Brian Lewis, new president of the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC), and a former student at Fatima College and St Anthony’s College, became involved in sports administration. at the tender age of 23.
As he tells it, he first became assistant public relations officer of Trinidad and Tobago Body Building Federation in 1983 when he challenged a childhood friend on the lack of information about the Federation’s activities. To this, he was told, “listen nuh, you see all that old talk, I ain’t able with it. If you feel you know so much, come and be my assistant.’ And so said, so done.
“Thus began my sports administration odyssey,” says Lewis.
Lewis, who is married to Sandra, father of Sanian and Aasan, grew up in Belmont, a place where he credits his love of and knowledge of sports and activism. “Growing up in Belmont, a wonderful sports-oriented place, it was always about sports, you were facing reality because besides the reality of life in Belmont, you learned all about social activism, steelband and Carnival were thriving... actually all of Belmont was teeming with social activism.”
Lewis dabbled in football, enjoyed athletics training , did weights, and became involved in rugby in 1984. He was the club representative for Falcons which merged with Guevara’s from Belmont and which in 1998 went into Harvard Club and formed the Harvard Rugby section. He became a member of the Trinidad and Tobago Rugby Football Union’s Management Committee.
He laughingly recalled that his sum total of representing the TTRFU in active duty was in a President’s 15 game.
“But I just loved the game and for anything named sports, just call me I ready to go,” he said as he noted that he “got beaten by Granny Luces about four times in the Trinidad Marathon.”
In 1996, the Rugby Union’s representative couldn’t go to a meeting so he was mandated to “go to the meeting and see what happening.”
“I went to this TT Olympic General Council Meeting . Listened to a contentious matter being debated and typical me, made some point, remember I am only a replacement.
“Soon after, out of the blue I got a call from Camacho, who was going to be president of the TTOC and wanted to put a good team together, he noticed Rugby’s profile in the media had risen in 1996 when I became PRO of TTRFU, asking me to come in to deal with media and public relations.
“In 1997, I ended up running for election as an Executive Member with a mandate to start changing the image of the TTOC which I myself had a problem with. That was the start of my involvement with the Olympic Committee. I moved up to Assistant Secretary General, and was Secretary General from 2005 for eight years. I must mention that in terms of the Olympic Committee, Larry Romany (former TTOC president) and I are from the same batch and have always worked well together,” he said.
At the TTOC, Lewis was asked to start up a youth camp; and among many other achievements, in 2003 was Assistant Chef de Mission at the Commonwealth Games to Malaysia and also Chef de Mission to the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo. In 2004 he was Chef de Mission to the Olympic Games in Athens.
While he moved ahead in sports, formal education was not left behind and in 2005/2006, Lewis read for and successfully graduated with an Executive Masters degree in Sports Management on an International Olympic Committee ( IOC) scholarship. His research and thesis focused on Governance of sport in Trinidad and Tobago. He currently lectures, part time, in the UWI Master’s degree in the Sports Management programme, in the area of Entrepreneurship in Sport.
Well qualified then to lead the TTOC, the road to the position was anything but smooth.
Having served on the TTOC’s Executive Committee from 1997 for 36 years, the final eight as Secretary General from 2005, what should have been a “shoo in” turned out to be difficult four-month campaign.
Said Lewis, “At no point in time did I deviate, but ensured that I conducted my campaign in a positive and constructive way to maintain the dignity and integrity and ethics of the Olympic movement because I was always mindful that at the end of the day. The Movement was bigger than us, the individuals.
“Therefore it was always my intention that when the voting was over, the movement would not have been compromised in any way. So I never set out to win at all costs.”
As Secretary General to the two presidents before him - Larry Romany and Douglas Camacho - and somebody who “always had their backs,” he was suprised to discover he was not their pick as a possible candidate.
“ I found out that the two of them (Romany and Camacho) and other members of the then Committee felt that the next president should be someone with sufficient stature and influence in the business world with high networking individuals in this country, someone who (presumably) could pick up the phone and influence people to support sport and the Olympic Committee,” said Lewis.
“It was at that point that I made it known to my colleagues that I had the necessary experience, skill and strategic inside workings of the Olympic movement to be a credible candidate for the presidency…Bottom line is that after some strong discussions, we agreed to disagree on the basis of a philosophical difference with regard to what should be the attributes of the next president.
“I didn’t think it was personal and respected their right to have a different opinion. When I made that decision I most probably had one vote which was myself,” he said.
“They gave me sometime to consider it, which was fair...I decided in any event I was not going back up as Secretary General...
“And after careful thought and sober reflection, I decided I was going to run. We agreed to disagree again with no hard feelings. As time went along I put forward a vision of a strategic marketing approach, as it would have been unethical for me to put up a slate because my only disagreement was with the presidency.
“Forty-two national sport organisations in the membership affiliated to TTOC had to be financial at the Annual General Meeting… 34 were present and financial, plus 11 executive members made up voting list on the day, May 6.
“But I had done my own campaigning, went out to national sport organisations, people wanted to know about the money situation. I took a more holistic approach that money and fundraising were one aspect of a strategic marketing approach. We needed to transform the sport sector into one that was marketing oriented, and rather than begging for a fish, let’s teach others how to fish,” he said.
And so he worked for it, and he succeeded in his bid.
Now in the president’s seat, what does this hardworking and dedicated, but very calm and collected member of the TTOC see for his 2013-2017 term?
“I would like to see that the TTOC would have contributed to the transformation of the TT sports sector. The sports sector needs to evolve and become self sustaining and self generating from an economic point of view.
“Above all, I would want to see us exceed our London 2012 Olympic performances in 2016 in Brazil,” he said.