The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

IT’s the summer time and we’re finding out that more and more teams are travelling to represent the country at various international meets around the world.

At the same time, more and more teams are looking forward to coming to the Bahamas to bask in our sun, sand and sea and enjoy some friendly competition.

One of those disciplines doing its part to cater to the influx of the tourism economy is the Bahamas Basketball Federation through its Summer of Thunder basketball games for visiting collegiate division II and III teams from the United States and Canada.

The series got started in June and it was quite disappointing to see the turnout from the local community for the Truman State University, who played about three games at the Kendall Isaacs Gymnasium.

The Summer of Thunder series will pick back up in August as a few more teams will be coming to play in some exhibition games against local teams.

As usual, these teams travel with some of their fans and if it wasn’t for them, the Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium would probably be empty. I know it’s the summer, but we have to do a better job of catering to our guests. The dates for the remainder of the games, according to Eugene Horton, the public relations officer for the BBF, is from August 8-22 and will begin with teams from the University of Notre Dame, Alabama State University and the University of Kentucky.

Mark the dates down on your calendar and let’s see if we can get some more patrons in the stands. These are some entertaining games as evident by the fact that rarely our local teams get to pull off an upset or come close to it.

Maybe by having some more people in the stands cheering for them, they can be a little more successful in winning a few, if not all of the games.

If each local player participating in the games could invite at least 3-5 people in their household, community or workplace to watch them play, we could definitely see the numbers in the spectators increase.

We just have to do a better job of promoting the things that we do to those that we come in contact with on a daily basis. Communication in everything we do is the key to our success.

Work commenced?

It was quite interesting to pass through the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre and notice that there was some movement into the construction site of the new baseball stadium. Staff at Woslee Construction, who agree to an original cost of $21,351,507 to construct the stadium, could be seen on site, but when contacted for comments, a member of staff referred the matter to the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture.

Efforts to contact the new minister, Lanisha Rolle, were unsuccessful, but Director of Sports Timothy Munnings could not confirm or deny that after a year of inactivity, they are finally ready to get the much anticipated project completed. He said if that is the case, an official announcement could be expected to come shortly. That’s good news because it’s been too long watching the big white elephant just sitting there taking up space.

Farewell to Roach

More and more we are quickly losing more personalities who have made their contributions in the sand of time to the landscape of sports in the Bahamas.

The latest to fit that description is Osmond ‘Ossie’ Roach, who at the age of 73 will be laid to rest in his hometown of Exuma on Saturday.

Before he returned to Exuma, Roach played an integral role in the Bahamas Swimming Federation behind the scenes, especially at the CARIFTA level.

If you didn’t know, Roach was also the father of three outstanding swimmers - Dorian, Cameron and Katie Roach - who all made their presence before they retired from the sport.

While Katie is now coaching, Dorian and Cameron represented the Bahamas in triathlon at the Commonwealth Games that was held in the Gold Coast, Australia in April, proving an athlete-coach combination as the second team to ever compete at that level.

Roach may have quietly slipped away, but he will be remembered for his contributions made to the swimming community. May his soul rest in peace as is Everette Oswald ‘Elisah Obed’ Ferguson, the former World Boxing Council’s super welterweight champion.

The funeral service for the 66-year-old legend will be held on Saturday as well at 11am at Golden Gates World Outreach Ministries, Carmichael Road.

At the same time, it has been confirmed that funeral services for the late Samuel ‘Sammy’ Gardiner will be held on Saturday, July 28 at 10am at Zion Baptist Church on East and Shirley Street.

Gardiner, 72, was a former educator turned Ministry of Tourism executive. He played basketball, table tennis and golf where he made some valuable contributions not just as a player, but as an executive.

No word yet however has been released on the service for the late Arthur Clarke, 66, another former professional boxer who passed away on Independence Day.

We will miss all those fallen heroes and offer our condolences on behalf of the sports team at The Tribune for all of the memories that we would have shared through the stories on their contributions to our country.