The Man Without Imperfections

According to Kenny Bermudez, Hampton Games has enjoyed many various homes over the years. Bermudez, who is actually of African descent, and looks nothing like any of the scions of the famous Trinidad and Tobago biscuit-manufacturing company, is one of the people whose navel string is buried deep within Hampton Athletic Club soil.

He tells us that Hampton Games once began in the Queen’s Park Savannah, near the Emperor Valley Zoo in Port-of-Spain, before taking up location at the St Mary’s College grounds on Serpentine Road, St Clair; and then shifting to the Aranguez Savannah. From there it was King George V Park, and the Games just kept getting bigger and better. Hampton Athletics club was the first to have its Games at night time under lights, and also the first to bring in foreign athletes. The Games at one time were even held at the Arima Velodrome. There was one year when the club had no money, and therefore could not host the games. Kenny Bermudez got some sponsors, and Hampton Games was held at the beautiful JP Schmaltz Velodrome in Palo Seco. [The foreigner J.P. Schmaltz, after whom that Stadium is named, was once rumoured to be the highest paid salaried worker in all of Trinidad and Tobago].

Public Relations specialist Kenny Bermudez was born in 1951, and is a Sagittarius father of three. Basically, he is an athletics coach and administrator, and did not have anything really significant to say during this interview, about his former days many moons ago as a track and field athlete. But at least he can boast about having created some of the finest runners that this country, and the rest of the world, has ever seen, with his own two hands. Names that roll easily off the tongue include Ali St Louis, Bernadette John and Roxanne Vincent.

Kenny, who began his coaching career at the Palo Seco Sports Club during 1971-72, which back in those days was called Trinidad Tesoro, also produced Nibian Mendoza, the deceased Moses Ranghell, and Kurt Thompson. He blessed us with the star-spangled status of Geraldine George and Marsha Mark, and then left time-keepers bewildered and befuddled with such athletic giants as Ian “Frinty” Morris and Anthony Myers. Marsha Mark went to the Olympic Games two Olympiads ago, while even though Ian Morris was a member of Kenny’s Palo Seco Sports Club, Kenny was not his personal coach. Ian Morris utilised the services of a different coach from another club. Anthony Myers was reputedly the first athlete that he ever coached. Kenny tells us a joke about the almost pristine relationship between Hampton honcho Rawle Raphael and himself, which makes it sound as if he and Raphael are blood brothers, descended from the same parents. Raphael is reported to have said over and over again, that he loves Kenny Bermudez so much, that nothing that Kenny either says or does, could ever get him vex. But it was the now deceased St. Mary’s College French teacher, Hubert Francis, who first came up with the idea of co-opting Kenny Bermudez onto a Hampton Games organising committee, especially considering his unmatched role as one of the club’s founding members. That was almost 35 years ago, and since then his comrades around the round table have included Raphael, Francis, Osford Ogiste, a certain Mr. Cupidore, and a certain Mr. Rey Davis [not the once popular sports reporter who spells his first name, Ray]. There was also the now deceased Carl Osbourne, Dr. Jesse Noel, Conrad Welch and George N. Clarke. Then splice in Douglas Barzey and Zeno Constance, and we have the whole armada of young officials who made HAC into what it is today.

In retrospect, Kenny Bermudez says that he is very grateful to Raphael and Francis, because it is they who made him into what he is today; a highly respected athletics coach and administrator, even though people are still trying to figure out how it is that a black man could have a white man name like Bermudez. Track and Field is Kenny’s entire life. It’s his job, it’s what he does, and it’s also his one major hobby [perhaps his only hobby]. He tells us that he first became bitten by the coaching bug back in the early 1970’s, during the early years of something called the Dr. Eric Williams Prime Minister’s Best Village Trophy Competition, which actually had a category called “Best Village Olympics.” He distinctly remembers someone called Horace Hart, but he was unable to say exactly what the significance of this name was. These days, portly Kenny still coaches his own track and field club, called Petrotrin Palo Seco, but there seems to be a shortage of athletes in the country, because Kenny is currently on a talent search. This is even though he currently has more than 105 children under his wings, whom he cherishes dearly, and whom he hopes to keep productively occupied and off the streets, through athletics.

He spends Monday to Friday seeing about his club in Palo Seco, and then on weekends goes to various other venues in different parts of the country, where he continues coaching other athletes. In closing off the interview, Kenny Bermudez said that he wants to thank all the various people who have helped him along the way, making him into the successful track and field coach that he is today, and his sponsors Petrotrin. Surprisingly, this man who has spent his entire life engrossed in athletics, also found the time to thank one of our former national football heroes, Edgar Vidale (who at one time was among the cadre of coaches that tried out as national coach of the now famous 1989 Strike Squad).

And then, almost as if Kenny was planning a “family reunion,” he again thanked Raphael and Francis, along with Zeno Constance.