The lo­cal bas­ket­ball fra­ter­ni­ty is in mourn­ing fol­low­ing the pass­ing of Earl Skeete, a dec­o­rat­ed for­mer play­er, coach and Team man­ag­er who ded­i­cat­ed over four decades to the de­vel­op­ment of the sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

He was a pil­lar of the La Ro­maine com­mu­ni­ty. Skeete was award­ed the Hum­ming­bird Medal for his long and mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice to T&T in the sphere of sport. The medal was in recog­ni­tion of Skeete’s 44 years of ser­vice to sport and, in par­tic­u­lar, the dis­ci­pline of bas­ket­ball.

The re­tired Po­lice of­fi­cer from La Ro­maine led the La Ro­maine Jets Stars as the man­ag­er to the 2013 ti­tle of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Hoop of Life Com­mu­ni­ty Build­ing Ini­tia­tive pro­gramme. In 2012, he led the team to fourth place in the Big Four fi­nals while serv­ing as coach.

​Trib­utes have been pour­ing in from the bas­ket­ball elite, in­clud­ing a heart­felt mes­sage via Face­book from for­mer na­tion­al play­er Pietra Gay, who laud­ed Skeete as a “gen­tle­man among gen­tle­men.”

​“You were tru­ly a gem to your com­mu­ni­ty and you car­ried the flag for bas­ket­ball with pride,” Gay stat­ed. “You gave your time, your knowl­edge, and your heart to the game, and be­cause of you, many lives were shaped on and off the court. Rest up, Coach­man.”

Na­tion­al 3x3 coach Christo­pher Jack­son Charles of the Mal­oney Pac­ers Bas­ket­ball club in his T&T Bas­ket­ball Di­gest on Face­book, high­light­ed Skeete’s im­mense foot­print on the game, not­ing his lead­er­ship roles with Ad­vance Ge­net­ics Bas­ket­ball Club and the South Zone Bas­ket­ball Com­mis­sion.

​“One of our most ded­i­cat­ed ser­vants of bas­ket­ball,” Charles not­ed, point­ing to Skeete’s crown­ing achieve­ment as the ar­chi­tect be­hind the La Ro­maine Jets’ 2013 Hoop of Life Cham­pi­onship vic­to­ry. “A true friend of bas­ket­ball.”

​Even in his lat­er years, Skeete re­mained a guid­ing force for the next gen­er­a­tion. Play­er/coach Adri­an Joseph of Ad­vanced Ge­net­ics in a re­cent Face­book post re­called a “proud mo­ment” for the com­mu­ni­ty, the un­veil­ing of the La Ro­maine Jet Stars pho­to on the St Bene­dict’s Col­lege Wall of In­spi­ra­tion ear­li­er this month.

​Joseph ac­knowl­edged Skeete as a cor­ner­stone of that project, stat­ing, “I want to ac­knowl­edge Mr Skeete for his con­tin­ued guid­ance, pres­ence, and sup­port through­out this jour­ney. We are tru­ly grate­ful for every­one who played a part in mak­ing this mo­ment spe­cial.”

​Skeete’s ca­reer spanned from the ear­ly 1960s, evolv­ing from a stand­out play­er to a “bas­ket­ball man” whose in­flu­ence touched gen­er­a­tions of ath­letes. He leaves be­hind a lega­cy of dis­ci­pline and pas­sion that helped de­fine the sport in the south­ern re­gion of the is­land.

The Ex­ec­u­tive of the Bas­ket­ball Coach­es As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BCATT) al­so ex­tends con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and friends of the vert­er­an coach. BCATT high­light­ed Skeete’s joy of work­ing the side­lines at games with pride and the re­spect he dis­played for match of­fi­cials and the op­pos­ing teams. Rest In Eter­nal Peace coach Skeete.

​Fu­ner­al arrange­ments are ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced by the fam­i­ly in the com­ing days.