31.1 C
Belize City
Thursday, March 28, 2024

World Down Syndrome Day

Photo: Students and staff of Stella Maris...

BPD awards 3 officers with Women Police of the Year

Photo: (l-r) Myrna Pena, Carmella Cacho, and...

Suicide on the rise!

Photo: Iveth Quintanilla, Mental Health Coordinator by Charles...

What next!!??  Dios mio!  Condolences to the family of slain footballer, Chris Rodriguez

SportsWhat next!!??  Dios mio!  Condolences to the family of slain footballer, Chris Rodriguez

BELIZE CITY, Thurs.  May 5, 2022

   Sometimes all we can do is cry, or cry out. So many wrong things converge in a calamity beyond all our wildest expectations. 

   Sports is our refuge in times of social distress, and is supposed to be an avenue to success when closed doors are all around in a youth’s struggle to achieve something in this life. It takes effort, and it is often fun to train with a team or group of fellow footballers; it takes tremendous desire and ambition in the sport to endure the physical challenges of training alone or with only one fellow baller. That’s hard work, and not the occasion to expect or anticipate anything but tired bodies and personal satisfaction with having accomplished the sacrifice of spent energy and effort towards greater achievement in the sport one loves. It’s the hard way, but it should be the safest way for a youth inclined to self-sacrifice and discipline.

   Rules are rules, however misguided, and hindsight is always twenty-twenty. It used to be the norm a few decades ago, that an elder, retired baller would be given the job of caretaker for the sports field in his area. Youthful, energetic sportsmen will always push the boundaries, and want to break some of the rules of the groundskeeper, like riding a bike across the well cared-for grass field. And they will run away when chased and threatened by the elder in charge. It was part of the sport. It sounds strange for such a task to be given to a young and vibrant 20-year-old, who should himself be burning energy in one sport or the other. Dealing with adventurous and often rebellious children and youth is always a challenge for older folks. But now it’s children in charge of children, and we know not what other social or neighborhood factors might be at play, making a tense situation become explosive. 

   Cayo must be in shock, and so is the rest of the football family in Belize. This is just too weird to be real. What a senseless and astronomical waste!? Young Chris Rodriguez was a talented footballer putting in hard work on his craft while others idle away their time or get involved in dangerous activities. Caretaker is a word that must be analyzed deeply; caretaking of any object or commodity must always be tempered with greater care for what is of the ultimate value, human life. The care of the field is supposed to be for the benefit of footballers. How can a sane mind proceed from adjudicating a rule infraction by a zealous youth, to the use of deadly force against the rule breaker?

   Mind boggling! Perhaps, the lesson from this immense tragedy is that a new policy will require a mature age and personality/character psychoanalysis for any applicant to the post of stadium caretaker in the future.

   Not since December 1964 when a lady motel manager in Los Angeles pulled a gun and shot dead her internationally renowned guest, who was arguing with her about his lost items, have the circumstances of a life lost been so stubbornly difficult for a logical mind to accept. Crazy!  There must be more to the story than that.

   From the sports desk we join the whole football community of Belize in extending our sincere condolences to all the family members of a young and promising footballer. Rest In Peace, brother Chris Anthony Rodriguez.        

Check out our other content

World Down Syndrome Day

Suicide on the rise!

Check out other tags:

International