The T&T track and field fra­ter­ni­ty has been plunged in­to mourn­ing with news that for­mer Olympian and na­tion­al mid­dle-dis­tance cham­pi­on Lennox Stew­art has passed away.

Stew­art who was born in 1949 and spent most of his life in San Fer­nan­do, was wide­ly ad­mired in this coun­try.

He was an avid run­ner and proud­ly rep­re­sent­ed T&T in the 800 me­tres at the 1971 Pan Amer­i­can Games fin­ish­ing fourth and at the 1972 Olympic Games in Mu­nich, West Ger­many where he pro­duced a time of 1:48.74 rank­ing fifth in his heat.

Through­out his com­pet­i­tive track and field ca­reer, he had many oth­er ac­com­plish­ments. One of his ma­jor ac­com­plish­ments from Stew­art's per­spec­tive was his beat­ing of the Unit­ed States pre­mier dis­tance run­ner Mar­ty Liquori at the Mel­rose Games in the USA.

'Stew­arty' as he was fond­ly called nev­er for­get that race but he spoke about it on many oc­ca­sions with his close friends like Hase­ly Craw­ford, the 1976 Olympic Games 100 me­tres gold medal­list, Win­ston "Fox" Em­manuel, and Char­lie Joseph two oth­er T&T in­ter­na­tion­al sprint­ers.

For Stew­art, Ed­u­ca­tion was al­so top on his agen­da and at Bre­vard Col­lege in North Car­oli­na, USA where he earned an AA in Ed­u­ca­tion and went on to fur­ther pur­sue his BA in Ed­u­ca­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na, where he grad­u­at­ed in 1973.

His for­mer stu­dent of Ch­agua­nas Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive and friend Hayes Jones spoke of his teacher and coach in glow­ing terms, he stat­ed, "Lennox Stew­art was a spe­cial kind of man. He was a man who you could you could de­pend up­on to do what was best for his stu­dents, his chil­dren, his friends, and his com­mu­ni­ty.

"He was a fair and hon­est man, a man of in­tegri­ty. Lennox was a men­tor to every­one and when he gave you ad­vice, it al­ways worked. I know be­cause I was a for­mer ath­lete un­der him. I have seen him change many a per­son from neg­a­tiv­i­ty to pos­i­tiv­i­ty. That was the pow­er of the man."

Jones con­tin­ued," I re­mem­ber when Stew­art re­turned home from the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na (UNC) where he has been en­shrined in the Hall of Fame, he did some­thing that made me and many of his friends stand and up and take no­tice.

He host­ed a 'Thank You Lunch' one Sun­day for the de­ceased for­mer na­tion­al coach Hu­bert Fran­cis, who was in­stru­men­tal in his re­ceiv­ing a schol­ar­ship from UNC. What he said to Hu­bert Fran­cis then would nev­er be for­got­ten, 'He stat­ed, "I want to tell you thanks be­cause many peo­ple will not tell you thanks but I will. That was the kind of hu­man be­ing 'Stew­arty' was, lov­ing, car­ing, kind but most im­por­tant­ly grate­ful.

"Look­ing back, at my time at Ch­agua­nas Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive, you could nev­er for­get his labour of love and com­mit­ment to his stu­dent and school. When we were leav­ing to go and com­pete at the Sec­ondary Schools Track and Field Cham­pi­onship and the bus was filled, you will see his Blue Pick-up ap­pear and all the oth­er stu­dents will get aboard and go to the cham­pi­onships. If any of the ath­letes were hun­gry, he would buy food and drinks for all, that was the mea­sure of the man. He was a man of prin­ci­ple, he was in­deed a great man."

It has been stat­ed up to a decade ago he would still be get­ting gear from his old spon­sor Adi­das.

In end­ing Jones said, "He nev­er for­got where he came from and knew grat­i­tude comes from where it is ex­pect­ed. He beat can­cer and he beat Covid-19, but the self­less man has gone home to meet his mak­er."

His wife Liz has stat­ed that his fu­ner­al will be on June 30 but be­fore that, there will be vir­tu­al wakes and a Memo­r­i­al Ser­vice on June 29.

Lennox leaves to mourn his wife and his three sons Josh, Jesse, and Sean.

His son Jesse was a for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller and is now a top So­ca artiste with the so­bri­quet "Col­lege Boy Jesse". He won the Groovy So­ca Monarch with his hit "Hap­py Song" in 2020.

May Lennox Stew­art rest in eter­nal peace.