An­drew Gioan­net­ti

De­spite a se­ri­ous knee in­jury rul­ing her out of re­cent suc­cess­es with the na­tion­al team, women's rug­by stand­out Kwanieze John has been recog­nised for her achieve­ments off the field when she was rec­om­mend­ed for the com­mu­ni­ty cham­pi­on award at the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) Spir­it of Sport Awards (SOSA) nom­i­na­tion cer­e­mo­ny re­cent­ly.A de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer at T&T Rug­by Foot­ball Union (TTR­FU) who used her ti­tle to re­vive the sport among school girls through the rein­tro­duc­tion of the sec­ondary schools girls' league this year, John, the TTR­FU's play­er of the year in 2007, will find out if she is cham­pi­on when the an­nu­al award cer­e­mo­ny is held tonight."If I win, I'll see it as a win for the sport," she said. "The win will help change the im­age of the sport, es­pe­cial­ly as my in­volve­ment fo­cus­es on the youth.""How­ev­er, If I lose, I would have tak­en the game to the fore­front of things."

Whether she wins or los­es, the 24-year-old has made up her mind that sport as a ca­reer is both her present and fu­ture. Her pas­sion is both youth in sport and women in sport. "Women's in­volve­ment is a big thing for me. Every­thing I do I en­sure that the young girls have as much op­por­tu­ni­ties as the boys."John added, "I think our ladies need more role mod­els in sport. So, any way I can help (I will at­tempt). You just (have to) let them know they've got to be con­fi­dent, coura­geous and com­mit­ted. It's no walk in the park."She has made this ev­i­dent as her role as a vol­un­teer with the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee, which she has aid­ed in the body's ed­u­ca­tion de­part­ment. She has been there since 2010 and said it would be dif­fi­cult to ex­press how much she has grown as an in­di­vid­ual, ad­min­is­tra­tor and ed­u­ca­tor in sport since join­ing the TTOC.

On the new-look girls' rug­by league which ran suc­cess­ful league and knock­out tour­na­ments late this year, John said she was not alone. "I've an in­cred­i­ble team of peo­ple that as­sist­ed with the pro­gramme and peo­ple who be­lieve in the vi­sion. For the past two years our coach­es weren't paid and they did it with­out ask­ing or de­mand­ing any­thing. And, to have peo­ple loy­al to that cause, I can't thank them enough for their sup­port."She added, "Sport is my ca­reer and some­times I be­lieve that I don't do my­self jus­tice fi­nan­cial­ly by do­ing what I do, but I re­mind my­self that I'm in it for the youth and their de­vel­op­ment be­cause I've seen the im­pact that I make with those young ladies and men. Some­times it's sur­re­al."John is cur­rent­ly side­lined from ac­tion with an in­jury in her left knee which re­quires surgery. Grant­ed it is suc­cess­ful, she is hop­ing to make a full re­turn to her club, Roy­alians, which she was named play­er of the year for 2012, and for T&T, which has been on an im­pres­sive in­cline.