Noble: Where’s youth sport support? They want nice corn soup—but won’t invest in planting corn

The following is part two of an interview with FC Santa Rosa founder and head coach and ex-Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) technical committee chairman Keith Look Loy interview:

Clubs no longer have roots in their communities. This uprooting leaves room for other institutions, like gangs, to attract young men in troubled areas.

“The community pride that people had in seeing their sons, their cousins, their friends, their brothers represent the area, the community of Arima or San Fernando, in a league and the connection that all these people had. That is gone.

“The so-called hotspot areas of Arima once had football clubs. They are no more; therefore, other organisations will arise to take their place.

“We need to encourage, even if they are just youth clubs—I should not say just youth clubs because it is precisely the youth that need these community clubs to be. We need to find ways to encourage that.

“Very often, at different levels of economic, financial, and political power in this country, people talk about what we need to do for the youth but do not do enough for community organisations like football clubs.”

The United Nations share this perspective in their DOHA declaration. They see the youth in sports as gaining life skills and being able to influence others:

Strengthening the life skills of youth is a key objective to minimise risk factors and maximise protective factors related to crime, violence and drug use. By enhancing knowledge of the consequences of crime and substance abuse and developing life skills, the initiative seeks to positively influence the behaviour and attitudes of at-risk youth and prevent anti-social and risky behaviour.

More specifically, sports offer an important opportunity for building life skills for at-risk youth that allow them to better cope with daily life challenges and move away from involvement in violence, crime or drug use.

Youth were placed at the centre of outreach activities as agents for change. By sharing their experiences on how sports and life skills training helped them to stay away from crime, youth were engaged and reached out to other at-risk youth.

The big question of who should fund the sports initiative remains. A long-time tennis coach believes it is the state’s responsibility.

Look Loy has a different perspective. Pointing to the large outlays that the state has invested, he questioned the efficiency. He doubts that sending teams to other countries brings value to sports development.

“The government cannot and should not be seeking to sponsor private projects, Including these trips abroad. The state should say: We have a community club in La Romaine. Please talk to us and show us what your product and project are. Show us what you have done.

“Do you have an annual report? What is your project for the future? How can we help you sustain, implement, and materialise it? What is your budget?

“We can monitor that because it is a community project. For kids in the La Romaine area, the state should not be giving people money to take a trip to Sweden, from which we have no real byproduct.

“What results from the hundreds of thousands of dollars of state money sent to send a club to some tournament in Sweden, Minnesota, Florida, or wherever? What do the people of Trinidad and Tobago get from that? Who got a contract? Who got a sponsorship?

“Yes, the children get a pleasant experience. And the other adults who go with them have an enjoyable experience. We get some photographs, but how does that benefit the nation when discussing national expenditure?”

Look Loy zeroes in on the local expenditure and the lack of management of physical investments, be it pools or football fields.

“The state has no business investing millions for lights, with no one controlling them. There’s no caretaker. There’s no fencing. People can walk in, drive their car on it, do whatever they wish, and then you have to hope that the regional corporation will come and cut the grass now and then.

“So we invest the millions, and we don’t set up the management infrastructure to make sure that we protect that investment, regulate the use of the investment, and ensure that we do not have to come 10 years down the line when it is useless and everybody’s clamouring to say we don’t have the money to fix it or we’ll find another 15 million to fix it.

“We have no policy for securing, maintaining, and using public recreation grounds, which all these little community clubs depend on. When you go to use it, you have to use it in whatever state you find it because you cannot do better.

“And that cannot be to the benefit of high standards in community and grassroots sports, which is the foundation for elite sport, the boys and girls who want to represent us at national and international levels in global sport.”

On the other hand, Look Loy acknowledges the lack of support from the business community.

“Too often, we hear people talking about what is essential to do for the youth, but they’re not prepared to go the distance. They want to invest after the fact and take advantage of the photo op, but they don’t want to invest in the road to the photo op.

“When you’re nothing or struggling, they don’t want to invest in that—so they want to eat corn soup without investing in the planting of the corn. This is one of the big problems we face in sports and all walks of life.

“People sit on the money and the resources that I’m talking about to develop the talent that we undoubtedly have. I am convinced that this is the fundamental problem.”

The barrenness of the sponsorship approach is defined in this manner:

“You could have the best case and offer them what you want; they won’t get involved. The support of such programmes in our country and our sporting landscape and culture tends to be on a who knows you and who you know basis, and who likes you and who doesn’t like your basis.

“So if my daughter is playing, I will give them some balls or what have you. And when she’s done playing, I stop sponsoring balls. Go buy some, or go by somebody else.

“Or if I give you sponsorship in 2025, don’t return in 2026. So it is entirely arbitrary, personalised, hit and miss. And you cannot develop anything without a consistent commitment of resources.”

