Bri­an Lewis

Every so of­ten it is im­por­tant to re­flect on our his­to­ry if on­ly to get a sense of where it all be­gan and where to next. Re­cent­ly I was re­search­ing in­for­ma­tion about Mar­cus Min­shall, a man con­sid­ered by many to be one of this coun­try's great­est ever all-round sports­men, an ac­co­lade be­stowed by those who knew and played with him dur­ing his hey­day at school, on the na­tion­al team and for his club. Min­shall rep­re­sent­ed T&T in crick­et, foot­ball and rug­by. Sad­ly find­ing in­for­ma­tion was a dif­fi­cult propo­si­tion. Google, T&TR­FU, First Cit­i­zens Bank Sports Hall of Fame and sport foun­da­tion Web site, cricin­fo etc noth­ing of much sub­stance was avail­able. His ex­ploits are re­mem­bered in the sport of rug­by. Lo­cal rug­by's equiv­a­lent of foot­ball's FA Cup is named in his ho­n­our–the Mar­cus Min­shall Cup. It is sur­pris­ing to dis­cov­er that he was not or has not as yet been in­duct­ed in the First Cit­i­zens Bank Sports Hall of Fame.

But this is not re­al­ly a dis­cus­sion about rug­by or Mar­cus Min­shall. It is more an ob­ser­va­tion or prob­a­bly a lament about the un­der­ly­ing prin­ci­ple as it re­lates to our lack of sin­cere recog­ni­tion and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the ef­forts and sac­ri­fice of our sport­ing pi­o­neers and stan­dard bear­ers. Sport in T&T has a long his­to­ry. Where would we be were it not for the con­tri­bu­tion and self-sac­ri­fice of many who toiled with­out fi­nan­cial re­ward, not that they asked for or de­sired any. Many con­tributed pure­ly out of love and for the en­joy­ment. In so do­ing, they laid the foun­da­tion for this gen­er­a­tion of lo­cal ath­letes, ad­min­is­tra­tors, coach­es and of­fi­cials. Where do we go to find?in­for­ma­tion on, sto­ries and thoughts of the many pi­o­neers and found­ing fa­thers and moth­ers who gave so will­ing­ly and gen­er­ous­ly of their time, tal­ent and en­er­gy?

It seems that we are al­ways hell bent on cre­at­ing new his­to­ry rather than build­ing on the foun­da­tion stone. Archives and mu­se­ums pro­vide much need­ed ret­ro­spec­tive. It al­so pro­vides guid­ance, in­spi­ra­tion and mo­ti­va­tion. Most NSOs don't keep com­pe­ti­tion and per­for­mance records and sta­tis­tics. Club his­to­ry suf­fers the same fate. Its pa­per–use­less pa­per. We need to have more re­spect for our sport his­to­ry and achieve­ments. Re­flect­ing on his­to­ry of­fers a sense of hope as it high­lights a na­tion's or or­gan­i­sa­tion's abil­i­ty to per­se­vere and be re­silient. It shapes cul­ture. It re­veals strengths and weak­ness­es. There must be a ref­er­ence point–a be­gin­ning and a mid­dle. With­out ei­ther can there be an end­ing? Who should take on the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of doc­u­ment­ing, col­lect­ing and re­search­ing T&T's sport his­to­ry? It is by no means a sim­ple or easy project. It is not high pro­file or head­line grab­bing.

Nor are there any medals to be won. What is at stake? Those who have gone be­fore us left many in­valu­able lessons and trea­sured mem­o­ries. But I guess the past is the past and the fu­ture is now. Who cares any­way? Years of his­to­ry re­main in a box in dark, dusty, cock­roach in­fest­ed cor­ners just wait­ing to be dumped. Is there a so­lu­tion or a way for­ward? Maybe it could start with a pub­lic ap­peal to all those who may be prepar­ing to throw away their late par­ent box of clip­pings or their grand­par­ents' mem­o­ra­bil­ia. Even for­mer sports­men and women in the twi­light years who now have to make room for ren­o­va­tions and grand­chil­dren. Be­fore you dump any­thing con­tact the rel­e­vant NSO or, if it is re­lat­ed to Olympic his­to­ry, the TTOC. But in any event a more ded­i­cat­ed preser­va­tion ef­fort is need­ed so as to build a re­source cen­tre for T&T Sport his­to­ry. Pro­vid­ing, of course, that sport mat­ters.

NOTE: Bri­an Lewis is the hon­orary sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee -www.ttoc.org. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.