His ascent from struggle to stardom is by no means a novel one.
But what made Keshorn Walcott’s success so phenomenal was his ability to muzzle those who felt that he stood little chance of winning a medal against the stellar line-up of European javelin throwers in the recently-concluded Olympic Games in London.
For many, the Toco-bred Walcott, 19, was the underdog of the competition, a face without a name.
Few, it appeared, knew though, that he entered the Olympic javelin toss as the world’s junior champion and had been participating competitively in the field event for years before his glorious win, more than one week ago.
Now, Walcott, Trinidad and Tobago’s second Olympic gold medallist, seems poised for greatness and has been bestowed with a slew of attractive rewards, including $1 million in cash and an apartment in Federation Park, courtesy the People’s Partnership Government.
“To win a gold medal you need a lot of character and clearly he (Walcott) has that,” said Hasely Crawford, who won TT’s first gold medal in the 100-metre race at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada.
“A lot of us will see a little boy but bear in mind he has been breaking records for the past few years. Three years go he won two gold medals in Carifta. He has been winning but we have not been paying attention because it was a little boy from Toco.”
Crawford, who witnessed Walcott’s winning throw in London, told Sunday Newsday on Thursday that he has been following the young man’s career for several years and was deeply impressed by his grit and determination.
In fact, Crawford said he was confident the athlete would have medalled in London.
“The point I am making is that he has serious character but we weren’t seeing it. Something about that fella, he loves a challenge. That is why it was so easy for me to predict that he would have won a medal because I was paying attention,” he said during an interview at his home in Federation Park.
Defying all odds, Walcott’s powerful javelin throw of 84.58 metres, was one of the major upsets of the Olympics —a victory which threw light on the potential of Caribbean athletes to excel in a sport, which, for years, had been dominated by Europeans.
But while he also enjoys an esteemed position as the youngest athlete to win the javelin toss at the Olympic Games, Crawford said Walcott must be wary of those who may seek to capitalise on his hard-won success.
Crawford, who celebrated his 62nd birthday on Thursday, said, “He needs to have a proper management structure around him in every sense of the word — in terms of his finances, his future endeavours, his coaching programme, or else he will fail. My advice to him is to get a proper structure of people who are really there for his welfare. If that don’t happen, he will be in trouble.”
The San Fernando-born Crawford was 26 when he won the Men’s 100-metre race in a time of 10.02 seconds at the Montreal Olympics to become the country’s first Olympic gold medallist.
The then Dr Eric Williams-led People’s National Movement (PNM) Government named a British West Indian Airways (BWIA) jet after him. He also received four free flights per year for the rest of his life courtesy the airline. More than a decade later, in 2001, the nation’s premier sporting facility, the National Stadium, would be renamed the Hasely Crawford Stadium in honour of his achievement.
Crawford also appeared on postage stamps and was awarded the country’s highest honour, the Trinity Cross (now Order of TT) in 1978.
Admitting to have fallen prey to the adulation in the wake of his success, Crawford said he later made a conscious decision to stay away from the limelight.
Instead, the former Olympic champion, during his glory days, said he chose to nurture relationships with several members of his support team and others whom he felt had his best interests at heart.
Of those post-1976 years, Crawford said, “I saw a lot of two-faced people. They come to you with a lot of ulterior motives. I had my guard up early o’clock and I started to move away from people. Keshorn will have to be very careful of the kinds of people he deals with.”
In fact, Crawford said he felt sorry for Walcott, who, like him, emerged from modest beginnings to be at the top of his game.
“In a sense I feel sorry for him because I haven’t seen anything put in place for him. Maybe, he has a management team around him. I hope he can really get that kind of support,” he said.
Almost four decades after his victory, Crawford, who has maintained his burly physique, makes no apologies for “retreating into a shell” over the years.
“I had to pull back and people called me cocky because of it,” he said.
While many regarded him as a national hero, others sought to take advantage of his status, he said.
To demonstrate this point, Crawford recalled an incident in which a jeweller deliberately hiked up his fee for services on an item because he felt the former athlete had received a large amount of cash from the then Government for winning the Men’s 100-Metre race. Crawford recalled that a former Chancellor of Germany had given him a gold watch “that was dear to me,” but after a minor mishap, it needed to be repaired.
“I took it to a jeweller and he told me, ‘You is Hasely Crawford, you have money, you win gold. You is Eric Williams boy.’ He charged me $15,000 to fix the watch and he did not even open the watch yet. He just tell himself I had money. So all these things made me pull away,” he said.
The ill intent did not end there. Crawford said people ridiculed him on the streets, saying that he would have lost the race if there was another five yards to go.
Many also scrutinised the persons with whom he interacted, he recalled.
He said, “I remember people started calling me a womaniser and when I tried to fix that in terms of who I was seen out with and I started hanging out with more guys, they called me gay. I am not scared to talk about it because I was never gay. “But I am saying these things because I want people to know what you go through as an athlete. You name it, I was it. It’s sad but I learned from my mistakes. All these things happened because I was trying to find way to protect myself.”
The unfortunate episodes, Crawford said, “made me get hard and I paid dearly for it.”
He said in hindsight, he would not have done it any other way.
Crawford said Walcott, too, will have to develop a strategy to protect himself during his reign as an Olympic javelin champion.
