Trinidad & Tobago National Secondary Schools Netball Team
during their tour of St. Lucia - 1972
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TriniView.com Reporters
Interview Recorded: March 19, 2006
Posted: March 10, 2007
TRINIVIEW.COM: How did Jean Pierre's passing over affect you?
PEGGY: It affected me quite a bit because she was like a mother figure to me when I was away from my mom. We were apart for a while because she went to the Cayman Islands to work. When we got the awards she was also offered a scholarship and then she went to Miami to do her training but we never lost contact with each other. I practically grew up under Jean because I joined the club in 1969 and I am still in the club. Although Jean was a part of the administration and I was a player, we were very close. Sometimes if the players had something to say about Jean they would shut up once I was present. They knew how close Jean and I were and felt that I would have told Jean what I heard. I think the players thought we were closer than we actually were, but they couldn't separate the love. Jean and I were so close, sometimes when I asked my mom to go somewhere and it was netball, once Jean was going it was not a problem. If a gentleman talked to you, Jean wanted to know all about him and his family and whether or not he would be able to support you. The boys would run scared by the time Jean was through with them. I found out about Jean's death on the phone before it even hit the news. I didn't have a house phone at the time so I had to go next door. By the time I reached home I was in tears. When my husband Emrold saw me he was perplexed because he knew I was coming from a phone call. He asked me what was happening and at that point I just broke down and told him Jean died.
I remember in 1979 a set of people were given the opportunity to move on to various jobs. Sherril Peters left the insurance company she worked with and went with B.W.I.A. Heather Charleau went with TSTT and I think Ingrid Blackman went with Mc Enearney because she didn't want to do any coaching. Jean was the physical education teacher at St. Joseph Convent Port of Spain and so on. She also taught my small sister, who played professional basketball in England. They wanted to know how come my sister was not in the NBA. I think if she had had an agent she would have been successful because she is one of the best basketball players that I have ever seen. I taught her how to play netball in the bedroom at home but she never wanted to play shoot. In the mornings when I used to do my training she was the person who used to field the ball for me. She used to be vexed with me on a morning and wouldn't talk to me on the court or at home when she was getting ready for school. She started at an early age, maybe when she was nine years old. She was the person who took my position when I resigned from the national netball team.
TRINIVIEW.COM: Why and when did you resign from the national netball team?
PEGGY: I resigned from the national netball team because when I was on tour in 1983, I played for us to reach the qualifying rounds and when we reached the qualifying rounds they chose the younger players. I was twelve years older so obviously they would have put the younger players, Bridget Adams being one of them, in the last, final set of games. I more or less coached them because Jean used to call me at home and tell me the girls would be on the court and that I should go and coach them. Back then the younger players didn't quite develop the passing of the ball because they were still kind of selfish. They wanted to see the score by their name and not for the team. During practice one morning I remember Bridget came up behind me and said, "Peggy, after yesterday I don't think I could make that game this evening again." I told Bridget it was the last game I was playing for Trinidad and Tobago and everything was in their hands. That is how I stopped playing for Trinidad and Tobago. She didn't bother to ask me anything again because she knew I wasn't going back out on the court. You cannot drop me as a senior player for the youths to play. The youths apparently had a little talk and figured they could carry the team. What they didn't realize was that I created the plays because of the experience. They had reached so far, but they figured they could have gone without me. I wasn't getting younger, everyday I was getting a day older. I resigned at the age of thirty while I was on tour.
TRINIVIEW.COM: How do you compare the state of the game twenty years ago to now?
