Bri­an Charles Lara, one of the great­est bats­men of all time!

To this day, sto­ries of Lara’s time at the Har­vard Club crick­et clin­ic are re­peat­ed with af­fec­tion and pride.

He is a liv­ing leg­end.

In 2006, Lara re­tired from in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et, a lega­cy that in­spire crick­eters around the world.

He re­mains in­volved in the sport shar­ing his wealth of knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence with the next gen­er­a­tion of crick­eters.

His jour­ney from a young boy in San­ta Cruz to be­com­ing one of crick­et’s great­est bats­men is a tes­ta­ment to his tal­ent, hard work, and ded­i­ca­tion.

He re­mains a hero in the world of crick­et and is cel­e­brat­ed as a true icon of the sport.

Bri­an Lara stands out for his world records for high­est scores, his abil­i­ty to play long in­nings and for a unique tal­ent for ris­ing up to the oc­ca­sion.

The el­e­gance and beau­ty of his strokes. He is de­scribed by many who have played with him and against him as a crick­et­ing ge­nius.

At six years of age, his fa­ther Bun­ty and his sis­ter Agnes Cyrus en­rolled him in the Har­vard Club Coach­ing Clin­ic where he was coached week­ly on Sun­days.

Trinidad and To­ba­go can be a puz­zling place at times. Maybe it’s cul­tur­al in­se­cu­ri­ty and lack of self-con­fi­dence that we tend to not give our sport he­roes their de­served re­spect.

As a re­sult, we al­low the pas­sage of time to di­lute and di­min­ish their achieve­ments.

We in­fuse the lens we look at our he­roes with en­vy and jeal­ousy and in so do­ing we don’t al­low the coun­try’s his­to­ry to be un­equiv­o­cal in its recog­ni­tion and doc­u­men­ta­tion.

We aren’t re­luc­tant to em­brace and ven­er­ate non-Trin­bag­o­ni­ans. How­ev­er, bring up the name of any Trin­bag­on­ian who has achieved in­ter­na­tion­al re­spect for their achieve­ments—and a “Tri­ni” will qual­i­fy any de­c­la­ra­tion with what they don’t like or they heard it said that (and will re­peat a neg­a­tive de­c­la­ra­tion) un­der the guise of be­ing hon­est. It’s a trait that dis­cred­its our peo­ple and our his­to­ry.

This is not to say our he­roes are per­fect and if they do some­thing wrong or in­ap­pro­pri­ate that they should not face the con­se­quences be it rep­u­ta­tion­al or oth­er­wise. No! That’s not what I am say­ing. It’s the un­found­ed and mis­in­formed opin­ions and views mas­querad­ing as facts that is prob­lem­at­ic.

At the re­cent Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers gala at the Hy­att Re­gency ho­tel, Dwayne Bra­vo told the au­di­ence that Bri­an Lara was his in­spi­ra­tion and hero.

Ramnaresh Sar­wan once ex­plained his awe of Lara by sim­ply say­ing he (Lara) is a crick­et­ing ge­nius. Through­out the crick­et world he is ad­dressed by many as “Leg­end”.

Nam­ing a Prom­e­nade af­ter him or a crick­et acad­e­my is one as­pect. There is a lot of fo­cus on “things” we give. What is even more im­por­tant than the “things” are the sto­ries.

That’s where the in­spi­ra­tion comes from. The sto­ries of hard work, ded­i­ca­tion and an un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to be the best you can be.

We can­not erase the past to val­i­date the present or the fu­ture.

The Har­vard Club mem­bers, sup­port­ers and friends are proud of Bri­an Charles Lara and the work and ef­fort over the many years of the un­sung he­roes who coach and nur­ture the chil­dren and youth who at­tend the Har­vard Club Clin­ics.

Stand tall! Stand proud! Hap­py Re­pub­lic Day Trinidad and To­ba­go. Let us em­brace our na­tion­al he­roes. Let their sto­ries be told. Let us teach our chil­dren what is good and great about Trinidad and To­ba­go.