JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Sport reflects all areas of life

by

Brian Lewis
526 days ago
20230912

Ef­fec­tive trans­for­ma­tion­al and res­o­nant lead­er­ship is a vo­ca­tion of ser­vice and stew­ard­ship that re­quires lead­ers to reg­u­lar­ly take time to look at their or­gan­i­sa­tion and lead­er­ship style with a clean sheet of pa­per and to ask hard ques­tions of the per­son in the mir­ror. To take stock.

Last Thurs­day at the fourth edi­tion of Sport In­tegri­ty Week, a glob­al ini­tia­tive of Sport In­tegri­ty Glob­al Al­liance (SIGA), the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC) host­ed a we­bi­nar en­ti­tled “Fi­nan­cial Trans­paren­cy and In­tegri­ty What is it? Why is it im­por­tant?” as part of their host­ing part­ner­ship com­mit­ment with SIGA.

The we­bi­nar was well re­ceived, there were 116 par­tic­i­pants. The in­for­ma­tion and we­bi­nar link was wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed. The one dis­ap­point­ment is that more sport lead­ers didn’t seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty to take stock.

One may ask why giv­en that every­one in­clud­ing the me­dia and di­verse stake­hold­ers in and out­side of sport over the years have made the is­sue of a per­ceived lack of in­tegri­ty, and poor gov­er­nance in sport lead­er­ship and ad­min­is­tra­tion, the head­line talk­ing point. I may be bold to say, not for the first time, that sport does not ex­ist in a vac­u­um from the rest of so­ci­ety. Sport re­flects so­ci­ety. It’s the same thing in all oth­er as­pects of na­tion­al life be it pol­i­tics, busi­ness or oth­er­wise. There is a gen­er­al re­luc­tance to ad­dress the facts and the truth and to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty for the so­lu­tions.

We en­joy the gos­sip, point­ing fin­gers and cast­ing blame but when it comes time to “Bell the Cat” it’s “a horse of a dif­fer­ent colour”.

Last Thurs­day, Nathaniel “Nat­ty” James got his first goal at se­nior lev­el for the na­tion­al side. James scored the win­ning goal against Cu­ra­cao in the open­ing match of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 2023/24 CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League A cam­paign at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain. As he cel­e­brat­ed his goal in the 87th minute, James, took off his shirt to re­veal this mes­sage “RIP Kay­lon Ja­cob...stop the vi­o­lence in La Hor­quet­ta”.

Af­ter the match, James ex­plained, “It was just a trib­ute to my friend who passed away due to gun vi­o­lence in La Hor­quet­ta. I just want­ed to ded­i­cate the goal to him. Ja­cob was from my com­mu­ni­ty. It was about me show­ing love. It was a big mo­ment for my com­mu­ni­ty be­cause there has been a lot of vi­o­lence in La Hor­quet­ta these days.

“It was just ba­si­cal­ly a mes­sage to every­one. We need to come to­geth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty and as a coun­try and just be one with each oth­er and live in har­mo­ny.”

The 19-year-old used his plat­form to show courage and lead­er­ship to send a sober­ing mes­sage about gun vi­o­lence. How many elect­ed and ap­point­ed sport lead­ers do the op­po­site and use their plat­form on­ly for self-in­ter­est and self-ag­gran­dis­e­ment, priv­i­lege and en­ti­tle­ment? The feel­ing of in­jus­tice is enor­mous with­in the so­ci­ety. Fear stalks the land. Peo­ple’s hearts are hurt­ing.

How­ev­er, let’s not for­get sport mir­rors life. Sport lead­ers re­flect lead­ers and lead­er­ship in all oth­er ar­eas of life. No mat­ter how tal­ent­ed and suc­cess­ful a leader you are, you will make mis­takes. You will de­vel­op bad habits. Tak­ing stock is im­por­tant and a key suc­cess fac­tor.

Gun vi­o­lence is a cri­sis. When there is a cri­sis, you have to show peo­ple you re­al­ly care and that you are tak­ing care of their con­cerns. As lead­ers do our words and ac­tions re­flect what peo­ple are feel­ing?


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored