The Man Without Imperfections

It says a lot for the character of Patrick Bynoe, that during an interview to reprise his achievements during an outstanding athletic career of a bygone era, he would instead spend a considerable amount of time praising those unsung heroes of the past, his contemporaries, whom he thinks could have easily gone on to spectacular greatness, but sadly enough these sportsmen never did.

In the cool, relaxing comfort of his Woodbrook home, he regaled us with sizzling tales about a man called Orville Harris. To put it in clearer perspective, humble people like Patrick Bynoe, Trinidad and Tobago Olympic medal hero Edwin Roberts and Orville Harris et al, were all contemporaries, around at about the same age. As young men, they trained together, whether as Hampton teammates, friends meeting in the wide open Queen’s Park Savannah; or as friends meeting at QRC grounds to train. Sixty-four-year-old starboy Bynoe insists, and he has the evidence to back it up, that speed demon Orville Harris would regularly, casually and gladly run faster times that Roberts. But let’s concentrate on the topic at hand.

Born into a Christian family at a Colonial-styled little wooden house on Ariapita Avenue, not too far from where the famous Mas Camp Pub now stands, Patrick Bynoe went to St. George’s College in Barataria, from where, even at a very tender age, he knew that all he wanted to do was run. But here we need to compare the athletic careers of [for example] Hasely Crawford, or Luciano Carravani of Italy, or Michael Johnson of the USA and Bynoe, in order to bring his ambition into a clearer focus. Whereas people like Crawfie saw training hard every day as their route to the ultimate reward, which was a possible Olympic Games gold medal, in whatever discipline; in the case of Patrick Bynoe, what he did was to use and exploit his athletic prowess, in order to gain his education, his University degree, and a chance at living a comfortable life with a high-paying job, even perhaps one day becoming a rich man, [ostensibly because of his having gone to university and obtaining a degree]. And that is exactly what Bynoe did. This father of three has no qualms about the way he had planned out his young life so many years ago.

He reasoned that if he could run fast, then he could qualify for a scholarship. If so, then his entire education could be free. After getting the degree, his mission would have been accomplished, and therefore he would immediately say goodbye to active competition in athletics for good, and concentrate on “how to make money,” in a respected, lucrative profession. That’s exactly what happened, and that’s exactly what he did. As soon as he acquired his tertiary qualifications in Business and Economics, Patrick Bynoe hung up his spikes for good, never to run again. Never! And therefore what was left was one of the shortest yet luminous athletics careers ever in the history of Trinidad and Tobago, spanning just about ten years. His athletic career was like a supernova, bright and bursting with brilliance, but at the same time short-lived.

Now separated from his wife, Bynoe says that he never regretted that decision: the part about blanking running for good after graduating from University, not the private and personal part about the volte face in his marital life. But Bynoe would have been a star in his own right, whether he had chosen to run for Hampton Athletics Club, or any other track club. In fact his guts, talent, discipline and natural ability was so high, that at any other sport, the results would have been the same. And this is no joke. If, for example, Bynoe had chosen to take up baseball, he would have emerged as a world champion. If he decided to start skiing on ice in the Great Alps, it would have been the same thing. To put it simply, this was the Brian Lara of athletics of that particular era. In fact, so talented was Bynoe that from since the age of 13, his love for athletic magazines turned into a powerful obsession that just wouldn’t let go. He would spend whole day whole night reading these magazines, and fantasising about what it would be like if he were to grow up to become the next great Olympic icon, like perhaps Alex Themi of what used to be called East Germany, the svelte Moite Amadou of the Ivory Coast, or the fleet-footed Brazillian Ray da Silva. By the time his 14th birthday came around, young Partrick was hooked on running faster than a guided missile, and nothing could shake his resolve to become the undisputed O.J. Simpson of world athletics. The young and handsome Patrick Bynoe, the man blessed with dazzling film star good looks, the Denzel Washington of track and field, signed up with Hampton around 1956-57, and from then on never looked back.

Until the diploma ink dried on his degree paper, of course, and then it was a straight case of “Ah done with that,” and the swivel-hipped young “Siberian” sprinter hung up his spikes for good. He never saw another eight-lane track after that, and he never ran another race in his life. Except maybe the race to the altar in church! Not even a little “big belly” race during a fete match on a cool Maracas Beach on a fun-filled Sunday evening.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that two of Patrick Bynoe’s three children also went on to win either full scholarships or, as is the style these days, half-scholarships, but he won’t divulge to what extent they were involved in athletics, nor why the third sibling never picked up a running shoe like his father at all.

This all-round athlete Patrick Bynoe excelled at everything he put his hands on and, while everything he touched did not automatically translate into a gold medal, at least his blood, sweat and tears paid off handsomely. He mastered the pole vault, completely dominated the long jump, made the high jump into his personal toy, and took part in the triple jump whenever he had finished reading a chapter of “Paradise Lost.”

Nothing was too difficult for this man. No challenge was too heavy; no ladder too tall to climb. This was the perfect athlete; the tall, strong athletic warrior, with skin bronze like a Greek God. Back in those days there were various track and field meets called the Eastern Games, the Southern Games, the Trinidad-Tesoro Games, sometimes referred to as the Palo Seco Games, and, would you believe, even the Northern Games. These were the top athletic events of that era. Patrick Bynoe began his career somewhat modestly, winning a medal in the High Jump at the Eastern Games in 1959, and it was around this same time that he did a 15.6 clocking in the 110 metre hurdles.

He was the unofficial field athlete for Hampton. The training ground for Hampton was at the Queen’s Park Savannah, but he would also train at QRC, where he both leaned and honed his pole-vaulting skills, because QRC was the only place with a pole-vaulting pit. For him, it was an honour to represent Hampton, which was one of the very first athletic clubs in Trinidad and Tobago. Apart from the triple jump and 400 metres, he took to the relays like a duck to water -- the 4x100 and 4x400.

Then there was also a special incident of good news that took place in 1962, quite by accident, that led to an American coach, who had seen him run, purely by mistake, insisting that Bynoe was “the real deal,” and was also fascinated by the fact that not only was Bynoe an excellent and natural runner, but was also quite skilled at certain field events. Later on, Bynoe began to forget everything else and only concentrate on the events that had the word “400” in them, like the 400 metres, the 4x100, and the 4x400. “Back then we, at Hampton, were like one big happy family,” he said.
And then he reverted to the memories of the electric sprinter Orville Harris from Belmont, whom he said “used to beat everybody”.
Some people say that Patrick Bynoe had a style similar to the 1976 John ones of the United States, a man who gave our very own Hasely Crawford some worries at one time.