The spirit of pride and celebration filled St Michael South East on Sunday evening as residents gathered at the historic Princess Royals Basketball Court to honour the sporting giants who built the Pinelands Basketball Club.
Deputy Prime Minister and constituency Member of Parliament Santia Bradshaw stood alongside present honourees David Grant, Anthony Layne, Ricardo Hunte, Carl Thorpe, Cameron Vicary, Junior Rock, Wilfred Fields, Renaldo Maughn and Wayne Lascelless, telling the crowd: “Tonight is about people who built something from nothing. The facilities we see today and the winning culture in Pinelands were built on the backs of the people who came before.”
Calling the ceremony “personal,” Bradshaw stressed the impact of the original Pinelands players on the wider community. “This goes far deeper than trophies or titles. I want all of the young people, all the members of the Pinelands Basketball Club, and everyone coming up to recognise that a foundation has been made by people who came before you. Sometimes we behave as though we just arrived here. You walk in, and you see a court, you see lights, you see fencing, you see a team with structure and titles, but if we do not take the opportunity to hold events like this, the memory of the people whose backs we climbed on to reach the point where Pinelands can win title after title is forgotten.”
She also reflected on the effort to secure a permanent court, crediting her father, former MP Delisle Bradshaw. “One of the things I believe gave my father the greatest pride was knowing that this court didn’t require tokens. For those who are too young to remember, most hard courts back then required you to buy tokens and put them in a slot just to turn on the lights. This became one of the first community basketball courts in the country, where you didn’t have to do that. When my dad was Minister, he made sure of it, he made sure you could play from day straight into night, and that freedom allowed so many of you to become the successful players you did, and to inspire the young players who followed.”
Addressing violence in the community, Bradshaw said, “A few youngsters picking up guns is not the identity of St Michael South East. This community was built on success, discipline and unity.” She added, “The entire St Michael South East community wants the violence to stop. When you talk to people, nobody wants to lose their children. Nobody wants to lose their fathers. Nobody wants to have people afraid to speak. This has been a vibrant community from the time I was born in 1976.”
She continued, “Over the past few days, we’ve witnessed so many successes, but too often those achievements are overwhelmed by the senseless killings. I feel like being able to acknowledge our past helps a lot of our people in the community to remember what the community was like, and hopefully it will inspire a number of the young leaders within the community to do a lot more.”
Honouree Wayne Lascelless spoke with humour and emotion about the club’s beginnings. “We had no sponsorship, no big budgets. We made our uniforms ourselves. Cameron’s girlfriend was an air hostess, and she used to bring in shirts and pants for us. We sat down and sewed white binding on green shirts and green binding on white pants.”
After appealing to MP Delisle Bradshaw, the team quickly secured lighting and advanced through the national leagues, moving from Second Division to First Division in 1984. “From then until now, the name Pinelands is synonymous across the lengths and breadths for Basketball across Barbados.”
The full list of honourees is: Cameron Vicary, Aubrey Grant, Wayne Lascelles, Wayne Bispham, the Sealy Family, Renaldo Maughn, Captain Anthony ‘Beardy’ Layne, Carl ‘Fingers’ Thorpe, Ian Hutson, Andrew ‘Tarzan’ Thorpe, David Grant, Wilfred Fields, Ricardo ‘Ballerman’ Hunte, Junior Rock, Al Sealy, Edwin O’Neal and Joe Parris.
