KELVIN 'N'

T&T sport­ing fra­ter­ni­ty has been thrown in­to mourn­ing with the pass­ing of long-stand­ing sports ad­min­is­tra­tor and pi­o­neer Alexan­der Bernard Chap­man.

The hon­orary life mem­ber of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC), who was con­sid­ered a pa­tri­ot, was al­so an hon­orary vice-pres­i­dent of the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Sports Or­ga­ni­za­tion (CAC­SO) and a life­time vice-pres­i­dent of the Com­mon­wealth Games Fed­er­a­tion.

Speak­ing to the Guardian Me­dia Sports on Tues­day, At­tor­ney at Law, for­mer pres­i­dent of Malvern Sports Club and for­mer sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the TTOC, El­ton Prescott shared his thoughts on the late ad­min­is­tra­tor.

Prescott said, "I came to know and to re­fer to him as "Alex" notwith­stand­ing the decades by which he was se­nior to me in age. I had sought elec­tion to the po­si­tion of as­sis­tant sec­re­tary of the TTOC. He was the sec­re­tary gen­er­al at the time and he would go on to serve in that po­si­tion for an­oth­er eight years, af­ter which he be­came pres­i­dent and I took over as the gen­er­al sec­re­tary.

"Alex knew enough about the T&T so­journ in Olympic his­to­ry and about the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) and af­fil­i­at­ed bod­ies, that he could hold his own in any sym­po­sium on that or re­lat­ed top­ics. His mem­o­ry was phe­nom­e­nal, in that, he re­mem­bered dates, names, lo­ca­tions un­fail­ing­ly. He re­peat­ed­ly said to me," I am sel­dom wrong"; yet he did not claim in­fal­li­bil­i­ty.

Prescott went on to de­scribe a dili­gent man, who kept a very strict rou­tine when "on du­ty" and pur­sued the in­ter­ests of T&T with the clear­est dis­ci­pline.

"In the days when he did dou­ble du­ties as sec­re­tary and as chef de mis­sion for teams at in­ter­na­tion­al Games, the work de­mand­ed his avail­abil­i­ty at all times of day and night; a knowl­edge of who re­al­ly mat­ters when things need to get done and a fa­ther­ly dis­po­si­tion and sound ad­vice when need­ed. Ask Hase­ly Craw­ford about Alex's ad­vice in 1976, be­fore that gold medal run.

"Many would re­call that in the 70s and 80s, Alex was the "Bin­go Man" of the TTOA [as it was then known]. He ap­peared night­ly on TTT and called the num­bers in the fund-rais­ing Bin­go, run by the as­so­ci­a­tion.

"He was well -known and in­stant­ly recog­nis­able in pub­lic, as he wore Guyaberas for his TV ap­pear­ances.

"A vis­it to the home of Mags (Mar­gari­ta) [his now de­ceased wife] and Alex, opened one's eyes to the very ex­pan­sive trav­el­ogue which he cre­at­ed and lived. That ex­pe­ri­ence earned him the name "the Bird"; al­ways fly­ing some­where on Olympic busi­ness. He met and was pho­tographed with world lead­ers as well as out­stand­ing sports ad­min­is­tra­tors. Yet, he nev­er lost the 'com­mon touch'," said Prescott, adding that Chap­man en­joyed a cel­e­bra­tion.

"His Jan­u­ary 21st birth­days were not to be missed. Many will tell you that the sport­ing his­to­ry of this coun­try will fea­ture that name on many pages. He im­part­ed knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ences; he nur­tured those who came in to his path as bud­ding ad­min­is­tra­tors and he made and re­tained great friend­ships.

"In the Caribbean, Alex was re­ceived and re­gard­ed with great re­spect among all the sport­ing lead­ers, pri­mar­i­ly for the breadth of his knowl­edge and his valu­able in­sights and, above all, for his calm re­as­sur­ances when the sit­u­a­tion de­mand­ed it.

"This may be a good time to re­mind oth­ers that he served for count­less years on the board of the WIT­CO Sports Foun­da­tion and that of its suc­ces­sor First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, when the TTOC com­menced to grant sport­ing awards, 25 or more years ago, the top award was named af­ter Alexan­der B Chap­man for 'out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to Sport and Olymp­ism, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the pro­mo­tion of Olympic ideals'.

"It was an ex­ceed­ing plea­sure and learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for me to have trav­elled and worked and re­laxed with Alex. My wish is that he finds rest in this new phase of his jour­ney."

In 2017 An­tho­ny "Da­da" Wick­ham was the re­cip­i­ent of the Alexan­der B Chap­man award. Sports jour­nal­ist David Lamy (de­ceased) was the re­cip­i­ent last year.

On Sat­ur­day, Chap­man, who was pres­i­dent of TTOC for eight years, passed away and leaves to mourn his daugh­ter Al­i­son Chap­man. May his soul rest in peace.

Note:

The Alexan­der B. Chap­man Award:

This award is for out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to sport and Olymp­ism, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the pro­mo­tion of Olympic ideals.

It recog­nis­es achieve­ments or con­tri­bu­tions in any Sport by a per­son or by in­di­vid­u­als act­ing joint­ly or an or­gan­i­sa­tion, group or team, which epit­o­mize all or any of the fol­low­ing Fun­da­men­tal Prin­ci­ples of Olymp­ism as found in the Olympic Char­ter.

Olymp­ism is a phi­los­o­phy of life, ex­alt­ing and com­bin­ing in a bal­anced whole the qual­i­ties of body, will and mind. Blend­ing sports with cul­ture and ed­u­ca­tion, Olymp­ism seeks to cre­ate a way of life based on the joy found in ef­fort, the ed­u­ca­tion­al val­ue of good ex­am­ple and re­spect for uni­ver­sal fun­da­men­tal eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples.

The goal of Olymp­ism is to place every­where sport at the ser­vice of the har­mo­nious de­vel­op­ment of man, with a view to en­cour­ag­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a peace­ful so­ci­ety con­cerned with the preser­va­tion of hu­man dig­ni­ty. To this ef­fect, the Olympic Move­ment en­gages, alone or in co­op­er­a­tion with oth­er or­ga­ni­za­tions and with­in the lim­its of its means, in ac­tions to pro­mote peace.

The goal of the Olympic Move­ment is to con­tribute to build­ing a peace­ful and bet­ter world by ed­u­cat­ing youth through sport prac­ticed with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion of any kind and in the Olympic spir­it, which re­quires mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing with a spir­it of friend­ship, sol­i­dar­i­ty and fair play.

The prac­tice of sport is a hu­man right. Every in­di­vid­ual must have the pos­si­bil­i­ty of prac­tic­ing sport in ac­cor­dance with his or her needs.

It is not lim­it­ed to the year un­der re­view and may be award­ed in recog­ni­tion of a long pe­ri­od or a life­time of ser­vice to sport, char­ac­terised by the Fun­da­men­tal Prin­ci­ples.

It may be award­ed posthu­mous­ly.

Be­cause the award recog­nis­es long ser­vice or a life­time of ser­vice, it should not be grant­ed, ex­cept in a very rare or ex­cep­tion­al case, to a nom­i­nee who had been award­ed in the past in this cat­e­go­ry.

A fit­ting trib­ute to a pa­tri­ot, Alexan­der B Chap­man.