Daly Challenges Young Athletes After Successful Super Nationals

Minister of State Devin Daly is challenging participants from the successful inaugural Super Nationals to dream big. The Super Nationals is a multi-sport event which brought together some of Belize’s top young athletes from across the country. The initiative is designed to create a stronger platform for youth development, talent identification and national competition. Daly told the young aspiring athletes that he was once in their shoes, and he used his sport of choice to take him all the way to the top of the decision-making table. He challenged them to do the same and gave them the key to success, which he refers to as the three Cs.

 

Devin Daly, Minister of State, Tourism, Youths and Sports

“Not so many years ago, I was once in your shoe. I really was into basketball. I still am. And I stayed in school, and after primary school, I got an opportunity to go to high school, thankfully. After high school, with good grades and perfecting my craft, I had a really good opportunity to get a scholarship to go to the US, which I finished that chapter of my life. I made sure I graduated with my degree and then I went to play professionally. But I’m giving you my backstory because I think right now the student athletes in the room, you’re still trying to find yourself. You’re still trying to figure out who can help you get to where you want to go. What are the things that you really like? Maybe you might change discipline when you get to high school. Maybe you might change it after high school. Who knows? But there’s a few staples that you need to stick to in order to want to be successful, and I call it my three Cs. It’s communication, it’s commitment and it’s consistency. So even if you might not necessarily know where you want to go, you have to make sure you communicate what it is you want to do. And after that communication is clear, then you have to be committed to that communication that you mentioned. So if you say you wanna play football, you have to make sure you communicate that with the people that are around you, your parents, your support staff around you, your family members and you have to make sure that you commit to that. So if you have a coach willing to meet you six o’clock every morning to play football, basketball, athletics, whatever it may be, you have to make sure you there upon time. And finally, you have to make sure that you’re consistent, because there’s only a small population, there’s a small number in the population that’s very talented and do not really have to put in the hard work.”

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

Watch the full newscast here: