Dar­ryl Smith

For­mer sports min­is­ter

“I am the lucky fa­ther of four beau­ti­ful chil­dren–Yeshowah, 15, a stu­dent of Fa­ti­ma Col­lege; Em-Miryam, 13, who at­tends St Joseph’s Con­vent in Port-of-Spain; and Ab­ba, 11, and Rukha, nine, who both go to St Mon­i­ca’s Prep. I re­mem­ber pray­ing to God to give me healthy chil­dren and he did. I am eter­nal­ly grate­ful for this and vowed to re­pay him by do­ing my best as a fa­ther.

I have no ex­cus­es as I on­ly had great ex­am­ples around me. My fa­ther, Dea­con Michael Smith, has been the best in the world. He and his broth­ers (my un­cles) all taught my broth­er, cousins, and me how to be good fa­thers. They show­ered us all with love and showed com­mit­ment and dis­ci­pline.

While school is our num­ber one pri­or­i­ty, over the years we in­tro­duced the chil­dren to sev­er­al ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties from a very young age. This was part of their over­all ed­u­ca­tion process and al­so for good health and bal­ance. Mu­sic, act­ing, singing, and sports. Some of the sports in­clud­ed ten­nis, foot­ball, bas­ket­ball, golf, wa­ter po­lo, ta­ble ten­nis hock­ey, crick­et, and chess.

But it is ten­nis that they all grav­i­tat­ed to and loved the most. And while they still play bas­ket­ball, foot­ball, ta­ble ten­nis, and chess, ten­nis is their #1 sport. They have all ex­celled in ten­nis, rep­re­sent­ing T&T suc­cess­ful­ly on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions. They have won sev­er­al lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments and are high­ly ranked both lo­cal­ly and re­gion­al­ly.

We have trav­elled all over the world play­ing in in­ter­na­tion­al ten­nis tour­na­ments. We en­sure that we make these tours in­to a mi­ni va­ca­tion as well. See­ing and en­joy­ing the coun­tries we vis­it. We go to mu­se­ums, art ex­hi­bi­tions, schools, oth­er sport­ing events, li­braries, church­es, zoos, restau­rants, farms, mar­kets, his­toric lo­ca­tions, wa­ter and amuse­ment parks, malls, beach­es, rivers, and much more. They have made friends from all over the world play­ing in these in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments. This is all part of their over­all de­vel­op­ment. They are grow­ing up so fast. I want to en­joy as much time with them as pos­si­ble en­sur­ing that they get the right skills be­fore they move on as adults.

We have a very tight-knit fam­i­ly. I have a lot of sup­port from my par­ents who have been there con­sis­tent­ly to nur­ture, love and teach their grand­chil­dren.

I have been re­mar­ried for some time now, and my wife, Kate, has been in­te­gral in the chil­dren’s lives and loves them. But, more so, they love her. While in life there will be chal­lenges, I teach them to al­ways re­main pos­i­tive, en­joy the mo­ment they are in, and look for­ward and plan for the fu­ture. Time is the most pre­cious as­set we have and I be­lieve it is not to be wast­ed.

Be­ing a fa­ther, to me, is the great­est gift I have ever re­ceived. I be­lieve God is the true de­f­i­n­i­tion of Fa­ther­hood. I be­lieve God is in charge of our fu­ture and once I keep God at the cen­tre of my life and as the foun­da­tion of my home, He will guide me as a fa­ther and teach me how to lead my fam­i­ly. Hap­py Fa­ther’s Day.”