STEVEN LESLIE loves sports. He loves to play and he loves playing a role in the administration of cricket in Barbados and across the region.
Leslie is the sports coordinator (with special responsibility for cricket) at the Academy of Sports, University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill, where he also serves as manager for the Sagicor UWI cricket team and assistant manager of the Combined Campuses and Colleges regional cricket team.
Leslie started playing sports at age ten. At the time he attended a private school with limited opportunities in sports teams but at The St Michael School he was exposed to a teacher and cricket coach who played a big role in his involvement.
He eventually went on to represent The Lodge and St Michael Schools in cricket, football and badminton and was a member of the Empire Cricket club.
He was also the 2003 Male Sports Personality Of The Year at the UWI.
Leslie, who is currently pursuing the Master’s degree in Cricket Studies at UWI Cave Hill, is qualified in accounts and Computer Science with a Bachelor’s degree. He spent a year at a local firm as an auditor but did not like the office setting, preferring to be outdoors – which led him to the area he is now involved in: sports administration.
Given opportunity
While pursuing studies at UWI in 1997, Leslie was given the opportunity by the former director of student services to be involved in not just playing cricket but organizing matches and group activities. After that initial exposure, he said, he grew into it and loved organizing things for the entire group.
He now works with the Combined Campuses and Colleges where he is instrumental in developing the skills of young Caribbean cricketers. “It is one where student athletes get the opportunity to pursue their academic programme and play at the regional level. It can be extremely challenging to do both but some are extremely good at managing the process.
“The beauty of that is that you find an experience where people do not have to give up one or the other, as was the case in the not too distant past.
We have persons who now can achieve a university degree and represent the West Indies,” Leslie said.
Leslie is also the chief liaison officer between UWI and The High Performance Centre. Additionally he works with the Barbados Cricket Association and the WICB in organizing cricket activities.
As for the development of cricket in Barbados and the West Indies, he said, there needs to be accountability and trust-building between players and management.
No honesty
“There is no doubt that there are a lot of good persons across the Caribbean to get us a more competitive team but we are not honest with ourselves in terms of having persons being accountable for things they should have been doing,” he said.
He said that when things go bad and people are not held accountable for that, they go back to work as usual the next day as if nothing went wrong and without anyone saying they are at fault or having to answer for falling short.
In terms of trust, players should believe that genuine efforts are being made to develop them personally and then as cricketers.
“Until we have trust being built between the administration and players, we will find that the major interest will be ‘what is my earning capacity as a player’ and not in how they can develop the West Indies cricket and the issue of representing their country,” Leslie said.
He is also deeply involved in community work. He is the coordinator and lecturer (part-time) in the co-curricular credit programme in sports for undergraduate studies, too. Plus, he did a stint as president of the UWI Cave Hill guild of students from 2003 to 2004, which gave him the opportunity to be the chief representative regarding all student-related issues on campus.
He had the opportunity to negotiate the fee structure at sister campuses Mona and St Augustine when students were facing higher amenities fees that would deprive a lot of young students of an education.
He was also instrumental in the establishment of a co-curricular credit programme at Cave Hill; it allows people to get three credits towards their academic degree in the areas of leadership, debating and sports.
Leslie also served as a member of the St Leonard’s Boys’ School board of management from 2006 to 2008 when the school was going through a turbulent phase a few years ago.
“Being able to walk through the school and see young men needing direction and help, being able to put policies in place to make sure they got the best environment is clearly a joy for me,” he explained.
Some of the other highlights of Leslie’s work was being part of the national HIV/AIDS Commission as youth representative for the Eastern Caribbean.
