You're al­ways there for me

Have al­ways been around for me, even when I was bad

You showed me right from my wrong

Yes, you did

And you took up for me

When every­one was down­in' me

You al­ways did un­der­stand

You gave me strength to go on

There were so many times

Look­ing back when I was so afraid

And then you'd come to me and say to me

I could face any­thing- Boyz 11 Men- A Song For Mamá Lyrics

May 12, was the 2nd Moth­er's Day since the pass­ing of our beloved ma­tri­arch.

Her ded­i­ca­tion, un­wa­ver­ing and un­con­di­tion­al love, and in­domitable will to be the best moth­er she can be bring­ing up her four chil­dren sin­gle par­ent in Bel­mont im­pact­ed my life - I wouldn't be who I am were it not for her. I think about her, I hear her voice every day. She was and still is my guid­ing light.

To this day, I still see her smile of pride as she pre­sent­ed me with my 2nd place prize at a Bel­mont Boy's RC school sport day many moons ago. Dur­ing my pri­ma­ry school days, I dis­played some tal­ent and po­ten­tial as a sprint­er to the point that the late Al­bert King- then a teacher at the school en­cour­aged me to get se­ri­ous about track and join Hamp­ton Ath­let­ic Club un­der the leg­endary coach Hu­bert Fran­cis.

That my track ca­reer didn't progress to match Mr. King's con­fi­dence in my tal­ent, po­ten­tial and abil­i­ty were down to my ten­den­cy to be " own way". Child­hood is­sues notwith­stand­ing the love of my moth­er pro­voked my lack of dis­ci­pline.

Grow­ing up with­out a fa­ther fu­elled a "chip on the shoul­der anger, re­sent­ment, and at­ti­tude". Dur­ing that pe­ri­od- 1970s " al­lyuh Bel­mont boys" was a cen­sure. 1970s Bel­mont was a so­cial iden­ti­ty in the Black Pow­er move­ment against so­cial in­jus­tice, eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty, and in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized racism.

NJAC, NUFF, and Pine­top­pers Jou­vert's band res­onat­ed. Some con­sid­ered the then gov­ern­ment "a Black mask for the white face of im­pe­ri­al­ism."

How­ev­er, mu­sic, cul­ture, and sports were al­ways medi­ums of pos­i­tive em­pow­er­ment, self-es­teem, and self-ex­pres­sion.

My moth­er would stri­dent­ly de­clare " Learn from the past but don't live in the past."Un­con­ven­tion­al in her ap­proach. Her joy she would ar­tic­u­late from time to time as we be­came adults was "Ben­jamin Spock didn't have to bring up four chil­dren with no fa­ther in Bel­mont." No more than 5ft. 2 inch­es even in heels she packed a heavy­weight punch and rod of dis­ci­pline ."Spock could say what he wants but none of my chil­dren make a jail." That was her gold medal.

Notwith­stand­ing any dis­ci­pli­nary is­sues or un­der­per­for­mance aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly I don't ever re­call my moth­er ban­ning or sus­pend­ing us from sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ty as pun­ish­ment.

I would have got­ten licks for go­ing to Bel­mont Park or the school­yard to 'kick­ball'. Her an­noy­ance was fu­elled by the fact that no one could an­swer her" Where is Bri­an ?". She didn't mind us go­ing and play­ing but let her know and " Do your chores first."

While she wasn't "sporty" she nev­er dis­cour­aged or damp­ened our in­ter­est in sports.

Hence my pas­sion for the pos­i­tive lega­cy of sport in the lives of pre-teenagers, mid-teens, and old­er teens. The im­por­tance of fa­mil­ial in­flu­ence and some­one you re­spect in nur­tur­ing a life­long in­ter­est and en­thu­si­asm for sport can­not be un­der­stat­ed.

"Every gen­er­a­tion must out of rel­a­tive ob­scu­ri­ty, dis­cov­er its mis­sion to ful­fill it or be­tray it" - Frantz Fanon.