For many of us who grew up out­side the tra­di­tion­al ar­eas of op­por­tu­ni­ty in Princes Town, Ma­yaro, Rio Claro, Bar­rack­pore, La Brea, Point Fortin, Ica­cos and sim­i­lar com­mu­ni­ties, the jour­ney in­to sport, or sport ad­min­is­tra­tion, nev­er be­gan un­der bright lights. It be­gan on the road.

Long be­fore con­tracts, call-ups, or recog­ni­tion, there were ear­ly morn­ings, heavy bags, missed taxis, and long hours of trav­el just to reach train­ing, tri­als, match­es, or work in Port-of-Spain, Ari­ma, or San Fer­nan­do.

Two hours on the road each way was not un­usu­al, and of­ten, that was on a good day. Nowa­days those jour­neys could last any­where up to three hours; just ask any pro­fes­sion­al com­mut­ing via the Solomon Ho­choy High­way to reach their lo­ca­tion of pro­fes­sion dur­ing the ear­ly- to mid-morn­ing win­dow.

For for­mer West In­dies and Trinidad and To­ba­go crick­eter Samuel Badree, that jour­ney from Bar­rack­pore was a defin­ing part of his de­vel­op­ment.

As he put it in our con­ver­sa­tion a cou­ple of days ago, “From the in­cep­tion, as a young ath­lete com­ing from rur­al Bar­rack­pore, it was al­ways a chal­lenge get­ting to and from venues, par­tic­u­lar­ly when you pro­gressed and start­ed mak­ing na­tion­al teams and get­ting called for tri­als.”

Back then, Badree ex­plains, every­thing was cen­tred in Port of Spain, main­ly at Queen’s Park, long be­fore the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre in Cou­va or oth­er satel­lite venues ex­ist­ed. Trav­el was nev­er just in­con­ve­nient; it was a bur­den.

Car­ry­ing a crick­et bag made things even hard­er. Taxi dri­vers would of­ten pass once they saw the equip­ment, un­will­ing to open a trunk or un­sure if there was enough space, es­pe­cial­ly when trav­el­ling with an­oth­er crick­eter. Get­ting trans­port be­came a dai­ly con­test of pa­tience and per­sis­tence.

Yet, for Badree, the break­through was men­tal.

“One of the things I did was un­der­stand and ac­cept that it was part of the jour­ney,” he ex­plains.

“I an­chored my goals to the process. What I was go­ing through was get­ting me clos­er to where I want­ed to be, be­com­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al ath­lete.”

That per­spec­tive mat­tered. Even while fac­ing chal­lenges, he recog­nised that many young crick­eters want­ed to be where he was, and that aware­ness ground­ed him.

More im­por­tant­ly, he learnt to man­age en­er­gy, not time.

“There were many times you were tired, frus­trat­ed, get­ting home late at night and leav­ing ear­ly the next morn­ing,” Badree re­calls.

“But I used that com­mute wise­ly by catch­ing a quick nap and stay­ing hy­drat­ed. It be­came prepa­ra­tion rather than pun­ish­ment.”

That aware­ness pro­tect­ed his on-field per­for­mance. And over time, those jour­neys built some­thing deep­er.

“That process makes you more men­tal­ly tough,” Badree said.

“You in­ter­act with peo­ple, and you hear sto­ries in taxis, some frus­trat­ing, some fun­ny, and some ed­u­ca­tion­al. It all be­comes part of who you are.”

Crick­eters Daren Gan­ga and Ja­son Mo­hammed, al­so from Bar­rack­pore, en­dured sim­i­lar long com­mutes. Levi Gar­cía, ris­ing from San­ta Flo­ra, trav­elled the same un­for­giv­ing roads be­fore be­com­ing one of our most ex­cit­ing foot­ball ex­ports.

Justin Sadoo of De­fence Force FC and cur­rent se­nior team and Por­tu­gal-based mid­field­er Jer­rin Jack­ie from Fuller­ton, Ica­cos, did not grow up with the lux­u­ry of al­ways hav­ing a place to overnight in San Fer­nan­do, Ch­agua­nas or Port of Spain.

Show­ing up meant trav­el­ling con­sis­tent­ly and re­lent­less­ly, and I know this re­al­i­ty per­son­al­ly.

At 17, when I be­gan free­lanc­ing at the Guardian head of­fice in 1997, I trav­elled dai­ly by taxi from Princes Town.

Af­ter cov­er­ing SS­FL match­es or the then Craven A se­mi-pro league and then the TT Pro League, I would of­ten leave Port-of-Spain af­ter 10 pm by taxi head­ing south, on­ly to re­peat the cy­cle the next morn­ing.

I did that for four years be­fore I could af­ford my first car, a sil­ver Toy­ota Wingroad, short­ly be­fore be­ing hired by the TTFF as the first of­fi­cial press of­fi­cer for the se­nior men’s na­tion­al team. That op­por­tu­ni­ty came thanks to Jack Warn­er and Ol­lie Camps, but it was sus­tained by years of com­mit­ment long be­fore the ti­tle ar­rived.

The dis­ad­van­tages of this rur­al jour­ney are re­al: ex­haus­tion, cost, lost time, lim­it­ed re­cov­ery, and con­stant lo­gis­ti­cal stress. But the ad­van­tages are just as re­al, with dis­ci­pline, grat­i­tude, adapt­abil­i­ty, and re­silience forged un­der pres­sure.

To the young ath­letes read­ing this: the road you trav­el is not a pun­ish­ment. It is prepa­ra­tion. Every ear­ly morn­ing, every long ride, and every in­con­ve­nience builds some­thing with­in you that com­fort nev­er will. Tal­ent may open a door, but en­durance keeps it open.

Spare a thought too for those ath­letes who, de­spite ob­vi­ous abil­i­ty, do not al­ways per­form at their best or nev­er quite go on to ful­fil ca­reers that once seemed promised.

For some, the weight of con­stant trav­el, fi­nan­cial strain, fa­tigue and cir­cum­stance qui­et­ly erodes op­por­tu­ni­ty long be­fore tal­ent runs out.

To­ba­go’s ath­letes face an even steep­er climb, of­ten hav­ing to trav­el by boat or plane to Trinidad just to at­tend train­ing camps, tri­als or na­tion­al pro­grammes, adding an­oth­er lay­er of cost, dis­rup­tion and sep­a­ra­tion from home.

It is a re­al­i­ty that has shaped even our great­est sto­ries: Dwight Yorke, ar­guably Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most cel­e­brat­ed foot­baller, left To­ba­go as a teenag­er to live in Trinidad while at­tend­ing St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary, a sac­ri­fice that un­der­scores how ear­ly, and how deeply, the jour­ney of­ten de­mands more than just skill.