Rejection is part of the game.

“If you give up because one person doesn’t answer your call or rejects you when you ask for a case of water. And they tell you times are hard.

“I am talking about multi-million dollar companies, and you ask them for two cases of water, and they tell you times hard. You’ll give up if you decide based on that, so don’t start. You have to keep going.”

His solution?

“My pursuit is a pursuit of young people achieving their best potential. And I will look to treat somebody else’s child—somebody else’s child—as I want them to treat mine. This is a lifetime commitment.

“If you believe in what you’re doing and think you have a future. Better and beyond, better than and beyond what we see collapsing all around us today. We can’t all migrate.

“I do not believe in the power of leaders. I do not believe in the question of who we got put. I believe in the power of people working daily and hard in their interest and making the concrete sacrifices they need to make. I believe in people coming together.”

He summarised the country’s problem in this way:

“They support all the nice things we talk about in democratic life, but they really love the chaos because chaos presents opportunity. That’s right. Disorder presents an opportunity.

“So they’re talking about organising things correctly, but they love the disorder because they can do what they want. And that is where the heart is at a fundamental level.”

 

Look Loy turned his attention to the Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL). He underlines that developing a good player takes time and process.

“Developing a good football player, an elite football player or even a mediocre player takes 10 years. We’re talking about the theory of teaching and learning. Right? We’re talking about pedagogy.

“The golden age of learning is between 7 and 14 years. Seven is when you begin in whatever, right? More or less.

“You start a little before that, learning a language, learning how to speak your native tongue or another tongue, learning how to do this, that, and the golden age—when you grab the most, when you’re most receptive intellectually—is between the age of ages of 7 and 14.

“Yes, you could learn after, but your foundation is in these years. And our foundation, all the sports across the board in this country, between the ages of 7 and 14, is really a hit and miss. Because we’re not scientific in how we approach it.

“The League made a mess at a philosophical level. What is the League for? The League is not just a competition platform. The school’s football league is supposed to teach young people something about life and how to conduct themselves, and more so, it is supposed to constrain the people who handle these children to behave in a particular way.

“They failed miserably in all that, and not for the first time because we keep reading about and learning about this registration issue and people looking to break and dodge rules.”

He sees the school principals as the centre of responsibility.

“When are principals as a group, I’m pretty sure there are principals who pay attention and close attention at that. But when are they as a group going to say to the people who work for them for the school on behalf of the school in the Secondary Schools Football League:

“Listen, this is the law. This is what I expect. I am the person who signs documents. I am the face to be held accountable—therefore, I will hold you responsible and expect you to behave in such a way.”

Look Loy redefines the purpose of the League.

“The League and the football programme in the school are platforms for teaching these young people about life and giving them values to take forward in life. If we fail in that, we fail not only the children in school but society as a whole.

“I cannot tell you who won the Intercol two years ago. But 22 years from now, I’ll be able to see, look back and see; that boy went to Fatima, that boy went to Saint Benedict, that boy went to Arima North, that one went to Pleasantville. And you know, they contributed to them becoming a solid, valuable citizen, regardless of what they do.

“That’s what the secondary schools league is for—not to produce players for the national team.

“The secondary schools league is not about winning titles or getting to the national team. It’s about giving the children a framework to develop their personality and character and advance into the world.

“The League needs to institute academic criteria for these children, which the schools must apply and that the people involved in the sporting programmes of the schools must adhere to. I don’t know why it is difficult for them to do that. We must ensure these children have a minimum academic advantage or qualification.

“Even talking about character and all of that, what are we doing to help them get to where they should be with a few passes? There are schools and boys; they passed through the school like a dose of salts. They come to school and don’t even have to be in class.

“Because they’re being used to win titles, they get flushed out like a dose of salt, and then the coach or the school move on to the next boy. Repeat. And that is a crime. That is a crime against humanity. People’s children should not be treated like that to become the refuse of society, the chaff, the fodder.

“Why do I want to win it? Why do I want my players to be successful on the field of play? Because winning and the pursuit of winning become a personal culture. It’s just like losing. It could become a personal culture. So, you become accustomed to losing and poor standards and begin to think like a loser.

“Life is a struggle. Right? So we have to teach young people to pursue high standards and to pursue success. So, we pursue wins to give them a strong mentality.

“I go in for it no matter what. I’m doing what it is. We’re going to be the best team in the competition this year. And we’re going to work towards that. And that is my mentality, and we must give children that mentality with values.”

What do we want for our children? What are we prepared to do for them? Will we remain with a hit-and-miss approach?

Editor’s Note: Click HERE to read Part One of Keith Look Loy’s interview with Noble Philip.