Rachael King

Say the words "Tow­er of Strength" in the net­ball world and one play­er com­pletes that des­ig­na­tion lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly, Janet Cyn­thia Bai­ley. The net­ball leg­end was laid to rest yes­ter­day at West­ern Ceme­tery in St James, fol­low­ing a ser­vice at the Day Break As­sem­bly Church, Poin­set­ta Dri­ve in Mor­vant.

The soft-spo­ken yet pow­er­ful­ly built Bai­ley passed away on No­vem­ber 7 at the age of 80 af­ter a short bout with stom­ach can­cer.The for­mer na­tion­al net­baller was di­ag­nosed in March last year with blad­der can­cer and had surgery to fight the dis­ease. How­ev­er in Au­gust she de­vel­oped stom­ach can­cer and trav­elled abroad to get treat­ment but sad­ly lost the bat­tle with the dis­ease.

Fam­i­ly, friends, for­mer co-work­ers and team­mates and T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion of­fi­cials present and past all gath­ered to cel­e­brate the life of Bai­ley, who was looked on by many as a moth­er earn­ing her the nick­named "Ma", "Granny" and of course "Jay" in net­ball cir­cles.

Her daugh­ter Jac­in­ta Sobers, with the sup­port of her sis­ter Jeanne Bai­ley at her side and sis­ter Jes­sel in the con­gre­ga­tion, gave the eu­lo­gy, de­scrib­ing her moth­er as a "Tow­er of love, ded­i­ca­tion, care, sup­port and pro­tec­tion"

"She was the quin­tes­sen­tial ma­tri­ach. She loved, nur­tured, pro­vid­ed and sac­ri­ficed. Hos­pi­tal­i­ty was just part of her char­ac­ter. Janet was al­ways a great achiev­er. She ex­celled in what­ev­er she set her­self to do and this was par­tic­u­lar­ly ev­i­dent in her dis­tin­quished net­ball ca­reer."

A state­ment her fel­low net­ball fam­i­ly con­curred as they bade farewell to their for­mer team­mate and ad­min­is­tra­tor in­clud­ing Bar­bara Chan­dler, Althea Thomas-Luces, Enid Browne, Peg­gy Ann Ca­s­tan­da-Phillip, Anne-Marie Dick­son-Lewis, Hazel Tay­lor, Muriel Mitchell, Althea Mc­Collins, Jen­nifer Frank, Brid­get Adams, Hy­acinth Hart.

For­mer Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Gen­der Af­fairs Min­is­ter and man­ag­er of the na­tion­al net­ball team, Joan Yuille-Williams, was al­so among the con­gre­ga­tion.

Bai­ley, who was in­duct­ed in­to the Net­ball Hall of Fame, was a mem­ber of the na­tion­al team at the first-ever World cham­pi­onship in East­bourne, Eng­land, in 1963. She went on to rep­re­sent her coun­try in two more world tour­na­ments as con­firmed by T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Pa­tri­cia Butch­er in her ad­dress.

"Janet played in four con­sec­u­tive World Cham­pi­onships, in 1963, 1967, 1971 and 1975," said Butch­er as she en­cour­aged all to ap­plaud that achieve­ment.

"She was an out­stand­ing goal-de­fence and goal-keep­er who played in 76 in­ter­na­tion­al match­es. She aslo serve as man­ag­er of the se­nior net­ball team and held po­si­tions in the se­lec­tion com­mit­tee and the con­sti­tu­tion comit­tee. We could have al­ways count­ed on her sup­port."

But be­fore her dom­i­nance on the net­ball court, Bai­ley en­tered the po­lice force in 1959 and emerged with top ho­n­ours from her batch, re­ceiv­ing the re­cruit award. She serve with pas­sion and dil­li­gence and in 1980 was called up­on to chap­er­one the first batch of fe­male sol­diers dur­ing re­cruit train­ing.

War­rant of­fi­cer I Denise Gray-Scant­er­bury spoke on be­half of T&T Reg­i­ment's first fe­male In­take 1980, say­ing: "Janet Bai­ley sought nei­ther ho­n­our nor glo­ry in life but ho­n­our and glo­ry sought her.

"Cor­po­ral Bai­ley as we knew her then, took her work se­ri­ous­ly and her pride was evei­dent. She was a good lis­ten­er and con­stant­ly mo­ti­vat­ed us to strive for ex­cel­lence. She of­ten re­mind­ed us that we were pi­o­neers and as such must lay a good foun­da­tion."

In 1989 she left the ser­vice and she help found­ed the Mal­ta Carib Sen­a­tors club and went on to win nu­mer­ous Port -of-Spain Net­ball League (POSNL) ti­tles con­firmed by the nods of a num­ber of past and present POSNL ad­min­is­tra­tors, play­ers and of­fi­cials al­so in­clud­ing Martha Archer, Austrid Rochford, Grace Parkin­son-Grif­fith, Lynette Dun­can, Lystra Solomon-Sim­mons, Mon­i­ca Maule, to name a few.

Af­ter her play­ing days, Bai­ley en­tered in­to ad­min­is­tra­tion and be­came pres­i­dent of the POSNL for two con­sec­u­tive terms.Rev­erend Paster Her­man Ray­mond who presided over the cer­e­mo­ny en­cour­aged all gath­ered, which in­clud­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from a num­ber of net­ball clubs - Mal­ta Carib Sen­a­tors, Chips, Hori­zon, De­fence Force, Po­lice - to cher­ish her lega­cy.

A num­ber of mu­si­cal trib­utes was al­so giv­en dur­ing the ser­vice and her daugh­ter Jeanne closed off the ad­dress­es recit­ing a po­em as though Bai­ley was speak­ing to the con­gre­ga­tion say­ing: "I am alive in you. Live you life to the fullest."