​If one had to do a progress re­port on Trinidad and To­ba­go, it might prob­a­bly say: “We are not im­prov­ing emo­tion­al­ly and cog­ni­tive­ly.” We con­tin­ue to cre­ate our own lim­i­ta­tions.

​There is noth­ing typ­i­cal about what is hap­pen­ing with­in T&T at this point in the twin-is­land Re­pub­lic’s his­to­ry. Eco­nom­i­cal­ly, so­cial­ly, and po­lit­i­cal­ly, the state of and the cul­ture of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty seem un­nat­ur­al; some have even de­scribed it as heinous and de­mon­ic.

​Crime notwith­stand­ing, our sports­men and sports­women–both ju­nior and se­nior–con­tin­ue to de­liv­er good news.

​The T&T Un­der-16 net­ball team re­cent­ly suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend­ed their ti­tle at the Jean Pierre Caribbean U-16 Net­ball Cham­pi­onship. Huge cred­it and con­grat­u­la­tions go out to the play­ers, coach­es, and man­ag­er, as well as the par­ents, guardians, and net­ball ad­min­is­tra­tors, who did their best un­der dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances.

​At the in­vi­ta­tion of coach So­journ­er Hyles-Lewis, I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak with the squad dur­ing a prac­tice ses­sion to share words of en­cour­age­ment and mo­ti­va­tion—an in­vi­ta­tion I was hap­py to ac­cept. Over many years, T&T as a so­ci­ety has failed the sport of net­ball due to the haz­ards of com­pla­cen­cy and out­dat­ed stereo­types. This fail­ure is so­ci­etal, struc­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, prej­u­diced, and bias-dri­ven. It is clas­sist, elit­ist, and racist, even.

It’s a main­ly fe­male Afro-Trin­bag­on­ian sport. Add to that dy­nam­ic, it’s not cur­rent­ly a sport on the Olympic pro­gramme. It is a Com­mon­wealth sport and for CANOC (Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees), a core sport on the Caribbean Games pro­gramme. [I pre­dict net­ball will be on the 2032 Bris­bane Sum­mer Olympic sport pro­gramme.]

But yet the sport of net­ball has been pushed to the mar­gins. When it should be one of the most trea­sured and sup­port­ed. How many Team TTO team sports can claim to be a World cham­pi­on?

​T&T re­mains the on­ly na­tion out­side of Aus­tralia and New Zealand to have won a Net­ball World Cup. At the 1979 World Net­ball Cham­pi­onships, they shared the gold medal with Aus­tralia and New Zealand. At the 1987 World Net­ball Cham­pi­onships, they shared the sil­ver medal with New Zealand. They were bronze medal­lists at the 1983 World Net­ball Cham­pi­onships. How many oth­er T&T na­tion­al teams can claim such a record? And or but yet?!

In team sports, net­ball con­tin­ues to lead the way for girls, young and adult women. Net­ball has pride of place in the pan­theon of T&T sport. Why then is Team TTO Net­ball fac­ing an un­cer­tain fu­ture? When the sport has earned the right to be one of T&T’s flag­ship sports.

Last year, World Net­ball an­nounced a de­ci­sion to stage the Net­ball World Cup (NWC) every two years, be­gin­ning af­ter the 2027 tour­na­ment. This new bi­en­ni­al NWC for­mat will be com­ple­ment­ed by a new in­ter­na­tion­al event start­ing in 2028, sched­uled to run in non-World Cup years. In­ter­na­tion­al net­ball from 2028 will now take place an­nu­al­ly. This de­vel­op­ment is an op­por­tu­ni­ty with sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions.

T&T at this time de­fies sim­ple cat­e­gori­sa­tions and easy com­par­isons. As a na­tion, we still cling to out­dat­ed stereo­types, and in so do­ing, fail to avoid the haz­ard of com­pla­cen­cy.

How­ev­er, in choos­ing to hope, we should con­sid­er hope to be a dis­ci­pline: the dis­ci­pline of choos­ing to be­lieve in one­self even when no one else does or gives you rea­son to do so.