Bri­an Lewis

In the last few weeks a num­ber of peo­ple have ex­pressed stri­dent and de­spair­ing con­cerns that it is a dai­ly bat­tle to re­main pos­i­tive about the fu­ture of sport here in T&T. At every turn it seems as if there is a dis­tort­ed per­cep­tion about what is need­ed and nec­es­sary if as a na­tion we are to dis­play sin­cere com­mit­ment.

Why is there the feel­ing that those who can make a dif­fer­ence aren't se­ri­ous about con­ceiv­ing and de­vel­op­ing a prop­er strat­e­gy, struc­ture and cul­ture that will pro­pel T&T sport to the at­tain­ment of its full po­ten­tial?

What has caused the break down in trust and is this loss of trust jus­ti­fied? Are we se­ri­ous enough about sport to com­mit the fi­nan­cial re­sources which are nec­es­sary to har­ness and pre­pare the tal­ent re­sid­ing in the bo­som of T&T so that the red, black and white can shine ever so bright at the world's im­por­tant and pre­cious sport events?

I have been asked–"Here we are in 2013 and the prob­lem of fund­ing con­tin­ues to threat­en the progress of many sports­men and women. Can we hon­est­ly say that fi­nan­cial­ly sport in T&T has been boost­ed?"

This and oth­er fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions re­flect se­ri­ous doubts and a lack of op­ti­mism that T&T can be a world class cen­tre of sport ex­cel­lence and a re­gion­al and con­ti­nen­tal pow­er­house.

Pos­i­tive views are con­sid­ered sim­ply sug­ar coat­ing things. Why can't we set big goals with­out peo­ple ad­mon­ish­ing that it's un­re­al­is­tic giv­en all that is wrong with­in lo­cal sport?

What is the cause of the frus­tra­tion? Notwith­stand­ing con­fi­dent ut­ter­ances the per­cep­tion per­sists that we haven't over­come a his­to­ry of pay­ing on­ly lip ser­vice to sport suf­fi­cient­ly to al­low T&T sport to scale un­prece­dent­ed heights.

Is a pos­i­tive view of things and an un­wa­ver­ing faith and con­fi­dence that no mat­ter the chal­lenges and ob­sta­cles progress have been made un­re­al­is­tic or delu­sion­al? Aren't we are bet­ter off now than say 20 years ago?

What's the re­al deal?

How­ev­er, I do agree there are sit­u­a­tions that can be frus­trat­ing and de­mor­al­is­ing but will al­ways rec­om­mend pur­pose­ful pa­tience. In time to come sport will be giv­en a pri­or­i­ty po­si­tion in mat­ters of na­tion­al pol­i­cy.

In the mean­while even as the prob­lems, con­cerns and is­sues are iden­ti­fied de­vel­op­ing so­lu­tions has to be the mind­set.

Ex­am­ples such as Sin­ga­pore, Qatar, and Cu­ba, Aus­tralia and New Zealand, to name a few, can pro­vide ex­cel­lent point­ers.

That's not to sug­gest that the ex­pres­sions of frus­tra­tion and ris­ing tide of pes­simism of peo­ple who feel that a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty should be ig­nored.

All na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and their re­spec­tive stake­hold­ers need to take a close look at what's tak­ing place with­in their sport and wider en­vi­ron­ment. All or­gan­i­sa­tions have a mul­ti-phase life cy­cle. Un­der­stand­ing and ap­pre­ci­at­ing where you are in the life cy­cle is crit­i­cal as it in­forms the re­spons­es to the changes tak­ing place in the op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ment. How then can a na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tion equip it­self to be able to iden­ti­fy fun­da­men­tal changes in the en­vi­ron­ment as they oc­cur and to make ad­just­ments?

Meet­ing the chal­lenges, prob­lems and pit­falls re­quire that a na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tion be able to adapt and re­spond to pres­sures, and be adept and flex­i­ble at "putting out fires" and mak­ing de­ci­sions in an un­cer­tain en­vi­ron­ment where the stakes are high and there is con­sid­er­able emo­tion­al in­vest­ment.

For me, its far bet­ter to re­main pos­i­tive and main­tain a strong be­lief that big things are in store for T&T sport and that it is nec­es­sary to chart a course for­ward that is based on am­bi­tious aims and ob­jec­tives.

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