Samp­son Nan­ton

Deputy Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor

samp­son.nan­ton@cnc3.co.tt

No­body saw it com­ing. Not the coach­es. Not the par­ents. Not even the ath­letes them­selves.

In the space of just 40 days, what be­gan as a chance con­ver­sa­tion at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah turned in­to a sto­ry that would change lives: two teenage girls, large­ly over­looked on the lo­cal ath­let­ics cir­cuit, sud­den­ly pack­ing their bags for Texas on full ath­let­ic schol­ar­ships.

One mo­ment, Nathaniela King, 18, and Let­ti­cia Camp­bell, 19, were grind­ing through club train­ing, com­pet­ing at the oc­ca­sion­al meet, their names ab­sent from the usu­al lists of “ath­letes to watch.”

The next, they were board­ing planes at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, pass­ports clutched tight, their fam­i­lies cry­ing in the back­ground, and their fu­tures sud­den­ly wide open.

“It was bit­ter­sweet,” said Elioa­nia Ross-Camp­bell, moth­er of Let­ti­cia. “Bit­ter, be­cause it’s my first child leav­ing home. Sweet, be­cause I’m ex­treme­ly proud and hap­py for her. It’s the re­sult of her hard work and ded­i­ca­tion to her sport and her tal­ent.”

The spark that lit the fire

The sto­ry be­gins al­most ca­su­al­ly, with Richard Woodruff, busi­ness­man and co-founder of I Sup­port Ath­letes, jog­ging around the Sa­van­nah.

“I was just ex­er­cis­ing,” he re­called.

“This guy, An­tho­ny Roy, asked my friend if she was a swim­mer. She wasn’t. So I said, ‘You’re on­ly look­ing for swim­mers? What about track ath­letes?’ He told me he was work­ing on col­lege place­ments. That was it. I told him about our move­ment, and he said, ‘Let’s see if we can get two girls across.’ We shook hands right there.”

Richard’s col­league, Akai Web­ster, re­mem­bers it clear­ly.

“Richard came to me and said, ‘We need two girls.’ I went to my club, Con­corde Ath­let­ics, which trains at the sta­di­um. I spoke to the as­sis­tant coach, Don­nell Stafford, and told her we need­ed two girls. We looked at their ages and readi­ness. These girls — Nathaniela, a jumper, and Let­ti­cia, a run­ner — weren’t on any­one’s radar. They weren’t the podi­um ath­letes every­body was watch­ing. Don­nell said, ‘Let’s give these two girls an op­por­tu­ni­ty.’ And that’s how it start­ed. It shows you don’t have to al­ready be on the podi­um to get op­por­tu­ni­ties like this.’”

Nathaniela: Ex­cit­ed and ner­vous at the same time

Nathaniela, a past stu­dent of Prov­i­dence Girls’ Catholic School, nev­er imag­ined her path would lead this far.

“I start­ed ath­let­ics when I was eight,” she ex­plained.

“My pri­ma­ry school teacher told my moth­er, ‘Put her in a club.’ That’s how I joined Con­corde Ath­let­ics.”

From there, she worked her way through Mi­lo Games, Cen­tral Games, Ju­nior Champs, and Se­nior Champs, rep­re­sent­ing both club and school. Her spe­cial­ties: the 100m sprint, long jump, and triple jump.

Bal­anc­ing train­ing and aca­d­e­mics was no easy task.

“At the start, it was hard,” she ad­mit­ted.

“But once you get used to it, it be­comes eas­i­er. I trained about three hours a day, so maybe 18 to 20 hours a week, af­ter school. You just find the bal­ance.”

“We did have to meet a cer­tain sub­ject cri­te­ria. You have to have at least a 2.0 GPA, and I did have that.”

When she heard the news of her schol­ar­ship to Way­land Bap­tist Uni­ver­si­ty in Plain­view, Texas, she froze.

“I was ex­cit­ed and ner­vous at the same time. Ex­cit­ed be­cause I got the schol­ar­ship. Ner­vous be­cause I’ll have to leave my fam­i­ly and stuff like that. But it’s a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for me.”

