For­mer na­tion­al ath­lete and Sports Hall of Fame in­ductee Richard “Quick­sil­ver” Nieves will be laid to rest Thursday fol­low­ing a fu­ner­al ser­vice from 10.30 am at St Fin­bar’s RC Church, Morne Co­co Road, West­moor­ings, thence to the Long Cir­cu­lar Cre­ma­to­ri­um.

He was the hus­band of Car­ol Nieves and the fa­ther to for­mer na­tion­al play­ers Kei­th Nieves, Gayle-Ann Nieves, and Dean Nieves, who now re­sides in Aus­tralia.

A for­mer Sham­rock and T&T foot­baller as well as a T&T Pan Amer­i­can Games hock­ey sil­ver medal win­ner, scor­ing six of the team’s 13 goals in Win­nipeg, Cana­da, Nieves was in­duct­ed in­to the First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion Hall of Fame in No­vem­ber 2011 for both hock­ey and foot­ball and passed away qui­et­ly at home at the age of 84 a week ago (Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 13).

Born on Oc­to­ber 17, 1940, in Port-of-Spain, Nieves, who was al­so called “Man on Wheels,” at­tend­ed St Joseph’s Prepara­to­ry School and then St Mary’s Col­lege from 1951 to 1958.

From ear­ly on at St Joseph’s Prep School, his foot­balling tal­ents were ev­i­dent as he was part of their 1950 un­der-12 win­ning team.

At the North­ern Am­a­teur Foot­ball League, Nieves made his de­but in 1957 and helped Hot­spurs to the league and knock­out ti­tles and al­so earned se­lec­tion to the North­ern League team.

All this was still while a stu­dent at St Mary’s Col­lege, where he was draugh­t­ed in­to their team to play the In­ter­col Fi­nal af­ter the coach saw him play­ing for Hot­spurs, and in his first game for the ‘Saints,’ he scored the win­ning goal in the De­cle Cup match, mak­ing them earn their team the crown.

He lift­ed an­oth­er ti­tle with St Mary’s in 1958, and a year lat­er he helped Sham­rock sweep all ti­tles, earn­ing him­self the Foot­baller of the Year.

He con­tin­ued to ply his trade with Sham­rock un­til the club fold­ed in 1967, dur­ing which time he donned the na­tion­al colours from 1960 to 1966 and then joined Queen’s Park Crick­et Club in 1968, where he was in­stru­men­tal in re­turn­ing both hock­ey and foot­ball back to the club and al­so served in the ca­pac­i­ty as cap­tain of both the hock­ey and foot­ball teams.

Among his oth­er no­table con­tri­bu­tions to sport were as coach, man­ag­er, and men­tor to the high­ly suc­cess­ful Mag­no­lias Hock­ey Club and the Fa­ti­ma Hock­ey Club for decades; man­ag­er and ad­min­is­tra­tor of the Queen’s Park Oval; sup­port­er and mo­ti­va­tor for the Fu­tur­i­stick Youth Hock­ey Pro­gramme.