“That is why I feel sorry for him because he will go through it. And it is a good thing once you can deal with it. I think I had the strength to deal with it,” he said.
“ Maybe the discipline of the sport helped me to deal with it. I was very disciplined. I always gravitated towards people who could help me. My advice to him is that he has to be careful of the people he has around him. People will come around him because of who he is, not necessarily because they really care about him. He also has to find a way quickly to really analyse people. That is what I did.”
A long-serving member of the National Association of Athletics Administration of Trinidad and Tobago (NAAA), Crawford described Walcott as focussed, saying he did not appear to be interested in the trappings of fame.
In fact, Crawford said he and Walcott were similar in many respects.
“I had a qualified, experienced coach around me and he has a qualified, certified coach around him for years. To really be successful, you need a good coach,” he said.
Like Walcott, Crawford said he also had a good support staff.
“So, I had a structure around me. It don’t happen just like that. You have to have structrure around you that you believe in 100 percent.”
Asked about the gifts that have been presented to Walcott, Crawford would only say, “Whatever he gets, he deserves it. There is something about the young man I like. I can’t say what it is. Maybe I see myself in him. But is something about that fella that touches me.”
Former Siparia-born Olympic quarter-miler, Ian Morris, who has also enjoyed a successful track career, told Sunday Newsday that he took his fame in stride.
“I deal with mine simple. I didn’t make anything go to my head. I just went with the flow, whatever happened, happened,” he said.
Commentators mentioned Morris’ name (in reference to the Caribbean line-up) during the finals of the Men’s 400-metre race in London when Grenada’s Kirani James, 19, ran 43.94 seconds to win the event. James had also delivered the island’s first-ever Olympic medal.
“I felt happy to know that they remembered and they mentioned it — that Kirani James had broken Ian Morris’ Caricom record,” he said.
Saying that he was pleased with the gifts that have been bestowed on Walcott, Morris said, “I believe that the young fella has a good head on his shoulders. He has good people behind him — his manager, his coach — and I am hoping that they can advise him in the proper way and not let him squander and let the things get to his head and falter. It is tremendous to see that he has gotten so many great gifts.”
Morris, who regarded his personal best time of 44.21 seconds in the semi-finals of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, as the pinnacle of his career, said he would like to see other local athletes excel in their respective events.
“We had, this year, the biggest entourage of about 30-something athletes and to me nearly all of them who had competed did extremely well for Trinidad an Tobago and the Caribbean on a wider scale because if you looked at how the Caribbean athletes performed, we have dominated events where the Americans had dominated especially in the track and field,” he said.
Morris said he was also delighted that the corporate fraternity has expressed a renewed interest in supporting local athletes.
“I am seeing that Petrotrin has come on stream because of what has happened. Where were they before? he asked. “Why choose now, because of our success? Why didn’t they come on stream to help before?”
Morris said he was in Jamaica during the start of the track and field competition at the London Olympics providing commentary on the performances of the Caribbean athletes.
“The Caribbean athletes did extremely well this Olympic year,” he said.
Morris also noted that the business community in Jamaica had thrown its support behind the country’s athletes, who included sprint sensations Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, Warren Weir, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Veronica Campbell-Brown.
“Corporate Jamaica came out and supported. You don’t wait for someone to break a world record or win a gold medal, silver medal or bronze medal. But they do come out and support.” Morris said he hoped Petrotrin would invest heavily in track and field over the next few years
He said, “We can identify a lot of talent here in Trinidad. We can groom athletes right here in Trinidad instead of going abroad, just as how the Jamaicans did.”
Morris also wants the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) to widen its track programme with a view to keeping young athletes at home.
“If we could see that happening then we will be doing things for the country. If they could do that instead of going abroad to study — although there is a wider scale in terms of good competition — but of they could do it here in Trinidad I would be happy,” he said.
Crawford told Sunday Newsday that Walcott’s talent was unearthed more than a decade ago during the National Gas Company’s (NGC’s) Right On Track initiative, a national track and field programme which targeted young children.“People believe he just came out of the blue but he was part of a talent identification programme all through the country,” he said.
“Every Saturday morning we used to take a bus, we take our coaches, our equipment, buy our own water and food and go to all the far flung communities. Athletes were exposed to all the state of the art equipment and some coaching and Keshorn arose out of that programme.”
So successful was the programme, Crawford said it was subsequently taken to Grenada, St Vincent, Dominica and St Lucia on a pilot basis.
“That is how Kirani James was found,” he said.
Crawford said Right On Track highlighted the fact that youngsters who have expressed an interest in track and field need to be supported.
“If we really want to get more of those Keshorn’s and Ato Boldon’s, we really need to support them at that tender age. People really want to come but they need a lot of support in terms of equipment.”
Crawford said Walcott must always believe that success was well within his grasp.
“To be successful, you have to eat it, sleep it, dream it, to reach to the top,” he said. “Athletes do not enter an event to fail. When you go out there, you want to beat people.”
Crawford recalled that he was “one cocky fellow” during his heyday in athletics.
“I remember on the night before my 100-metre Olympic race, I went to Don Quarrie’s room (to intimidate him) and his manager had to run me. Nobody was better than me,” he said with a laugh.
Quarrie, of Jamaica, had placed second in the event, and for many years, was Crawford’s closest rival. The two men have since remained good friends.
By Corey Connelly
Source: www.newsday.co.tt