Our athletes need more support
published: Friday | August 12, 2005

THE EDITOR, Sir:

ONE OF your columnists, Mr. Devon Dick, wrote of 'dibby dibby' behaviour in sports leadership selections. For years I searched for a single expression or a word unique to the region on how to describe the curry favouritism that exists in the selection process in team sports. Beneath this culture of unfairness, there is a belief that promotes this behaviour. The belief is that nobody is unique and if he or she can perform this good, then my cousin or my genetic associate can be trained to be just as good or better. This is a wrongful postulate that is hard to rid of but it must be ripped from the minds of selectors.

What we find from such foundation is a derivative of poor performance or at best mediocre. Take for example, our sprinters, who are naturally excellent performers in track and field, but when they match up to mostly African-American athletes they underperform. Powell is one example that display poor management of confidence in the last Olympics. There is no reason for a 21-year-old world class runner to be beaten by an African-American who was 31 years old for the gold medal in Athens. Something is wrong with that performance. The result is key here that tells an unfair tale behind the scenes that undermined the confidence of Powell at his critical hour.

CONFIDENCE MANAGEMENT

Those American athletes receive fully supported confidence management and care in the locker rooms before the race by sports psychologists and others. They even employ intimidation on whomever is targeted as close competitor before the race. In their culture strategy, chemistry and the will to do whatever for a win is primary over talent. Winning is everything for these Americans. They love to see their names in lights and they will do whatever it takes to get that gold even when they cannot perform as well as those Jamaicans. Some will employ bribe and intimidation tactics and other unbecoming measures to deflate the confidence of those they rival. The 'dibby-dibby' notion Mr. Dick spoke about shows up in the results when those Jamaicans who are selected to represent the country, due to curry-favouritism ends up a big failure against their main rivals, those African-Americans. Why? Because they were not the best to begin with through the selection process.

I am, etc.,

BERESFORD DAVIDSON

BUCScie@netscape.net

Marietta, GA

30068

USA