The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

ASK Ronald Major, Robert Gilbert or Jack Knowles and neither one of them will tell you that they got into coaching softball for their own gratification. They were all glad to be awarded for their efforts, but they indicated that it was only for the betterment of the sport.

On Saturday night in the Banker’s Field at the Baillou Hills Sporting Complex, the New Providence Softball Association hosted its Father’s Day Special, honouring the three coaches from the Garfunkel days. All three felt it was a recognition that they will cherish for the rest of their lives.

“It’s a great pleasure, but you have to understand that I didn’t do this by myself,” said Major of his accolades. “I had guys along with me like John Adderley, Anthony ‘Stick-a-thon’ Johnson and Gully McPhee, who contributed a lot. Then you have to look at the players on the team like Oria Wood, Andrea Knowles and Donna Rolle, players who dedicated themselves to the sport.

“It was a whole team effort to get this far and to receive such an honour. Through it all, I have to give the good Lord all the glory.”

Major has spent more than 20 years as a coach, closing out with the City Bank Chargers, but he admitted that he was a sports enthusiast all of his life.

For Knowles, he has wracked up more than 40 years as a coach and he’s still going strong.

“I’m still at it and I’m glad to see that they are honouring me. I still have some more contribution to make,” said Knowles, who is still coaching in the high school system at CH Reeves. “I don’t know how long I will be able to continue, but I guess as long as God gives me the strength, energy and commitment, I will still be doing it.”

Knowles said he remembered when he brought a young female team in the league and everybody questioned where he was going with the baby girls.

“I told them their parents trusted me with them and anybody who knew me back in the day, saw me with my car full,” he said. “I picked them up and I dropped them home. Everybody went home. I made sure of that. When I quit the NPSA with that team, eight of the starters were on All-Star.”

Surprisingly, Knowles said none of his pitchers - Bernie McPhee, Mary Edgecombe or Cordell Thompson - were on the All-Star team. But he said they all went on to represent the Bahamas on the national team, so he was pleased with what he accomplished, along with other players like Rebecca Moss, Olympic Morris, Yvette Gibson and Uris Farquharson.

The young team that Knowles referred to was the Appleton Cobras, who eventually became the Wildcats.

Still coaching in the league, Gilbert said it’s a passion and love that is hard for him to put on the side.

“It’s an honour and a privilege. It’s a long time coming,” he said. “I wasn’t looking for nothing. I just wanted to go at it and keep the young men off the street. That was why I continued. Now it has come to the point where I have my children involved and now I have to continue because of my grandchildren, who want to get involved.”

In 1979, Gilbert said he stopped playing because their team needed someone to coach and that turned out to be the genesis of his role in the sport with Maura’s to the Del Sol Arawaks. Today, he is assisting manager Erin Adderley with his BTC Warriors, which features one of Gilbert’s sons, pitcher Cardinal ‘Cardi’ Gilbert.

NPSA president Godfrey ‘Gully’ Burnside said the presentations were made as his executive team takes time out periodically to honour both men and women - players, coaches, managers and sponsors - who would have all made a contribution to the sport in the past.

“Tonight, we did three former coaches at our Father’s Day special,” he said. “We hope that around Independence, we will do some more of the Garfunkel guys, who were around in the 1950s and 1960s. We will also look (to honour) former NPSA presidents as we say thank you to those persons who spent so much time around the ball park mentoring the future generation. We just want to say thank you from time to time.”

The three honourees were presented with a plaque from the NPSA, which also provided some refreshments during the brief ceremony that took place in between the ladies’ and men’s games.