Bun­ji Gar­lin in his vast­ly pop­u­lar So­ca mas­ter­class "Car­ry it" again sends a sig­nal to the peo­ple of T&T.

“I come from when ground used to car­ry it

We used to car­ry it

When the ground used to car­ry it

We used to car­ry it

When the ground used to car­ry it

We used to car­ry it

When the ground used to car­ry it

We used to car­ry it.”

And while I am un­cer­tain and it can be ques­tioned whether he is pri­mar­i­ly or sole­ly speak­ing from a sports per­spec­tive, hav­ing ten years ago, com­men­tat­ed a fun char­i­ty foot­ball match, where his wife Faye Ann Lyons showed she could hold her own on a foot­ball field, I know both have sports in their hearts and prob­a­bly be­ing close to Kieron Pol­lard and Dwayne Bra­vo has in­ten­si­fied such love and aware­ness.

In his tune, he speaks on the lessons of his­to­ry and the mag­ic of the peo­ple who car­ried it from ground lev­el and, im­por­tant­ly, at times against the odds, not on­ly made it work but suc­ceed­ed.

“Yes, I can hear them say­ing, boy stop liv­ing in the past,

Where can I find that en­er­gy, the raw raw mag­ic that comes down from the grass-roots”.

So, I would like to beg their col­lec­tive in­dul­gence and use the words from “car­ry it “, to give hope to many in sports who find both ad­min­is­tra­tors and of­fi­cials stand­ing in their way of progress and at times even some of their coun­ter­parts.

With that in mind, can we find a way to en­cour­age our young and up­com­ing sports­men and sports­women to “car­ry it” and find the re­solve and tem­pera­ment to grow in their re­spec­tive sports?

Per­haps, our his­to­ry as Bun­ji Gar­lin clas­si­cal­ly tells us, can be in­ter­pret­ed to tell us of some who have risen from the ash­es (a Lenten re­treat can work won­ders on your soul) and soared to great heights.

For me, names such as Hase­ly Craw­ford, Bri­an Charles Lara, Lar­ry Gomes, Ato Boldon, Sha­ka His­lop and Dwight Yorke can be sig­nif­i­cant lead­ers who have re­tired af­ter loads of suc­cess and whose life­long sto­ries should act as mo­ti­va­tion to many.

We as peo­ple who care about sports in these times where there are so much temp­ta­tions and dis­trac­tions, may need to help sev­er­al of our up-and-com­ing young­sters see their way and who knows maybe “car­ry it “, yes car­ry the load for them, when it did not mat­ter who we are or where we came from, as Gar­lin so ex­plic­it­ly told us all.

“Down­town fete was a safe space

30,000 peo­ple of dif­fer­ent back­ground

Con­verge on PSA grounds

Shak­ing like a earth­quake

But every­one was fine.”

I can think of ex­am­ples of such in crick­et, foot­ball, hock­ey and swim­ming in par­tic­u­lar, where we have all wit­nessed the lead­er­ship qual­i­ties of many of our ex-play­ers and some of those who are close to re­tire­ment as they set tar­gets with or with­out the ad­min­is­tra­tion, by tak­ing every­thing on their shoul­ders and at­tempt­ing to clear a path­way. Oth­er sports like net­ball, bas­ket­ball, ten­nis, horse rac­ing and box­ing have the po­ten­tial to im­prove if they can get the cor­rect sup­port in and around their main play­ers.

There are, how­ev­er, both good and bad in that, be­cause some­times those that fol­low do not want to car­ry any load and fail to ful­fil their promise be­cause per­haps it was all too easy (main ex­am­ple, many of the per­sons who eas­i­ly earn a West In­dies Test cap with few cen­turies or wick­ets to their names). Some be­lieve there are great ben­e­fits to toil­ing in the vine­yards, but I be­lieve in these mod­ern times there must be some mid­dle ground (how­ev­er, nev­er to com­pro­mise the in­tegri­ty of the sport) but enough to keep our youths fo­cussed on the right path.

Some may cor­rect­ly draw ref­er­ence to the in­fight­ing that ex­ists even in the Ca­lyp­so/So­ca in­dus­try, as yet fur­ther ev­i­dence of self­ish ac­tions by some, but even then, we must fight it and car­ry on the bat­tle cry from Bun­ji Gar­lin (a man of the peo­ple).

There is a need to look deep­er in­to this thought-pro­vok­ing and in­spi­ra­tional "Car­ry It", sim­i­lar to Helon Fran­cis’ "Mighty" from 2023, which has be­come a land­mark song for the peo­ple of T&T, de­spite what re­sults in com­pe­ti­tion, may lead us to be­lieve.

So we need to find a way to ask many of those in sports in T&T to lis­ten care­ful­ly to "Car­ry It", over and over un­til they un­der­stand the full pow­er of this song, I leave you with some ways of draw­ing on the uni­ty of sports and cul­ture, sel­dom ap­pre­ci­at­ed by many in au­thor­i­ty.

“Down­town fete was the vibes when

West peo­ple leave from, link John John and Beetham

To head to the play­ground

And who they link in­side,

Ari­ma and Cen­tral, To­ba­go and South­side

Cho­rus:

“I come from when ground used to car­ry it

We used to car­ry it

When the ground used to car­ry it

We used to car­ry it

When the ground used to car­ry it

We used to car­ry it

When the ground used to car­ry it

We used to car­ry it.”