A case for ‘natural selection’

IT WAS in 1973 when the second cohort of students entered the Diego Martin Junior Secondary School. This cohort comprised students from different social backgrounds and locations in Trinidad and Tobago. Nestled deep in the valley of Diego Martin and next to a balata field and cocoa estates with an abandoned water wheel, this school was an imposing structure of the built environment, “begging a lodging” in a lush, green idyllic environment that spread into the Blue Basin area. It was a tranquil, almost desolate area for most days. It was in this setting that I encountered someone like Isaiah Bobb.

Bobb attended the Diego Martin Junior Secondary School from 1973 to 1976, and those who remembered him, such as his form teacher Mr Lester Osuna, an excellent physical education (PE) specialist, recalled that he was a quiet, reserved, and “bright student”. He did not speak too much. Most times, he only smiled at what you said and got back to contemplating. I was falling back in my schoolwork and became intrigued by Bobb’s intellect. So I followed him, attempting to befriend him for some time during a school term. Bobb’s philosophical mind was beyond his age. As I continued to work on him to become just like him, I realised the extent of thought that I needed to become like Bobb. One day, we went to the back of the school to watch other students do their PE class.

We sat by the stairs some distance from two huge propane tanks. The area by the tanks reeked of an unbearable stench of urine. Bobb sat, looking straight ahead. I kept being distracted by the stench and turning and looking in the direction every so often. Bobb kept his head straight. When it became overwhelming, I asked him, “Bobb, why are we sitting here next to these filthy tanks?” He replied, “Why do you keep looking at them?” I kept my head straight, and there was no stench. I encountered this philosophy many decades later in Musashi’s Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi Classic Work, based on Musashi’s message to warriors. It contained the philosophies of Zen Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Where was this young man getting so much powerful wisdom?

In the 1970s, Trinidad and Tobago had many remote areas, untouched and unspoiled by the influence of the urban rush. Like other youth from Blue Basin, Patna Village, and River Estate, Bobb swam daily in Blue Basin and Douglas (sometimes pronounced Doubla) waterfall and pond. In this natural environment, Bobb demonstrated a particular skill like no other. He was a high diver. When Bobb was about to dive into the Blue Basin Waterfall, everybody stopped to watch, including the bigger boys. As Bobb dived from the rock, he appeared like a human javelin, landing as his toned, slender body pierced the cold, deep water with just the sound of “gloomp” and two or three ripples. He surfaced with the classic patch on the crown of his head, ready to go again, and the witnesses resumed speaking and swimming. He was a pure talent with alleged roots in Matelot, east Trinidad. Bobb belonged in the Olympics. His rural and natural environment and his perfectionist disposition (which cleared the way for a bright academic mind to flourish) could have supported a way into the Olympics if he was discovered through an early detection system of “natural selection,” meaning, in this respect: a selection process that assigned a relatively high value to the environment and the natural occupational skills and talents people use to live. How many more Isaiah Bobbs are there in our Caribbean societies who never see the light of the day to take their occupational skills and talents to their ultimate levels? It would be good to begin conducting an audit of these sporting unknowns, encouraging them to represent our interest in sport at the regional and international levels.

Bobb graduated from Diego Martin Junior Secondary School in 1976. On graduation day, Bobb won all, if not most, prizes. His mother was in attendance, and she kept sitting and standing repeatedly, clapping and cheering on her son as he won prize after prize with the euphoria of other parents. She was so proud of her son. On that day, Bobb showed what his brand of discipline could attain and possibly what an ideal model of “natural selection,” as defined here, from a sporting unknown, could look like. We must begin this conversation to level the selection field.

Sport Pulse and Sport Matters are fortnightly columns highlighting advances that impact sport. We look forward to your continued readership.

Ronald C. Noel (PhD in History), Howard University, MPhil and BA Hons, is a lecturer in history in The UWI Department of History and lectures the Origin and Growth in Modern Sport in the Faculty of Sport, UWI, St Augustine.