Roslyn Williams George

(Moth­er, Ad­vo­cate)

The Trinidad and To­ba­go girls U17 bas­ket­ball team com­pris­es of 12 young ladies from all over the is­land, rang­ing from Point Fortin to Diego Mar­tin and be­tween the ages 14 to 16 years. This present team was formed in 2020 as it was an­tic­i­pat­ed that they would have been head­ing out to par­tic­i­pate in com­pe­ti­tion since then.

The im­pact of COVID-19

Of course, no one had an­tic­i­pat­ed that the COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic would put a stop to every­thing. Even though, the en­tire world was shut down, our girls con­tin­ued to train both on and off the court and kept con­di­tion­ing their bod­ies and sharp­en­ing their bas­ket­ball skills in an­tic­i­pa­tion of be­ing able to com­pete for their coun­try one day. They trained via zoom or in their yards by them­selves and on the court when they were able to. This train­ing in­clud­ed, ball han­dling skill, plays and strength and con­di­tion­ing. The girls moved around the coun­try, us­ing whichev­er train­ing fa­cil­i­ty that was avail­able, Mal­oney In­door, Mt Hope / Mt Lam­bert pub­lic court, Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty, En­ter­prise and Pleas­antville. Dur­ing the fi­nal week lead­ing up to the an­tic­i­pat­ed trip to Nicaragua, the coach­es fa­cil­i­tat­ed a four day stay-in camp in Ma­yaro for fi­nal prepa­ra­tion.

2022 FI­BA U-17 Women’s Qual­i­fi­er

FI­BA is the Fed­er­a­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball and host these com­pe­ti­tions every year in or­der to show­case the skills of these young up­com­ing ballers. The 2022 tour­na­ment will fea­ture the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Cos­ta Ri­ca, Guatemala, Hon­duras, Pana­ma, Trinidad and To­ba­go and the host, Nicaragua.

Now the mo­ment they have been train­ing for has fi­nal­ly ar­rived as the girls have been se­lect­ed for the FI­BA un­der 17 Cen­trobas­ket Women’s Qual­i­fiers that will be played at the Polide­porti­vo Alex­is Argüel­lo in Man­agua, Nicaragua. This com­pe­ti­tion is due to be­gin on Wednes­day Ju­ly 27 to 31, with Trinidad and To­ba­go be­ing the on­ly team from the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean par­tic­i­pat­ing this year.

The si­nu­soidal jour­ney

In prepa­ra­tion for this trip the girls trained four days per week and took part in com­pe­ti­tions when­ev­er they could, some­times against oth­er male teams to fur­ther sharp­en their skills. This ex­tra ex­po­sure on the court al­lowed the girls to learn from their peers. The love for bas­ket­ball as­sist­ed these young ladies to deal with the iso­la­tion of the pan­dem­ic and as­sist­ed them to re­main fo­cused on their sport while form­ing a bond with each oth­er.

How much does the trip mean to the girls?

The girls are very ex­cit­ed about par­tic­i­pat­ing in this com­ple­tion as it will give them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to rep­re­sent the coun­try or Trinidad and To­ba­go and po­ten­tial­ly place among the first three teams.

“I see go­ing to Nicaragua as a new op­por­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther my fu­ture, to be able to show­case my tal­ents on an in­ter­na­tion­al stage while be­ing able to ex­pe­ri­ence new cul­tures and en­vi­ron­ments. This would be an op­por­tu­ni­ty for me to rep­re­sent my coun­try proud­ly know­ing that I have giv­en it my all, through all the tri­als and tribu­la­tions. This would be a once in a life­time ex­pe­ri­ence that I will nev­er for­get.” Ty War­wick

“Go­ing to Nicaragua feels like an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case our skills and it shows us what the com­pe­ti­tion is like out­side of our coun­try” Ju­lia George

“I look for­ward to hear­ing my na­tion­al an­them play in an­oth­er coun­try know­ing that I did my best to make that hap­pen” Mya Ray­mond

Par­ents ‘the un­sung he­roes of the ath­lete’

Par­ents de­vot­ed a lot of their time chap­er­on­ing their chil­dren to and from train­ing ses­sions and even car­pool when nec­es­sary to en­sure that all they girls can be at train­ing. Par­ents of­ten play the role of nurs­es, doc­tors and physio ther­a­pist when the in­evitable in­jury hap­pens.

Some par­ents would take time off to trav­el with their chil­dren just to en­sure that they make it to train­ing safe­ly and on sched­ule. One moth­er even lament­ing that she ‘sells pineap­ple chow to earn ex­tra cash to en­sure that her daugh­ter has every­thing she needs to con­tin­ue to train’. Not to men­tion the play­er from Point Fortin who nev­er miss­es a train­ing ses­sion and is al­ways on time.

Be­ing a par­ent of ath­letes can be very cost­ly, as footwear, uni­form, sports bra, pro­tec­tive knee and an­kle bands and oth­er ne­ces­si­ties, can put a strain on your bud­get. Par­ents al­so have to en­sure that these young ath­letes eat prop­er­ly and have the right bal­ance of di­et and rest to fu­el their bod­ies with the nu­tri­tion it needs to put out their best.

The par­ent’s com­mit­ment is a com­mit­ment to as­sist­ing these young ladies to achieve their life goals of pos­si­bly one day play­ing for the WN­BA, even if it means sit­ting on the hard bleach­ers in the stands some more qui­et than oth­ers, while wit­ness­ing the process of their child’s de­vel­op­ment in the sport.

WHAT CAN THE PUB­LIC DO TO AS­SIST

At the mo­ment, with just three more days to go be­fore the ex­pect­ed de­par­ture, we are un­cer­tain about fund­ing for this trip. This can po­ten­tial­ly dash the hopes of these young ladies af­ter they trained so hard for two con­sec­u­tive years. What our girls did not an­tic­i­pate, is to be told at this last minute, that no fund­ing was in place to fa­cil­i­tate this trip.

It would be heart­break­ing if these young ladies could not par­tic­i­pate in this tour­na­ment; they have worked ex­treme­ly hard and giv­en all that was re­quest­ed of them over al­most two years of train­ing. The par­ents and tech­ni­cal team mem­bers have sac­ri­ficed time, and fi­nances, among oth­er things, to pre­pare the girls for this op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Your kind con­tri­bu­tion will as­sist these young ladies in ful­fill­ing one of their goals. You can con­tribute di­rect­ly on the Go­Fund Me page cre­at­ed:

https://go­fund.me/b267fb­fa

We are very proud of all our girls and wish them all the best while we re­main hope­ful that with your sup­port, we can still make this hap­pen for them.

T&T U-17 women’s squad:

Amari­ah Clyne, Caris­sa Ram­di­al, Ty War­wick, Mya Ray­mond, Ju­lia George, Kyra Kirk, Melis­sa Pierre, Jameela James, Faith Ham­let, Cayann Sel­l­i­er, Jus­tice Leon, Mari­ah Charles.

Coach­es: Learie Sandy (Head Coach), Garvin War­wick (As­sis­tant Coach) Trim­maine Gan­teaume (2nd As­sis­tant Coach/Train­er) Ju­dith-Ann Robert­son-Daniel (Man­ag­er).