'Good is the en­vy of great'. This pow­er­ful quote came from the mouth of Olympic swim­ming medal­list George Bovell III at 'In­spi­ra­tion', the four-day sym­po­sium host­ed by The Guardian's Sports Desk and the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel from April 18th to 21st. Bovell was on­ly one of sev­er­al speak­ers to stim­u­late the minds of over 200 Sec­ondary School lead­ers from schools across the coun­try, all of whom left with a re­newed sense of pur­pose and a blue­print to im­prove our lives.

We wait­ed in an­tic­i­pa­tion for those four days and I can speak for all my col­leagues when I say we were nev­er let down. They were four of the most ex­cit­ing and ed­u­ca­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence of our lives, and when it end­ed on Thurs­day, every­one was al­ready run­ning to co­or­di­na­tor Valenti­no Singh, not on­ly to thank him but to reg­is­ter again for next year - so won­der­ful was the ex­pe­ri­ence. Mr V, as we call him, opened the event with a brief his­to­ry and urged us to have fun through­out the four days, which we did. He was fol­lowed by sec­re­tary of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee, Bri­an Lewis, who brought greet­ings and told us sport gives hope and pro­vide role mod­els and men­tors who we can em­u­late.

Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, Anil Roberts, im­me­di­ate­ly cap­tured our at­ten­tion with his down-to-earth per­son­al­i­ty. He is one 'root­sy' Min­is­ter, re­al cool and we all loved him since he makes every­thing sound so easy to do. Those fa­mil­iar with his per­son­al­i­ty know he is al­ways en­ter­tain­ing but de­liv­ers a pow­er­ful mes­sage. Min­is­ter Roberts re­mind­ed us that we must ap­pre­ci­ate and re­spect our na­tion­al an­them. He en­cour­aged us to en­joy the suc­cess­es of oth­ers as this was the way to our suc­cess. With this pre­sen­ta­tion he def­i­nite­ly in­spired stu­dents to make self­less con­tri­bu­tions to their coun­try.

There­after, it was a steady pro­ces­sion of in­spi­ra­tion. Na­tion­al crick­et cap­tain and Am­bas­sador Daren Gan­ga re­mind­ed us 'God is the ul­ti­mate Leader'. He said: "Ef­fec­tive lead­ers prac­tice the law of nav­i­ga­tion and lead­ers nav­i­gate their way through life." He en­cour­aged us to act on our dreams and end­ed by ad­vis­ing that the great­est test of lead­er­ship is man­ag­ing crit­i­cism. West In­dies women's crick­et cap­tain, Meris­sa Aguilleira, told the sto­ry of her rise "From Moru­ga to Aus­tralia" which was in­deed re­fresh­ing. Meris­sa re­mind­ed us that hard work and per­se­ver­ance al­ways pays and she not­ed the many ob­sta­cles which she had to over­come be­fore be­com­ing the West In­dies cap­tain.

What can we say about mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er Don La Fou­cade? All of us love him. He is so cool! He was, as usu­al, en­ter­tain­ing but so mean­ing­ful. "The on­ly thing that changes the world neg­a­tive­ly or pos­i­tive­ly is an idea." He told us hon­esty is the ON­LY pol­i­cy and life is not what hap­pens to you but what you choose to do about it. "You have to go through pres­sure to come out pre­cious," and we all felt very spe­cial by the time his pre­sen­ta­tion was com­plet­ed. We begged Mr V to bring him back and he was there again on the fi­nal day. Thank you so much Mr. La Fou­cade, you tru­ly are an amaz­ing per­son.

World Ju­nior 400 me­tres hur­dles champ, Je­hue Gor­don, who is pur­su­ing a sports man­age­ment de­gree at UWI, told of the dif­fi­cul­ties he faced grow­ing up and urged us to re­main hum­ble re­gard­less of the suc­cess­es which came our way while Ca­lyp­so Monarch Karene As­che spoke of the dif­fi­cul­ties she ex­pe­ri­enced on the way to her ti­tle. She even sang for us. She is a de­light­ful young woman and we know she will con­tin­ue to do the na­tion proud. For­mer West In­dies fast bowler Tony Gray had us in stitch­es from the mo­ment he ar­rived. He is an­oth­er who re­mained hum­ble de­spite his suc­cess­es and the way he in­ter­act­ed with us made us very com­fort­able. He en­cour­aged us to seize op­por­tu­ni­ties and play by the rules. He said this starts at home with our par­ents. He ex­plained rules are im­por­tant since they act as a form of pro­tec­tion and en­sure suc­cess.

Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, Jack Warn­er, en­light­ened us on ways to be a good cit­i­zen which in­clude obey­ing laws, work­ing hard, hav­ing a good ed­u­ca­tion and learn­ing from your mis­takes. Min­is­ter Warn­er is in­deed a role mod­el since we heard his rise from noth­ing to what he is to­day. His mes­sage that noth­ing is im­pos­si­ble is a life ex­pe­ri­ence. Chris­t­ian Homer, Ju­nior Olympic gold medal­list told us that set­ting small goals lead to great things and en­cour­aged us to keep chal­leng­ing our­selves not let­ting any­one tell us we can­not do some­thing. His se­nior in swim­ming, Olympic swim­ming cham­pi­on George Bovell then wrapped up day three with the mes­sage that "Good is the en­vy of Great".

Bovell urged us to leave our com­fort zone if we wish to achieve great­ness. All of us want­ed pho­tos with him and in his usu­al charm­ing man­ner, he oblig­ed. The fi­nal day's mes­sage was de­liv­ered by Min­is­ter Of The Peo­ple And So­cial De­vel­op­ment, Dr. Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, who sug­gest­ed that when we be­gin some­thing, we must have the end in mind. "This is to en­sure that the out­come can be what they de­sired." Then it was on to the prize giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny with all stu­dents re­ceiv­ing cer­tifi­cates of par­tic­i­pa­tion, some get­ting su­per prizes and all get­ting a taste of some good fun with an ex­hi­bi­tion by the T&T Skate­board As­so­ci­a­tion and ex­tem­po from Black­sage.

The fun, hav­ing end­ed, we all left for home with a lot to pon­der. We wish there was an­oth­er Think­ing Sport in Au­gust. How about it Mr Min­is­ter? How about it Mr V?

Stephanie Seenath

Se­nior Press Pass Cor­re­spon­dent

Shi­va Boys' Hin­du Col­lege, Pe­nal