­got­ten.

Once their so­cial sta­tus have been iden­ti­fied, us­ing the ex­ist­ing arms of the State, mea­sures can be tak­en to en­sure that the ba­sic pro­vi­sions that are of­fered are avail­able to them. So for in­stance the reg­istry would give da­ta about the num­ber of per­sons who are pen­sion­able age, per­sons who may be em­ployed, un­em­ployed, suf­fer­ing from any phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ty etc. Cov­er­age of fu­ner­al ex­pens­es should be a giv­en.

Sport­ing he­roes can be skill­ful­ly mar­ket­ed to their com­mu­ni­ties through lo­cal sport­ing clubs, com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres and schools. For in­stance, a na­tion­al sport­ing quiz and or es­say writ­ing com­pe­ti­tion can be es­tab­lished chal­leng­ing schools, par­ents and stu­dents to know their sports, sports his­to­ry and sport­ing per­son­nel. This can forge an aca­d­e­m­ic sport­ing cul­ture. The me­dia can pro­vide blurbs of sport­ing he­roes from all dis­ci­plines so that their names be­come etched in the minds of our pop­u­la­tion.

The afore­men­tioned are just sug­ges­tions as to how we can en­sure that the sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty is kept alive dur­ing and be­yond their liv­ing years. It may not see the light of day but a vivid imag­i­na­tion is need­ed. Rod­ney Wilkes was promised a gym to be named af­ter him, it can still hap­pen posthu­mous­ly. Let us make every ef­fort to en­sure our sport­ing hero­ines and he­roes have a dig­ni­fy­ing life to the best of our ca­pa­bil­i­ties. It is time for the sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty to be­come proac­tive.

Ed­i­tor's Note: Min­is­ter of Sport Anil Roberts com­mis­sioned The Na­tion­al Sport­ing Archive in 2013, a web­site that pays trib­ute to all the ath­letes who have rep­re­sent­ed T&T over the years. The archive is a work in pro­gressed and can be ac­cessed at: www.sportarchivestt.com

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