A few years ago, I drew ref­er­ence to what I will re­peat here be­cause sad­ly the more things change in this coun­try, the more they re­main the same in our sport­ing doc­trine.

As the Lenten sea­son for Chris­tians be­gan to­day (Ash Wednes­day), this is the time over the next 40 days to ad­dress your demons and rid your­self of bur­dens and those that would seek to keep your progress down; if you can use this ex­tra time to en­hance your­self and set your goals go­ing for­ward with a clear per­spec­tive of the path­way, it can be crit­i­cal.

So, let us re­vis­it the peren­ni­al prob­lem in sports in this coun­try over the years.

There is a point where you must be pa­tient and wait for the right time to make your move, to de­liv­er the blow that will de­fine your ex­is­tence and fur­ther em­pha­sise your strength in both po­si­tion and fu­ture re­la­tions.

This is ap­plic­a­ble in your life, from sports to what­ev­er may keep you mo­ti­vat­ed. For our sport­ing per­son­al­i­ties, Car­ni­val is nor­mal­ly a time for both re­lax­ation and re­flec­tion, as many use this time to ei­ther re­lieve some pent-up pres­sure on the streets of T&T while oth­ers may re­lax at the sea­side in the great com­pa­ny of friends and fam­i­ly.

In the Bible and some an­tique cul­tures, ash­es are used to sym­bol­ise frailty, mourn­ing, sin, death, and re­pen­tance. The death of the old self is a cen­tral theme in TS Eliot's po­em "Ash Wednes­day" as well as the turn­ing (con­ver­sion) to a new path.

This po­em best per­son­i­fies the im­por­tance of sports to over 1.4 mil­lion per­sons in T&T. It is root­ed in our love of his­to­ry and the im­mense pride and pas­sion the suc­cess of our sport­ing stars has brought to the hearts of all, al­beit there are many in this coun­try that con­tin­ue to be­lieve sports is mere­ly about en­ter­tain­ment.

As we con­tin­ue to seek di­vine in­ter­ven­tion in some of our sports, such as net­ball, bas­ket­ball, and West In­dies crick­et, per­haps the site lit­er­a­ture.com pro­vides lit­er­a­ture that is ap­pro­pri­ate for our Lenten sport­ing lessons. “This sec­tion de­rives from a sec­tion of Dante’s Pur­ga­to­rio (the mid­dle part of The Di­vine Com­e­dy). At the first turn of the sec­ond stair, he meets a shape grap­pling with the dev­il: this ‘shape’ is his past self. He has con­quered doubt and de­spair and can as­cend. He pass­es on to the win­dow, which looks out on a pas­toral scene where a Pan-like fig­ure (Pan was the pa­gan god of the pas­toral world) is play­ing the flute and en­chant­i­ng the world around him. This seems to sug­gest world­ly plea­sures (Pan was half-man, half-goat, with the goat half sug­gest­ing sex­u­al lust), which the speak­er must re­ject (just as he had to re­ject the dev­il and de­spair) and move be­yond.”

Some may cor­rect­ly ask about the con­tin­u­al de­cline in our net­ball sta­tus and the ap­par­ent self-in­flict­ed wounds by those in­volved in net­ball year af­ter year to read like one of the above-men­tioned po­et­ry con­flicts.

As we all know in this coun­try, many of those not in­volved in sports in any fash­ion or form pre­vi­ous­ly but who have ac­quired the as­cen­dan­cy to pow­er in sports ad­min­is­tra­tions love to be around the lead­ing sports­men and sports­women in this coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly when these in­di­vid­u­als are at the top of their game, achiev­ing suc­cess, and bring­ing fame to the coun­try.

How­ev­er, when the very same ath­lete is maybe strug­gling or in­jured, we are quick to dis­miss them and for­get about their sig­nif­i­cance un­til they again make im­prove­ments and, worse yet, quick­ly look to re­place them with an­oth­er they can use to achieve their glo­ry. Some may cor­rect­ly be­lieve that all the ash­es in the world or the great prayers and litur­gy of Fr. Matthew D’Here­aux (who is now based in Bel­mont but op­er­ates from Rosary Church) do not even as­sist these er­rant men and women in our sport.

In this case, it ap­pears as if this sev­en-day Car­ni­val men­tal­i­ty coun­try has com­plete­ly erased from its mem­o­ry our suc­cess in net­ball. Per­sons with agen­das and egos and with this loss, there­fore, have yet again caught us out; many of our sports, it ap­pears, are head­ing back­wards.

So while his­to­ry may be im­por­tant for those that deal with archiv­ing, for oth­ers it is more of a nui­sance, as most young­sters will strug­gle while read­ing this to tell us the date and year Hase­ly Craw­ford won gold in the Olympics or the date and year that Bri­an Charles Lara scored 400 not out, and what about the date and year that for­mer na­tion­al foot­ball coach Den­nis Lawrence scored the fa­mous head­er against Bahrain., even the re­cent Olympic gold medal of Keshorn Wal­cott? And to men­tion what year alone, T&T won its first and on­ly team world ti­tle in net­ball, which I am cer­tain would be cat­a­stroph­ic.

It is as if a lot of our so­ci­ety has been robbed of con­scious­ness and sim­i­lar­ly of a sem­blance of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for what is qual­i­ty and, worst of all, no grat­i­tude. But as with every­thing, there is a be­lief that those that have gone this way will pay in time, as good al­ways over­comes evil; one can on­ly hope that it is the in­di­vid­u­als in ques­tion and not their fam­i­lies that have to suf­fer.

It may be time for some of us to open our hearts and for­give those who have wronged sports in this coun­try; as dif­fi­cult as it may be to do so, it is nec­es­sary to ad­vance sports in this coun­try.

There are 14 sta­tions of the cross, and all are sig­nif­i­cant in their way to the world. In T&T’s sports, we have all ex­pe­ri­enced our bur­dens and cross­es that have to be car­ried. In most cas­es, we some­times have to bear them on our own, and in oth­er cas­es, we get as­sis­tance, and this is what we have to work to­wards. Hope­ful­ly, the so­ci­ety will help sports with the sit­u­a­tions ahead.

So, my wish is that all of those in­volved in sports can un­der­stand their roles and ap­pre­ci­ate the sig­nif­i­cance of oth­ers and ac­knowl­edge that every­one has some tri­al to ex­pe­ri­ence, that noth­ing is per­fect, and that most of us fail reg­u­lar­ly to look in­to the mir­ror at our re­flec­tions, which per­haps is a symp­tom of our lack of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for each oth­er.

Too much self-in­ter­est has led to di­vi­sion; hope­ful­ly, sports can bridge that gap in 2025.

Let me al­so say we need to al­so re­mem­ber that Ra­madan start­ed on Sun­day for our Mus­lim broth­ers and sis­ters, many of whom are lovers of sports.