PEGGY: To begin with I do not think the younger people in the primary schools today get as much help from the teachers as the kids did long ago. Long ago a teacher used to stay after school and coach the teams in the primary and secondary schools. The teachers leave the school immediately after 2:30pm and 3pm in the afternoon. You must have a teacher that is netball-oriented. Long ago, we used to have the national primary and secondary schools going on tour. The association has lapsed at the bottom. I think what has caused this also is the Sea Exams and the Common Entrance Exams. Children no longer play, you have to beg them. Your parents must want you to play in order for you to play. so the kids are learning to play the game at an older age. The commitment is not there, the training at all cost and not only when the team has training. The way sports are in the world today you have to be professional. I do not think we have players today who are committed to do personal training. They are much weaker and much shorter, although I was short. I think the only shooter who used to be just a little more accurate than me sometimes was Jean. My accuracy developed because of my personal training. Long ago, wearing red, white and black used to be a big thing. I do not know if the country or the players who play the sport are that patriotic anymore. I think the lack of respect for the older players and the people in authority has also shifted. Nowadays the players disrespect the coaches. They get together and come up against coaches. I once witnessed at a practice three players going through a routine but what the shooter was doing was bad. When you try to show them differently they disrespect you. They look at rivalry as enmity. The rivalry with the women is something else because it gets very personal. It's Port of Spain and the environs you are playing with so you have to expect anything. If only they could have the love for each other.
The police and the army have taken all the good players from all the different clubs. We cannot give the players what the army and the police are giving them. In our days we were not as committed to the academics as we are now. In our days we didn't study the sport, we just learned game. People have the academics now but we are the older ones with the experience and can guide the players. If you look at the outside world now there are coaches who are fifty-one years old and maybe older. All the coaches in the top sports are not young people; they are experienced in the game and can manage their players. There are some coaches who I wouldn't consider good coaches. In the association you have to be a 'yes' person and I was never a 'yes' person. I always stood up for my rights and my father was also like that. He used to tell us we cannot have people walk on us. We need to really go right through the country and spend some of the money in the sport. The other players believe what we got, they came after and they didn't get, but we were world champions. They do not realize that we were world champions. They were not world champions, so they cannot get what we got.
The education system is geared towards total academics. There are areas the youths can get into after they leave school and still play in a sport. The children of today do not like to play sports because some teachers tell them it doesn't have any future. The kids are coming up against all kinds of things. You have to look and grab the few you come across and sometimes they are not the best. Some of them might be the best physically but mentally they are not prepared. The game Cyrenia Charles played against Australia in the tournament, she could have never played another game like that in her life. She did not even reach first primary certificate at the time. That was a once in a lifetime thing. Ingrid Blackman should have played the next game or I, even with my one hand. Cyrenia just couldn't do it again. Those are the kind of things we are faced with today. Some of the players who are there now feel they know a whole lot, but they really do not know much.
People today want who they could control. Mr. Sergeant is the consultant but I find we should consider another consultant because the way I see it, he has total control. I cannot be around people who have total control. I figure if you give the players the training and everything, you make sure they are right, but when they get on the court, they do something else. I was one of those coaches who would not have taken total blame. When I make my preparations and my work is good, I think you should perform at least seventy-five or maybe eighty percent of what we did and if you cannot do that then I cannot see why the coach should take total blame. I think some of the blame has to rest with some of the players for not effectively carrying out what they were supposed to do. Apparently he found I was out of place and I think that is why I lost my job as the national coach. I used to help in the preparations and when it was time to help pick the coach I was not chosen. They would be glad if I go back there in the morning, but they do not pay. All I would get is traveling from Sangre Grande to Port of Spain as a traveling officer with the government. I was lucky I was the national coach of Montserrat on maybe two occasions, once for St. Lucia and about twice for Cayman Islands. The Ministry had sent me from government to government. Even in going to these places you would still get a salary plus a little subsistence from coaching the teams. The abuse from parents who ganged up with one another and with the coach was something else too. It was difficult talking to them because they learned something one way.
I was lucky to have people like Jean, Mr. Cartey and Lystra in our times. Although we were rivals, we still had the love and respect for each other. We used to call Lystra "Bite" because she used to give us some serious bouf (put someone in their place). Ex-national player Barbara Chandler, who was always behind Lystra, once said she admired me for never being late for national practice. I reached late once for a game and that was in my twilight years. That one day I was late, we lost the game by default.
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