The one award that has elud­ed for­mer na­tion­al goal­keep­er Lin­coln Phillips for many years, will fi­nal­ly be giv­en to him on Wednes­day.

The Hum­ming­bird Sil­ver Medal will be giv­en to the for­mer na­tion­al goal­keep­er, coach and foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tor by Pres­i­dent Paula Mae Weekes at the Pres­i­dent's House in St Ann's for his con­tri­bu­tion to foot­ball.

Phillips said he was ho­n­oured to have been cho­sen for the award as he re­minds all that his coun­try does not owe him any­thing, but rather it's the oth­er way around, where he owes every­thing to his coun­try.

At age 81, Phillips has ex­pe­ri­enced every­thing there is to ex­pe­ri­ence in foot­ball and maybe sports.

Born in St James on the 4th day of Ju­ly in 1941, the date of Amer­i­ca's In­de­pen­dence, the near­by sports fa­cil­i­ties of St James Bar­racks, Nel­son Man­dela Park which was for­mer­ly King George V Park, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Fed­er­a­tion Park and the Wood­brook Youth Cen­tre were the breed­ing grounds for his emer­gence as a top school, na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al goal­keep­er and sports ad­min­is­tra­tor.

He be­came the first black pro­fes­sion­al soc­cer coach in U.S. his­to­ry in 1968 to be play­er/coach of the Wash­ing­ton Darts. He al­so coached Howard Uni­ver­si­ty to two un­de­feat­ed sea­sons and NCAA Cham­pi­onships. As goal­keep­er for T&T from 1963 to 1967, the team won a bronze medal at the 1967 Pan Amer­i­can Games.

Off the field, he was Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor of T&T foot­ball, ath­let­ic di­rec­tor at New­port Prepara­to­ry School in Kens­ing­ton, di­rec­tor of coach­ing for the Mary­land State Youth Soc­cer As­so­ci­a­tion for five years and a mem­ber of the U.S. Soc­cer Fed­er­a­tion's na­tion­al coach­ing staff, and was a FI­FA Staff Goal­keep­er in­struc­tor from 1994-05, con­duct­ing coach­ing de­vel­op­ment work­shops for FI­FA in the Caribbean and Asia.

Phillips' who is cur­rent­ly in the Unit­ed States work­ing on the de­vel­op­ment of many young, bud­ding foot­ballers, will not be on hand to re­ceive his award. It will be col­lect­ed by his nephew Dar­ryl 'Rocky' Phillips whose fa­ther George Phillips, Lin­coln's broth­er, was al­so a Hum­ming­bird Sil­ver Medal win­ner for his con­tri­bu­tion to the sport of bas­ket­ball.

Some Oth­er Achieve­ments:

Hon­ors in St James:

Award­ed by We Beat for out­stand­ing ser­vices to com­mu­ni­ty and coun­try ( 2007)

1958 - at the age of 17 I rep­re­sent­ed Prov­i­dence FC(as a Goal­keep­er on the first di­vi­sion and strik­er in the sec­ond di­vi­sion)

Hon­ors-

Win­ners of the BDV Cup….The first and on­ly tro­phy that The club ever won. ….rep­re­sent­ed POS­FL 2nd X1 team (as a strik­er). It was here that De­whurst dis­cov­ered me and re­cruit­ed me to QRC

1959-

En­ter QRC in Feb that year…..Played on the

- crick­et team ( open­ing bats­man and open­ing Bowler.

Hon­ors-

In­ter­Col­le­giate Cham­pi­ons in Crick­et and Soc­cer

Played at stop­per (1959) and goal­keep­er (1960)

Rep­re­sent­ed POS­FL as a stop­per ( 1959) with Pat

Gomez in goal….while at QRC named among the top 5 POS­FL play­ers of the year:

Bas­ket­ball-

Rep­re­sent­ed Braves BBall club.

Hon­ors: se­lect­ed to the Trinidad and­To­ba­go Bas­ket­ball As­so­ci­a­tion sec­ond team and lat­er on (1962) in the North Cen­tral and Amer­i­can Games, in Ja­maica.

- 1961

Rep­re­sent­ed maple FC