Hid­ing in plain sight is nev­er easy.

​In fact, to be hon­est, it is pret­ty damn im­pos­si­ble if the “catch­er” is ob­ser­vant and pay­ing prop­er at­ten­tion.

​How­ev­er, over the last three months, it ap­pears that sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als in­volved in sports in T&T have be­come over­whelmed, ei­ther by the oc­ca­sion or per­haps by their po­si­tion. The re­sult is that sports in T&T have gone off track and ap­pear to be head­ing for a ma­jor cat­a­stro­phe.

​“The ele­phant in the room” has long been a state­ment of in­tent more than a ques­tion of de­ter­mi­na­tion, as every­one with a con­struc­tive mind and in­ci­sive thought al­ready knows the an­swer.

​So why, then, is sports at all lev­els in T&T in a ter­ri­ble state?

​It is a pity that the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) can­not get more in­volved, both man­age­ri­al­ly and from an im­ple­men­ta­tion per­spec­tive, rather than ad­vi­so­ry, in these la­tent­ly ob­struc­tive sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions. The ex­per­tise they have in-house now would def­i­nite­ly im­prove mat­ters.

​Let us look at crick­et, for in­stance. T&T has de­scend­ed from the highs of win­ning the re­gion­al 50-overs tour­na­ment on 14 oc­ca­sions, to miss­ing out on the fi­nals in 2024, and then be­ing hum­bled by nine wick­ets in this year’s fi­nal on the week­end at home.

It was a pa­thet­ic per­for­mance and in need of a clear re­view and re­port. I would al­so hope that, go­ing for­ward, we ex­am­ine a lot of ar­eas that are in plain sight and vis­i­ble to all, whether it be in coach­ing (as Jack Warn­er re­cent­ly stat­ed, you need coach­es with ex­pe­ri­ence and grey hair to as­sist at times) or, even more im­por­tant­ly, team se­lec­tion, which must be based on mer­it, not on per­son­al pref­er­ence and favouritism.

​One can un­equiv­o­cal­ly say the same thing about the cur­rent state of foot­ball in this coun­try, whether it be in men’s or women’s. There is an ap­par­ent sense of en­ti­tle­ment by some in foot­ball, which is be­wil­der­ing—if not open­ly dis­taste­ful—that their sta­tus as play­ers makes them im­mune to ob­jec­tive in­ter­jec­tions. It is this analy­sis paral­y­sis that in­ward­ly af­fects their judge­ment and is ul­ti­mate­ly the glar­ing ele­phant in the room that leads to dis­tress for a na­tion (T&T) that was hop­ing for a rea­son to smile and cel­e­brate again through sports.

​Like crick­et, our foot­ball has failed to de­liv­er. And while it may be ear­ly days for the women’s foot­ball cam­paign, the clear and ob­vi­ous dan­ger is that this coun­try suf­fers the same fate with mis­guid­ed loy­al­ties and pref­er­ences rul­ing over in­tel­li­gent thought. And please do not for­get the need for coach­ing ex­pe­ri­ence to bal­ance what­ev­er play­er skills ex­ist­ed in the past. The ear­ly signs are not good, but there is time to change be­fore it is too late.

​Some of the best coach­es in the world were not great play­ers; Ar­sène Wenger, Alex Fer­gu­son, and José Mour­in­ho come im­me­di­ate­ly to mind, and please don’t tell me about Car­los An­celot­ti, Zine­dine Zi­dane, or Di­di­er De­schamps, as we don’t have play­ers any­where like that.

​Then we have hock­ey, a hid­den trea­sure in this coun­try, in plain sight even for those with vi­sion prob­lems, be­cause it has been the most pro­lif­ic and suc­cess­ful team sport in this coun­try over the last ten-15 years, both re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. And here is the “Ele­phant”: Hock­ey has achieved such suc­cess, punch­ing well above its weight, with­out a prop­er out­door turf sur­face for over eight years.

​The re­sult is a hock­ey board that has pro­duced more ques­tions than an­swers, yet con­tin­ues to ex­ist. In fact, it ap­pears no one cares, as many seem to rel­ish this sit­u­a­tion. The hock­ey clubs keep vot­ing, and there ap­pears to be no change in the man­age­ment. So tell me, hock­ey, who has rich­ly been ben­e­fit­ing from all of this, be­cause it cer­tain­ly can­not be the play­ers or coach­es. Which sons and daugh­ters in hock­ey have been re­ward­ed?

​In­fight­ing in T&T’s Sports Fed­er­a­tions/Ad­min­is­tra­tions is as com­mon as an­nu­al awards din­ners to ho­n­our suc­cess, which at times can­not be jus­ti­fied and ap­pears more for stature and style than for qual­i­ty re­wards. It is a symp­tom of our so­ci­ety that re­wards in­ep­ti­tude and in­com­pe­tence with gra­cious words and ben­e­fits un­be­com­ing of per­for­mances.

​It ap­pears that many in sport­ing ad­min­is­tra­tions in this coun­try for­get their re­al pur­pose, which is to serve the ath­letes in their re­spec­tive dis­ci­plines. In most cas­es, we should know lit­tle of these pres­i­dents, vice pres­i­dents, and gen­er­al sec­re­taries, but more of­ten than not, these per­sons are em­broiled in some­thing that leads the news more than the play­ers.

​I have looked on at the ap­par­ent dis­com­forts in both vari­a­tions of ten­nis, as well as oth­er sports like bad­minton, ri­fle shoot­ing, net­ball, and gym­nas­tics and now we even have two of the bet­ter-man­aged sports be­ing called out for vary­ing rea­sons, from the lack of growth in ath­letes (ath­let­ics) to team se­lec­tion (cy­cling). So far, swim­ming seems to be on a sta­ble course un­der a new ad­min­is­tra­tion.

​So, hid­ing in plain sight and al­low­ing our pos­si­ble sport­ing he­roes and hero­ines to be run over by overzeal­ous per­sons at times must be cur­tailed, if not en­tire­ly stopped. In that re­gard, strong de­ci­sions have to be tak­en and im­ple­ment­ed, which would cause pain and anger but are a ne­ces­si­ty if we are to im­prove and progress.

​For in­stance, the re­cent news that the likes of Kieron Pol­lard, Dwayne Bra­vo, Nicholas Pooran, and Keshorn Wal­cott have been named as T&T Sport­ing Am­bas­sadors is a ma­jor step in the right di­rec­tion. These in­di­vid­u­als not on­ly bring a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence but have al­so, both prac­ti­cal­ly and vi­su­al­ly, ex­pe­ri­enced top-lev­el man­age­ment, coach­ing, and train­ing, and that knowl­edge is in­valu­able.

​I hope as well that our great­est sport­ing men­tor, Hase­ly Craw­ford, who start­ed all of this push for ex­cel­lence in 1976 with the first gold medal for this coun­try in the Olympic 100 me­tres fi­nal, re­mains al­so at the fore­front in terms of his am­bas­sador sta­tus. That must nev­er be in doubt, giv­en the his­toric sig­nif­i­cance and his im­pact on the lives of many, not on­ly in T&T, but in the Caribbean and the World.