Bri­an Lewis

It's im­por­tant to con­stant­ly be seek­ing dif­fer­ent ways of do­ing things. The im­per­a­tive to have a strate­gic fo­cus on what the al­ter­na­tives are and clar­i­fy­ing what the fo­cus is, helps es­tab­lish the strat­e­gy.One can learn a great deal by ask­ing and an­swer­ing the ques­tions Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? The an­swers will usu­al­ly fos­ter over­all in­sight that can in­form the de­vel­op­ment of a strat­e­gy.

In the on­go­ing dri­ve to seek a sys­tem­at­ic ap­proach to achieve and sus­tain high-per­for­mance sport, un­der­stand­ing the roots of high per­for­mance is more im­por­tant than any­thing else.What con­stant­ly sep­a­rates win­ners from losers is their ap­proach to strat­e­gy. Strat­e­gy in­volves op­por­tu­ni­ty and risks.

Sport or­gan­i­sa­tions all over the world are bat­tling with their strate­gic agen­das. Sport lead­ers are wrestling with how to dri­ve for­ward their re­spec­tive or­gan­i­sa­tions and over­come the or­gan­i­sa­tion­al and en­vi­ron­men­tal hur­dles that block sus­tain­able progress. There are op­er­a­tional risks, man­age­ment risk, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty risk. There are strate­gic con­tra­dic­tions and in­con­sis­ten­cies that re­quire at­ten­tion.Con­ven­tion­al wis­dom acts as a hin­drance and cre­ates ac­cept­ed bound­aries.

Sport is no longer just sport. As long as we re­main re­luc­tant to ac­cept the need for change we will con­tin­ue to do the same thing over and over while ex­pect­ing dif­fer­ent re­sults. Many de­ci­sion mak­ers have a vest­ed in­ter­est in the sta­tus quo.Change must be in­tro­duced if sport is to move for­ward. Chal­leng­ing the sta­tus quo is a crit­i­cal suc­cess fac­tor. Sport isn't just the de­ci­sion mak­ers or lead­ers- it in­volves a gen­uine part­ner­ship from cap­tain to cook.

Re­cent­ly the idea of a struc­tured elite ath­lete hous­ing pro­gramme was ar­tic­u­lat­ed. There have been many ques­tions and views about the need or not for such a pro­gramme.Out­lined be­low is the ba­sic propo­si­tion. A pro­pos­al has been sub­mit­ted to the pow­ers that be. At a min­i­mum one can rea­son­ably ex­pect an ac­knowl­edge­ment and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther dis­cuss. Time will tell but in any event for bet­ter or for worse, noth­ing ven­tured noth­ing gained.

The pur­pose of the elite ath­lete hous­ing as­sis­tance pro­pos­al is to ad­vo­cate a pol­i­cy that re­wards Trinidad and To­ba­go's Na­tion­al Ath­letes for their long and mer­i­to­ri­ous na­tion­al du­ty and ser­vice at Olympics, Para-Olympics and World Lev­el Cham­pi­onships (Con­ti­nen­tal & Re­gion­al). The idea of Hous­ing As­sis­tance for Na­tion­al ath­letes is based on the re­al­i­ty that ath­letes who ded­i­cate years of their life to rep­re­sent­ing their coun­try at Olympic and World lev­el sport make tremen­dous sac­ri­fices in re­spect of their ca­reers, fam­i­lies, and in­come.

The ath­lete's choice to ded­i­cate them­selves to Na­tion­al du­ty and ser­vice through sport os­ten­si­bly places ath­letes at a sig­nif­i­cant so­cial and eco­nom­ic dis­ad­van­tage.

Un­der the ten or more Olympic Gold medals by the year 2024 vi­sion, Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund, the Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) pro­pos­es the im­ple­men­ta­tion of an ath­lete Hous­ing As­sis­tance Pro­gramme which will fa­cil­i­tate ex­pe­dit­ed hous­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion to ath­letes. Ath­letes will be re­quired to meet the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) mort­gage cri­te­ria and will have to ho­n­our their mort­gage oblig­a­tions

Ath­letes who have served the coun­try with dis­tinc­tion for five or more years it is pro­posed they re­ceive con­sid­er­a­tion for ex­pe­dit­ed hous­ing as­sis­tance. Some ath­letes strug­gle to ad­just to re­al life when their sport­ing ca­reer ends. Ath­letes ded­i­cate years of train­ing and sac­ri­fice to ful­fill their Olympic dream and to stim­u­late pride amongst the cit­i­zen­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T).

Pro­vid­ing hous­ing as­sis­tance al­lows for a suc­cess­ful tran­si­tion from elite and Olympic sport in­to the re­al world. The pro­gramme will re­move the bur­den of pro­vid­ing a home for their fam­i­ly and en­sure a sense of se­cu­ri­ty when their ca­reers have end­ed.

Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic com­mit­tee.

ED­I­TOR'S NOTE: Sup­port #10golds24 Ath­lete wel­fare and prepa­ra­tion fund. Make your do­na­tions at any branch of Sco­tia Bank Acc # 171188.