Cricketing icons
Our children need to read more
Many of our icons go unrecognised in the Schools' Challenge Quiz and that is appalling. Our children need to read more about them so they are able to recognise some of the people who paved the way forward

Carole Beckford, Contributor

Photo by Habte Selassie - His Excellency, Courtney Walsh, Ambassador-at-Large

As a follow-up to my last article 'Value of Jamaica's Icons', I received a tremendous feedback from readers who wanted more on this topic.

Jamaica's icons are worth every dollar of investment that a family, community or a country places and as such they are also worth the attention they get. An icon in the Jamaican context is a person who we consider the most admirable or recognisable example.

In the field of sport, there are so many we can mention, and I touched on some names in an earlier article. As we approach March 11 for the start of the third-largest sporting in the world, it will be a scenario where icons will emerge, and what if the West Indies can repeat the feat of 1975 and 1979; what a glory it will be!

icons

This week all my icons will come from cricket.

1975 (West Indies team that won the World Cup.)

Clive Lloyd, Gordon Greenidge, Rohan Kanhai, Alvin Kallicharan, Vivian Richards, Andy Roberts, Collis King, Maurice Foster, Lance Gibbs, Vanburn Holder, Bernard Julien, Keith Boyce (deceased).

1979 (West Indies team that won the World Cup.)

Lloyd, Greenidge, Kallicharan, Derryck Murray, Viv Roberts, King, Faoud Bacchus, Colin Croft, Joel Garner, Michael Holding, Larry Gomes, Desmond Haynes, Malcolm Marshall (deceased). (Taken from the Star, Wednesday.)

One of the important lessons about profiling icons is it helps our current hopefuls to 'relive the past, to impact on the future;' which really translates to 'you cannot know where you are going unless you know where you are coming from.'

We must tell our stories and not allow others to tell them for us. There is fear that the stories may not reflect the message we want to send or the truth. On February 6 this year I had reason to look up some information on the late great Robert 'Bob' Marley, and had I not been old enough to know some of the stories myself, I would have been convinced otherwise.

All you potential writers out there, start putting pen to paper, or fingers to the keyboards, and let the world know. W can even make the stories into movies.

How often you read a book or watch a film, which was written, from a particular city or town and the information is so intriguing that you would like to visit? That is the kind of story I want told about our icons, so people will want to come to Jamaica and even our own Jamaicans will want to travel to the place to see where the story happened.

I am excited at that prospect of 'The Story of Jamaica's Icons' or 'Tropical Icons, from whence they came': I could go on and on.

The CWC 2007 should be a success, but what would make it more delightful is if the West Indies can be the first host to win the title.

In the mix of the March 11 to April 28 spectacle, some of the icons will be honoured. We thank them for their contribution to the sport. Some of them are still involved and we appreciate them for staying around.

Please send feedback to cubeckford@gmail.com.