So, last week I dipped my toes in­to the murky wa­ters of pol­i­tics and, sur­pris­ing­ly, I didn’t get eat­en alive! I sin­cere­ly thank all who saw me or sent mes­sages in­form­ing me how they liked it. But let’s be clear, that wasn’t a love let­ter to the politi­cians; the ar­ti­cle was sim­ply meant for the pow­ers that be, who now have an over­whelm­ing man­date from the peo­ple of T&T, to get sport mov­ing in the right and pos­i­tive di­rec­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, on Sat­ur­day, swore in her cab­i­net, and I sat down on the edge of my chair, wait­ing to see who would have been giv­en the nod for Min­is­ter of Sport. I had one name in my mind be­cause I could not think of any oth­er name that would be ap­point­ed to the very im­por­tant port­fo­lio for all sport­ing en­thu­si­asts in the coun­try. It got even worse as she was nam­ing min­is­ter af­ter min­is­ter, ju­nior min­is­ters, then par­lia­men­tary sec­re­taries, but no Min­is­ter of Sport, then fi­nal­ly the name came out, the Ho­n­ourable Mr Phillip Watts.

That’s fine be­cause I don’t know the gen­tle­man; all I know is what I read lead­ing up to the Gen­er­al Elec­tion. I have ab­solute­ly no clue as to his sport­ing back­ground, and maybe in an in­ter­view he gave that in­for­ma­tion, but I must have missed it. I called one of my favourite play­ers when I was coach­ing Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, hop­ing he had the scoop on the new min­is­ter’s sport­ing back­ground. In­stead of in­tel, he gave me the min­is­ter’s num­ber! Ob­vi­ous­ly, the gen­tle­man is busier than a bar­tender on Car­ni­val Tues­day, but I am sure in the weeks to come, the min­is­ter will let the pub­lic know his back­ground in the sport­ing are­na and his plans for sport go­ing for­ward. Look, he didn’t have to win Olympic gold to qual­i­fy to be Min­is­ter of Sport, but a gen­uine pas­sion and a clue about what’s what is all we ask for.

I would ex­pect he would have a deep un­der­stand­ing of the role of sports in the coun­try, with­in com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, and some knowl­edge of sports ad­min­is­tra­tion or re­lat­ed fields, which I am con­fi­dent he would have. I would not go in­to each of these roles as they are self-ex­plana­to­ry. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills are a must for any min­is­ter to ef­fec­tive­ly man­age their min­istry and to en­gage stake­hold­ers. What I’m hop­ing for is a min­is­ter who un­der­stands that sports isn’t just a hob­by; it’s com­mu­ni­ty glue, a way to get the young­sters to block shots on the foot­ball field, rather than shots on the block.

So, con­grat­u­la­tions to Min­is­ter Watts, let me wish him all suc­cess with his port­fo­lio and that he over­sees one of the most suc­cess­ful eras of sport in this coun­try. As far as I am con­cerned, the dust has set­tled on the po­lit­i­cal pitch, and the um­pires have giv­en their ver­dicts, that dread­ed in­dex fin­ger has gone up. As a pa­tri­ot and sports en­thu­si­ast, I’m com­pelled to look be­yond the im­me­di­ate re­sults and ask a very sim­ple ques­tion: What’s the game plan for our na­tion’s sport­ing fu­ture? In con­grat­u­lat­ing the UNC (again) for their vic­to­ry and David for his tri­umph in To­ba­go, the re­al work now be­gins.

Let’s cut to the chase, and as I sug­gest­ed in my last ar­ti­cle, our sport­ing in­fra­struc­ture is in dire need of a ma­jor over­haul. My dear read­ers, I don’t know about you, but I heard the cam­paign speech­es, wit­nessed the po­lit­i­cal strate­gies, and even at­tend­ed a meet­ing in my com­mu­ni­ty to hear what was on of­fer, but where’s the roadmap for re­vi­tal­is­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sports? We con­tin­u­al­ly boast of our abun­dant tal­ent, how many times we have been told, “come and see” this play­er or that play­er, and they don’t have the prop­er in­fra­struc­ture to move on to greater things. We’ve all seen that kid with un­be­liev­able tal­ent, the next big thing, on­ly for them to fade away be­cause the “big things” in­fra­struc­ture just isn’t there.

The last time that hap­pened to me, an Un­der-14 coach at Fa­ti­ma called me to see a 13-year-old bat in his own words, he said, “Col­in, I want you to come down to the grounds lat­er and see this lit­tle fel­la bat, he is a dy­na­mite”. I thought to my­self, “how good could this young­ster be?” When I got to the ground, the pads were reach­ing him by his waist, and he could hard­ly get the ball to the bound­ary, but he did not miss a ball, and every sin­gle shot was find­ing the gaps in the field. He got an un­beat­en 100, his name was Bri­an Charles Lara. But he is an ex­cep­tion, be­cause for every Lara, there are count­less oth­ers whose po­ten­tial gets swal­lowed by bad fields and no equip­ment. Even though our young ath­letes are brim­ming with po­ten­tial, they’re play­ing on di­lap­i­dat­ed fields, train­ing in out­dat­ed fa­cil­i­ties, and lack­ing the re­sources to com­pete on a glob­al stage.

It’s time for our new­ly elect­ed lead­ers to step up and de­liv­er. We need con­crete ac­tion, not emp­ty rhetoric. We need a com­pre­hen­sive strat­e­gy that ad­dress­es in­fra­struc­ture in­vest­ment. A na­tion­wide au­dit of sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties is cru­cial. Our Youth De­vel­op­ment Pro­grammes need at­ten­tion, as fund­ing for grass­roots sports pro­grammes is es­sen­tial. We need to in­vest in coach­ing, equip­ment, and train­ing fa­cil­i­ties to nur­ture young tal­ent from an ear­ly age. Our sport­ing as­so­ci­a­tions are strug­gling to sur­vive. They need sus­tain­able fund­ing to im­ple­ment their de­vel­op­ment plans, or­gan­ise com­pe­ti­tions and send in­di­vid­u­als and teams to in­ter­na­tion­al events. Col­lab­o­ra­tion with the cor­po­rate sec­tor is need­ed. We need to cre­ate in­cen­tives for busi­ness­es to in­vest in sports de­vel­op­ment and spon­sor our ath­letes.

Sport can be a pow­er­ful tool for pos­i­tive change. Now, it’s time for sports to take cen­tre stage. Our ath­letes have proven time and again that they can com­pete with the best in the world (ask Yorke, Lara, Craw­ford, Wal­cott, Ames, Gib­bon), but they need the tools and our sup­port to suc­ceed.

Let’s chal­lenge our lead­ers to make sports a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty. Let’s de­mand a tan­gi­ble com­mit­ment to build­ing a sport­ing lega­cy that will in­spire gen­er­a­tions to come. Let’s en­sure that the next time a T&T team hoists a tro­phy, they do so on a play­ing field that re­flects the true po­ten­tial of our na­tion.

The voice of the peo­ple has spo­ken in al­most every nook and cran­ny of this coun­try. Now, let’s make sure that the voic­es echo in the sta­di­ums, on the fields, and in the hearts of our young ath­letes. Let’s score some runs, points, goals, or what­ev­er is your pref­er­ence for T&T’s sport­ing fu­ture.