Bri­an Lewis

For many of the ath­letes on na­tion­al teams not con­sid­ered ma­jor sports the strug­gle is re­al. That is not to say that those in ma­jor sports don't strug­gle or face at times seem­ing­ly in­sur­mount­able odds.

On Sat­ur­day at the St Mary's Col­lege Grounds the T&T na­tion­al se­nior men's 15 a side rug­by team de­feat­ed Mex­i­co to lift the North Amer­i­ca and Caribbean Rug­by As­so­ci­a­tion (NACRA) 2015 rug­by cham­pi­onship. Pre­vi­ous win­ners in 2001 and 2008, the Ca­lyp­so War­riors T&T rug­by team has bro­ken in­to the top 50 rank­ing in world rug­by as a re­sult of their re­cent ex­ploits.

Rug­by is con­sid­ered a mi­nor sport here in T&T. It's not a sta­tus that should alarm any­one as it re­flects the re­al­i­ty of rug­by's par­tic­i­pa­tion lev­el as com­pared to foot­ball, crick­et and track and field to name a few.Among the few hun­dred sup­port­ers – a de­cent crowd by lo­cal rug­by stan­dards – was present to see T&T Cap­tain Adam Fred­er­ick lift the NACRA Cham­pi­onship tro­phy was His Ex­cel­len­cy An­tho­ny Aquinas Car­mona, Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The T&T team ded­i­cat­ed their win to for­mer na­tion­al rug­by play­er Ja­son Clark who suf­fered a sig­nif­i­cant spinal cord in­jury a few years ago. Clark still re­mains a well-loved mem­ber of the T&T rug­by fra­ter­ni­ty and no doubt his com­rades still con­sid­er him very much a part of the T&T team set up. Cleopa­tra Borel and Shan­ntol Ince were al­so present in a show of pa­tri­o­tism and sup­port for their fel­low na­tion­al col­leagues.

As point­ed out ear­li­er, the sup­port of His Ex­cel­len­cy, Cleopa­tra and Shan­ntol would have sent a pow­er­ful mes­sage of com­rade­ship. At times our ath­letes strug­gle to com­pre­hend the "whys" and "where­for­es" of the chal­lenges and strug­gles they face. For our ath­letes they find it hard to ac­cept that the pride they share in wear­ing the red, white and black at times is not no­ticed or con­sid­ered.

In try­ing to solve some of the mo­men­tous prob­lems fac­ing this small so­ci­ety of 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple the at times enor­mi­ty of the prob­lems can seem a moun­tain too high. But yet in the face of so many tal­ent­ed sons and daugh­ters of the soil. The in­spi­ra­tion to sol­dier on can be found.

That's why sup­port­ing our na­tion­al ath­letes and teams are al­ways an im­por­tant ex­er­cise in pa­tri­o­tism and na­tion build­ing.Every day those in­volved in sport strive to make this coun­try a bet­ter place us­ing the val­ues of sport. While the sup­port can't al­ways be fi­nan­cial the mere fact of wear­ing red and show­ing up gives our ath­letes up­lift.

Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the na­tion­al Olympic com­mit­tee. Sup­port #10golds24 ath­lete wel­fare and prepa­ra­tion fund. Make your do­na­tion to any Sco­tia Bank Branch Ac­count # 171188.