Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul was back in the spot­light re­cent­ly and, for a few won­der­ful mo­ments it felt as though time had stood still.

At age 52, the for­mer West In­dies bat­ting great pro­duced a pol­ished 41 from 27 balls in the World Cham­pi­onship of Leg­ends. There was that fa­mil­iar stance with the con­cen­tra­tion and the abil­i­ty to place the ball in­to spaces oth­ers could not find.

It brought back mem­o­ries of the many oc­ca­sions when he stood firm while every­thing around him seemed to be falling apart.

As en­joy­able as the in­nings was, it was what hap­pened af­ter­wards that stayed with me.

Dur­ing the post-match in­ter­view he spoke with the same calm­ness and hu­mil­i­ty that de­fined much of his ca­reer. There was no at­tempt to make the mo­ment big­ger than it was and no need to re­mind any­one of his record or sta­tus. He sim­ply an­swered the ques­tions, smiled and shared his thoughts.

You could sense that the in­ter­view­er did not want the con­ver­sa­tion to end. An­oth­er ques­tion came fol­lowed by an­oth­er and a cou­ple more. Not be­cause Chan­der­paul was try­ing to hold the spot­light but be­cause his pres­ence nat­u­ral­ly drew the in­ter­view­er and the au­di­ence in.

That is the im­pact of a leg­end.

It is not on­ly about what they once did on the field. It is al­so about how they make peo­ple feel when they re­turn. They re­con­nect us with a par­tic­u­lar pe­ri­od of our lives. They re­mind us where we were, who we watched the games with and how sport brought our fam­i­lies and groups to­geth­er.

This week brought an­oth­er pow­er­ful ex­am­ple of a sport­ing fig­ure ex­tend­ing his in­flu­ence be­yond his play­ing days.

In­di­an gi­ants Mum­bai In­di­ans an­nounced that Kieron Pol­lard has been el­e­vat­ed to the po­si­tion of head coach, con­tin­u­ing one of the strongest and most en­dur­ing re­la­tion­ships be­tween a play­er and a fran­chise in mod­ern crick­et.

Pol­lard joined Mum­bai as a 22-year-old and over the fol­low­ing 16 years be­came part of the iden­ti­ty of the fran­chise. He de­liv­ered match-win­ning per­for­mances, hoist­ed tro­phies while be­com­ing a se­nior fig­ure in the dress­ing room and re­mained with the or­gan­i­sa­tion af­ter re­tir­ing as a play­er, serv­ing as bat­ting coach.

Now he has been en­trust­ed with the en­tire team at age 39. Pol­lard’s place among the all-time leg­ends of West In­dies crick­et may not yet reach that point. His ca­reer did not fol­low the tra­di­tion­al path through Test crick­et and his great­est im­pact came large­ly in the short­er for­mats and fran­chise game.

But with­in the Mum­bai In­di­ans fran­chise, there can be lit­tle ar­gu­ment. He is al­ready close to leg­endary sta­tus there if he has not reached it al­ready.

That sta­tus was built through per­for­mance, com­mit­ment, longevi­ty and re­la­tion­ships. Mum­bai did not sim­ply ap­point a fa­mous for­mer play­er. They pro­mot­ed some­one who un­der­stands the or­gan­i­sa­tion, its cul­ture, its sup­port­ers and the de­mands that come with wear­ing its colours.

There is sig­nif­i­cance in a Trinidad and To­ba­go and West In­di­an fig­ure be­ing trust­ed with one of the most high-pro­file coach­ing po­si­tions in world crick­et. It al­so shows that sport­ing in­flu­ence does not have to end when the play­ing ca­reer does.

Chan­der­paul’s ap­pear­ance and Pol­lard’s ap­point­ment should make us think about the sport­ing leg­ends we have here in T&T across foot­ball, crick­et, track and field, cy­cling and many oth­er dis­ci­plines.

How many peo­ple, for in­stance, know what for­mer na­tion­al cy­clist Gene Samuel is do­ing to­day? I on­ly found out while lis­ten­ing to lo­cal ra­dio on 95.1 as I drove to a train­ing ses­sion with the na­tion­al Un­der-15 boys’ team.

Samuel, one of this coun­try’s most ac­com­plished cy­clists, now puts a great deal of his time and en­er­gy in­to help­ing stray an­i­mals. Along with a group of friends, he as­sists an­i­mals they en­counter while rid­ing around the coun­try.

That lit­tle piece of in­for­ma­tion stayed with me. Here is a man known through­out the coun­try for cy­cling, now mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent area with­out fan­fare, while still play­ing his part on the wheels. It tells us that the lives and con­tri­bu­tions of our sport­ing he­roes did not end when they stopped com­pet­ing.

Some, like Pol­lard, re­main at the cen­tre of elite sport. Oth­ers, like Samuel, serve their com­mu­ni­ties away from the cam­eras. Chan­der­paul can still in­spire sim­ply by walk­ing on­to a field, play­ing an in­nings and speak­ing with hu­mil­i­ty af­ter­wards.

We should not have to wait for an an­niver­sary, an awards func­tion or sad­ly, a death to tell their sto­ries. Our for­mer na­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives car­ry decades of knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence. They can vis­it train­ing ses­sions, speak at schools, in­ter­act with na­tion­al teams and take part in hon­est and de­tailed dis­cus­sions about the de­vel­op­ment of sport.

Their sto­ries should be record­ed, not on­ly the medals, tro­phies and fa­mous per­for­mances, but al­so the set­backs, dis­ap­point­ments and sac­ri­fices.

Not every for­mer ath­lete will want to be­come a coach or ad­min­is­tra­tor, and not every­one will want to re­main in the spot­light. That must be re­spect­ed.

But the op­por­tu­ni­ties should still be cre­at­ed for them to con­tribute.

A pol­ished in­nings from Chan­der­paul, Pol­lard’s el­e­va­tion to lead Mum­bai In­di­ans and a ra­dio con­ver­sa­tion about Gene Samuel help­ing stray an­i­mals all car­ry the same mes­sage. Our sport­ing he­roes still have plen­ty to of­fer long af­ter the com­pe­ti­tion ends.