Mr. Cecil James was a visionary and a community icon as he encouraged the youth in the community to focus heavily on sports and other activities that assisted in achieving excellence and direction towards more positive paths in life.
Even though only a recreational player, he fueled his passion for sport and youth development by starting the D`Abadie Youths Table Tennis Club (DYTTC) in 1967 for the students, youth of the area and his children to participate in this sport.
One can still remember the exciting feeling to arrive promptly at the Community Center on a Friday or Saturday and waited on Mr. James as he parted the crowd of youngsters with his bag of rackets and the keys to unlock the front door. Then it was getting the first knock to spending the entire day even skipping lunch. The quest now is to revive this hunger and excitement to the club so others can now experience it. He was stern when it comes to his guidelines as his belief was that only a few may excel in sports but the ultimate goal is to ensure that the person never retires being a well- rounded citizen.
Arguably T&T`s Most Influential Coach solely ran DYTTC for over 30 years which hosted upwards of several hundred recreational and competitive players with approximately thirty (30) National junior and seniour players from 1975 to present. Some notable names that have been at DYTTC are: Lionel Darceuil, Catherine James- Joseph, Shellyanne Wilson, Marilyn Lewis and current players Curtis and Alaric Humphreys, Yuvraaj Dookram, Everton Sorzano and Linda Partap-Boodhan.
At the Community of D`Abadie:
31 years as a teacher at the D`Abadie Government Primary School
33 years as Secretary of the D`Abadie Village Council
20 years a Music Teacher for guitar, cuatro and harmonica
5 years as Assistant Secretary at the Trinidad & Tobago Table Tennis Association
Founding Member of the Lady of All Nations (D`Abadie RC)
The man with the watchwords “Trust in the Lord in everything that you do. Never do anything without him” will be laid to rest at the Lady of All Nations Church (D`Abadie RC) on Friday 30th October, 2015 at 9am.