Her moth­er, Cindy King, says she wasn’t shocked.

“We al­ways knew she had her eyes set on col­lege. Some­times she’d get dis­cour­aged when she wasn’t see­ing re­sults yet. But I al­ways told her, ‘Your day is com­ing.’ And now here it is.”

Cindy was quick to cred­it the founders of I Sup­port Ath­letes.

“Mr. Woodruff and Akai — big thanks, big ap­pre­ci­a­tion. A thou­sand plus a thou­sand times. Some­times you’re push­ing alone and then some­one comes along and makes it all pos­si­ble. That’s what they did.”

Let­ti­cia: Break­ing Cy­cles

Let­ti­cia is break­ing new ground for her fam­i­ly.

“This is a big deal for me and my fam­i­ly. I’m the first one to go to col­lege,” she says proud­ly.

“So this is me break­ing cy­cles and en­cour­ag­ing my younger sib­lings. I’m re­al­ly ex­cit­ed to see what I can do in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.”

She start­ed run­ning at six but took a long break be­fore re­turn­ing to the sport just two years ago.

“I had a gap year, so I stopped track and field around the age of 10. I on­ly joined Con­corde about two years ago, and this is my sec­ond year with Con­corde,” she ex­plained.

Her main event is the 100-me­tre sprint.

Train­ing is in­tense.

“I go three to four days a week. If I miss a day, I’ll do my own work­outs at home. Each day fo­cus­es on some­thing dif­fer­ent — like core or legs. I al­so see my flex­i­bil­i­ty coach, Mr. Clyde. That’s ba­si­cal­ly the rou­tine I try to stick to.”

The for­mer Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary School stu­dent found bal­anc­ing school and train­ing a strug­gle at first, but she cred­its her fam­i­ly and faith for help­ing her through.

“While I was do­ing ex­ams, it was tough. But with my par­ents and church fam­i­ly en­cour­ag­ing me, I got through. By the time ex­ams were over, I felt like a weight had lift­ed.”

Her schol­ar­ship al­so takes her to Way­land Bap­tist Uni­ver­si­ty.

“When I heard the news, I got an in­stant headache,” she laughed.

“I went straight to bed and when I woke up the next morn­ing, I was still try­ing to process it. It hasn’t ful­ly sunk in. I think when I got to the air­port, that’s when it re­al­ly hit me. And might start cry­ing.”

She flew out on Au­gust 27.

Her goals are am­bi­tious but open-end­ed.

“One of my goals would be the Olympics. But I don’t like to set lim­its. Some­times when you set a lim­it, you stop there. For me, I’ll just fol­low wher­ev­er track and field takes me.”

Her moth­er, Elioa­nia, added: “Dad (Sen­ley Camp­bell) and I al­ways saw that she loved to run. Her great-grand­moth­er used to call her ‘Chip,’ be­cause by the time Granny looked at her and turned around, she would be run­ning down the road. She was al­ways run­ning. So we de­cid­ed to put her in track and field, and Neon Track­ers was her first club. But at that age — six years old — there weren’t many races for her. Over time, she de­vel­oped, and when she got in­to sec­ondary school she al­so played vol­ley­ball. Then dad­dy en­cour­aged her to come for­ward for track again, and that’s where she re­al­ly shined.”

The moth­ers: We just

kept push­ing

Both moth­ers agree: the jour­ney was long, filled with sac­ri­fice, but worth it.

Cindy re­mem­bers the grind of club life.

“It’s years of train­ing, trav­el­ling, spend­ing, hop­ing. And some­times you don’t see the break­through. But you keep en­cour­ag­ing your child. I nev­er once thought of giv­ing up — be­cause she was hap­py. And if she was hap­py, I had to keep push­ing.”

She was nev­er un­cer­tain about Nathaniela’s po­ten­tial.

“I had no doubts. All I had to do was keep en­cour­ag­ing her. Be­cause, you know, as an ath­lete, some­times you’re train­ing hard but you’re not see­ing the re­sults yet, and you can get de­spon­dent. You start to feel like maybe it won’t hap­pen. But I al­ways en­cour­aged her.”

