Na­tion­al coach­es An­tho­ny Gray and An­to­nio Bur­ton are call­ing for a co­or­di­na­tion among sport­ing stake­hold­ers in the coun­try to pro­duce top ath­letes on lo­cal soil. They made the call dur­ing the a pan­el dis­cus­sion en­ti­tled “De­vel­op­ing Home­grown Tal­ent” host­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) at the UTT NA­PA Cam­pus on Keate, Port of Spain on Wednes­day.

Gray, a for­mer West In­dies crick­eter, now crick­et coach and lec­tur­er at UTT, said a deep­er re­view of the sports is re­quired. “With re­gards to West In­dies crick­et we must set up an an­a­lyt­ic re­search unit. Every­one would agree that it is im­por­tant to have the knowl­edge first of all and then now to im­ple­ment the knowl­edge. “ The ex-fast bowl;er is ad­vo­cat­ing re­gion­al sport­ing bod­ies to re­flect on the achieve­ment by the West In­dies crick­eters in the 1970’s and 1980’s. “If we had great sports­men and women like the late Steve Hem­ming, Hase­ly Craw­ford, Bri­an Lara then we could do it again.

What we have not done in West In­dies crick­et for ex­am­ple is un­der­stand suc­cess, and what we have done is emo­tion­alise fail­ure. All the time we talk about why the West In­dies team is not do­ing well. In the past we have dom­i­nat­ed world crick­et for 15 years. We have not analysed our pre­vi­ous suc­cess.”

Gray al­so shared that en­sure sport­ing dis­ci­plines are prop­er­ly run is al­so key. “We con­stant­ly talk about coach­es’ ed­u­ca­tion , play­er ed­u­ca­tion and ath­lete ed­u­ca­tion (but) we don talk about ad­min­is­tra­tion ed­u­ca­tion. We suf­fer bad­ly in this coun­try when we talk about sport ed­u­ca­tion and ad­min­is­tra­tion. “ He ex­plained that bet­ter gov­er­nance is im­per­a­tive. “We need ed­u­cate our ad­min­is­tra­tion up to be prop­er sport ad­min­is­tra­tors. We not just deal­ing with play­er de­vel­op­ment. We are deal­ing with the mar­ketabil­i­ty of the sport, get­ting monies in­to the co­phers of the sports, un­der­stand­ing how to deal with par­ents, how the chang­ing so­ci­ety has brought about the chang­ing psy­che of our young peo­ple.”

Bar­ton, who is al­so a coach at UTT, wants more syn­er­gy among sport­ing pro­fes­sion­als. Our sup­port sys­tem is al­most non-ex­is­tence in terms of it be­ing a sys­tem. We have phys­io­ther­a­pists, mas­sage ther­a­pists, nu­tri­tion­ists but we don’t have sys­tems. We have a lot of Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion (PE) teach­ers here but we don’t have much sup­port staff here and I think they are a huge part of get­ting what we want done. There are lot of in­di­vid­ual who are good a their job but in­di­vid­u­als do not cre­ate a very good team. “Bar­ton, who was the re­cip­i­ent of a track and field schol­ar­ship at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Al­aba­ma was frank in her call for bet­ter care of sport­ing venues in the coun­try.”

We are very good at cut­ting rib­bons and open­ing fa­cil­i­ties but we are not good at main­tain­ing them and mak­ing them ac­ces­si­ble. We have two na­tion­al sta­dia named af­ter track ath­letes and one of them (Ato Boldon Sta­di­um) is on­ly used for foot­ball be­cause the track is now con­crete. The oth­er (Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um) where Mr Corneal say foot­ball have to run track ath­letes have to run out of it. A big­ger con­ver­sa­tion needs to be hap­pen.”

Di­rec­tor at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) An­ton Corneal said while the TTFA has been able to cer­ti­fied coach­es at the var­i­ous lev­els the lo­cal gov­ern­ing body for foot­ball has share its ac­com­plish­ment with the pub­lic. He said, “The way we (the TTFA) get the mes­sage out to our mass­es is through our coach­es’ ed­u­ca­tion. I think it is one the ar­eas we are strongest not just in Trinidad and To­ba­go but in our re­gion. I am think­ing (how­ev­er) we did not do a good enough job to the in­for­ma­tion out.”

Oth­er mem­bers of the pan­el were UTT foot­ball coach Ayana Rus­sell, for­mer US Col­le­giate play­er Mori­ba De Fre­itas, To­bias Ot­t­ley of the Sports Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Four time Olympic medal­list Ato Boldon and 2012 Lon­don Olympic men’s javelin gold medal­list Keshorn Wal­cott were sched­uled to present vir­tu­al­ly were un­able.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NAAATT) Ephraim Ser­rette said the ef­forts by the NAAA in the part to pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties ath­letes to re­main at home and train has not brought the ex­pect­ed gains. It is a tough job. It is like push­ing big stone up a hill be­cause we would have had a num­ber of ini­tia­tives that we would tried which have not been sus­tain­able. Fund­ing to sus­tain is one of the is­sues.”

Ser­rette said the num­ber of ath­letes qual­i­fy­ing to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go at in­ter­na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships has been de­creas­ing. “We at the NAAA would have been tak­ing teams to the Olympics and the World Cham­pi­onships with 20 ath­letes (or so). We have a World Cham­pi­onships com­ing up in Sep­tem­ber this year (in Tokyo, Japan) and our team is not look­ing more than four (ath­letes). We do not have even a re­lay team qual­i­fy, no male, fe­male 4x100m or men 4x400m. We would have de­feat­ed the mighty USA in the men’s 4x100m at the 2017 World Cham­pi­onships in Lon­don, Eng­land. We went to beat the USA again at the 2019 World Re­lays in Japan. To­day we do not have a re­lay team.”

This coun­try’s first Olympic cham­pi­on Hase­ly Craw­ford praised UTT for its work in the ad­vance­ment of sports. “I must say the Sports De­vel­op­ment Unit of UTT is a well kept se­cret.” How­ev­er, the 1976 Olympic 100m cham­pi­on wants to see more young­sters in­volved in his beloved sport of track and field. “ Every Sat­ur­day morn­ing when you go around the Sa­van­nah you see thou­sands of chil­dren play­ing foot­ball but when you look at the Sec­ondary Schools Track and Field Cham­pi­onships you are not seek­ing (stu­dents).”

Among the at­ten­dees were Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs David Nakhid, Sec­re­tary of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee, Pres­i­dents of the Sec­ondary Schools Net­ball and Track and Field As­so­ci­a­tions Joseph Brew­ster and Mar­sha Be­dasie, Olympic and World Cham­pi­onships medal­list Em­manuel Cal­len­der, for­mer pro­fes­sion­al net­baller play­er Daystar Swift and T&T”s first fe­male Olympian Lau­ra Pierre.