Rachael Thom­spon-King

T&T's Lil­ia Math­urin-Cameron is the lat­est ad­di­tion to the top ranks of in­ter­na­tion­al net­ball um­pires. She joins an elite list of 36 um­pires from around the world ap­point­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Net­ball Fed­er­a­tion (INF).

"I was very thank­ful to God that he let it hap­pen for me. I'm very ex­cit­ed to know that all my hard work has paid off and hap­py that fi­nal­ly I did it," said the 49-year-old ac­tive net­ball play­er on earn­ing her In­ter­na­tion­al Um­pires Award (IUA).

Math­urin-Cameron, who is a res­i­dent of Curepe, was be­stowed with the ho­n­our fol­low­ing her of­fi­ci­at­ing at the Net­ball Uni­ver­si­ty Games in Flori­da in Ju­ly. Her first as­sign­ment was at the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tions (AF­NA) qual­i­fiers in St Maarten, where sec­ond-placed T&T, win­ner Bar­ba­dos and third-placed Grena­da, ad­vanced to the Youth Net­ball World Cup in Botswana, next year.

The braid styl­ist joined an­oth­er lo­cal um­pire on the list, Joel Young-Strong, who has been of­fi­ci­at­ing at this lev­el for a num­ber of years. Both are fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of first ever net­ball um­pire from T&T, Anne-Marie Dick­son-Lewis, who Math­urin-Cameron shares is part­ly re­spon­si­ble for her get­ting in­to um­pir­ing.

Urg­ing by Dick­son-Lewis and a for­mer na­tion­al coach, saw the wife and moth­er of four start to se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er be­com­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al um­pire.

She said, "My coach Veron­i­ca Mc­Don­ald bul­lied me in­to um­pir­ing, which I don't re­gret and then my very first men­tor Anne-Marie Dick­son-Lewis told me I had to um­pire be­cause I have good po­ten­tial to be­come an in­ter­na­tion­al um­pire. Guess she was right!"

Math­urin-Cameron, who al­so plays bas­ket­ball and loves go­ing to the movies, is not on­ly recog­nis­able on the court for en­forc­ing the rules and ar­bi­trat­ing on mat­ters aris­ing from a play, but no one can miss the um­pire rac­ing along the line with her vi­brant hair colours. Her jour­ney start­ed some sev­en years ago when she took her first of­fi­ci­at­ing ex­am.

"I had to do the pre­lim­i­nary the­o­ry ex­am, then the prac­ti­cal af­ter um­pir­ing 50 games or more. The in­ter­me­di­ate the­o­ry and prac­ti­cal fol­lowed and then move on to ad­vance.

"When I got through with in­ter­me­di­ate I start­ed to um­pire at the Un­der-16 Caribbean Cham­pi­onship, which I did from 2010 to 2016, dur­ing which time I be­came an (Itid) in­ter­na­tion­al tal­ent iden­ti­fy in 2012. Each year a fit­ness test must be done every four months, which I must pass," said the Bar­ba­dos-born net­ball en­thu­si­ast, who mi­grat­ed to T&T at the age of eight.

She lived in Point Fortin where she at­tend­ed Fan­ny Vil­lage Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry and Point Fortin Ju­nior Sec­ondary, be­fore mov­ing to East Trinidad, at­tend­ing Tu­na­puna Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary.

"I start­ed to play at Point Fortin Ju­nior Sec­ondary from 1979 to 1981, and did not play again un­til 1997 when I was do­ing the PTI (Phys­i­cal Train­ing In­struc­tions) course and met Jem­ma Rod­ney, who took me to Mal­ta Carib Sen­a­tors where I still play."

Many will know her com­pet­ing with Sen­a­tors and Jabloteh in the Port-of-Spain Net­ball League, which is played at the Jean Pierre Com­plex in Mu­cu­rapo. "I use to play with Fire Ser­vices," said Math­urin-Cameron, who al­so com­petes and of­fi­ci­ates in the All Sec­tors Net­ball League, which op­er­ates at the East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na, Tacarigua.

She plays in a num­ber of po­si­tions in the cen­tre-court and most re­cent­ly in the shoot­ing cir­cle.

"Cen­tre, wing-at­tack, and I am now try­ing to play goal-at­tack, but I will play any po­si­tion if giv­en the bib," laugh­ing­ly said the moth­er of na­tion­al play­er Aman­da Cameron, who she con­fessed is her favourite play­er. "I am an um­pire so all the play­ers are my favourites, but here, lo­cal­ly, I love watch­ing Joelisa Coop­er and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, I love to watch Lara Gikes."

Her ad­vice to any­one con­sid­er­ing get­ting in­to net­ball um­pir­ing is: "Just know that any­thing is pos­si­ble. If you want it, go for it, don't give up. Stay hum­ble, lis­ten to the crit­ics be­cause they make you a bet­ter um­pire. Keep your­self up­dat­ed with the rules of the game, keep your fit­ness lev­el up and re­mem­ber you will nev­er know every­thing, al­ways be will­ing to learn more."