The news of her daugh­ter’s suc­cess brought a joy she couldn’t stop feel­ing.

“I don’t think the feel­ings have re­al­ly come out as yet. I have all sorts of mixed emo­tions in­side. You know, I’m go­ing with her, so I guess when I walk off the cam­pus, that’s when I’ll re­al­ly get that rush of what­ev­er feel­ing you’re sup­posed to have as an ath­lete mom. But right now, I’m just try­ing to stay as calm and col­lect­ed as pos­si­ble — be­cause I have a house full of criers, and I have to be the one to main­tain the still­ness.”

For Elioa­nia, there was nev­er a strug­gle to get Let­ti­cia to ap­ply her­self to her tal­ent and school­work.

“She was al­ways a self-mo­ti­vat­ed child, very dis­ci­plined — she knew when to put play aside and do her work. She was al­ways com­mit­ted to school. So with that, I didn’t have much of a fight. She just need­ed our sup­port as par­ents — to be there to en­cour­age her, es­pe­cial­ly when she felt tired. We were al­ways there, giv­ing her the mo­ti­va­tion she need­ed to keep push­ing.”

When she got the news that Let­ti­cia had been cho­sen, she had to take some time to let it soak in.

“I was shocked. I felt a cool­ness run­ning through my body, like, ‘Is this hap­pen­ing for re­al?’ We were sit­ting on the bed when we heard it. I re­mem­ber jump­ing up, hold­ing my mouth, then ly­ing back down in dis­be­lief. We al­ways knew she was schol­ar­ship-wor­thy, but for it to ac­tu­al­ly ma­te­ri­alise…that was price­less. Tru­ly price­less.”

Build­ing some­thing big­ger

For Richard and Akai, the girls are on­ly the be­gin­ning.

“This is proof you don’t have to be a star al­ready,” Akai stressed.

“These girls weren’t on the podi­um. They weren’t on any­body’s list. But they were ready. And that’s all it took. Now, they’re col­lege ath­letes.”

Richard added: “We want to take this straight to the stratos­phere. As many ath­letes as we can help, how­ev­er many lives we can touch — that’s the mis­sion. Too many of our young ath­letes get left be­hind. We’re here to change that.”

He quick­ly re­it­er­at­ed how fast it all hap­pened.

“Forty days. From hand­shake to board­ing pass­es. Forty days. If that doesn’t tell you what’s pos­si­ble, I don’t know what does.”

He ex­plained the rea­son for this move­ment.

“The gen­e­sis of I Sup­port Ath­letes was re­al­ly about help­ing lo­cal ath­letes — and even some for­eign ath­letes — get the sup­port they need. For lo­cals, it meant things like trans­porta­tion, med­ical care, MRIs, sup­ple­ments, all for health pur­pos­es. That was the foun­da­tion. But the greater part of the move­ment is get­ting them in­to uni­ver­si­ty. That’s where we are now.”

“We saw where ath­letes need­ed sup­port. We heard too many sad sto­ries from ath­letes who were rep­re­sent­ing the coun­try — whether at CARIF­TA or else­where — and strug­gling. We took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to build a sup­port base. Not to take away from the NAAA, but to help. That’s our di­rec­tion: to help.”

A les­son for the na­tion

The two youth ath­letes are now in Texas on the new phase of their jour­ney.

For Nathaniela, it’s a les­son in re­silience and of re­lief.

“The ex­cite­ment lev­el is high,” she said. “I’m re­al­ly ex­cit­ed to go on this jour­ney and ex­pe­ri­ence a lot of new things.”

For Let­ti­cia, it’s about pos­si­bil­i­ty.

“I don’t like to set lim­its,” she re­peat­ed. “Wher­ev­er this takes me, I’ll go.”

And for Trinidad and To­ba­go, it’s a wake-up call.

If two young women — qui­et, dis­ci­plined, un­no­ticed — can make it to US col­lege ath­let­ics in just 40 days, who else is wait­ing in the wings for their chance?