Sports: Remembering Rio, Athlete's tribute in advanced planning

The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Honourable Olivia Grange, says plans for recognising and rewarding members of Jamaica’s team to Rio 2016 Olympic Games are proceeding.

“Yes the team has started working and we’re going over the proposals to ensure that we honour and celebrate the achievements of our Rio heroes in the most fitting way in October,” said the Minister Grange.

The Minister has established a special team — the Salute to Rio Sports Ambassadors Planning Committee — to lead the national celebration.

The core membership of the Planning Committee is made up from a wide cross section of stakeholders and practitioners, including the Jamaica Olympic Association; Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies; Sports Administrators and the private sector.

“We have a very competent core team and we’ll be able to co-opt additional talent and skills because our aims are clear: we want to ensure that the salute to our athletes mirrors their outstanding achievements; and that the programme of activities that we develop will serve to unite and inspire the whole country,” said Minister Grange.

Culture: Our Writers Can....

....be as "big" as in well known and influential internationally as our singers.

There was, in the wake of Marlon James' massive Booker Prize win in 2015-16 (shown above), an expected wave of support for Jamaican writers, whether or not they were /are domiciled in Jamaica. James' win dovetailed neatly into similar triumphs for Claudia Rankine (whose book-length poem, Citizen: An American Lyric copped several major awards and nominations both in the US and UK and Kei Miller (immediately below, right), whose similar book-length epic "The Cartographer Tries To Map a WayTo Zion, earned him the UK's Forward Poetry Prize.

Of course, there are many more victories worth savouring from Roaland Watson Grant (immediately below left) whose sly swap trilogy that began with "Sketcher" and continued with "Skid" will soon reach its conclusion with the impending publication of "Nearly Near But Fairly Far"

and poet Tanya Shirley (left) whose two published volumes of poetry to date, "She Who Sleeps With Bones" and "The Merchant of Feathers" continue to be well received her and abroad.

And new names are continually coming to the fore (or re-emerging) form Nicole Dennis-Benn whose less-than-sunny expose of the underbelly of Jamaican life and tourist culture, "Here Comes The Sun"  has been enjoying raves from diverse international presses.

And yet, even with the preceding (and a whole host more that I admittedly haven't mentioned in this missive) there is the sense that the spark is yet to become a fire; there is the concern that Jamaican literature may yet end up like Jamaican film (with apologies to all the great filmmakers now out there: a little too long in the wind and the rain to build the critical mass so needed and even desired. Calabash, the annual* south coast celebration of Jamaican and global writers in tandem is certainly a worthy element (and undoubtedly a catalyst) in this phenomenon, but its not nearly enough in itself. The singers and players had their Trench Town, and even the dramatists had a visible nucleus in the now decaying Ward Theatre and - further "uptown" the Little Theatre and the now defunct Barn. Even the celebrated athletes, always achievers, went to to another level after the establishment of the MVP facility at the UWI (though MVP is obviously not the only worthy athletics centre)

 It may seem excessively nostalgic to be suggesting a salon in this day and age of digital connection, but with social media itself now in some respects saturated and even stratified, the time has well come to "go back to the future" so to speak and develop some kind of physical centre, incubator, hotspot - who knows what to call it for Jamaican writers, not to gather in isolation, but to present themselves to the public in a frequent and meaningful way beyond an annual  festival or even a book launch at the excellent Bookophilia in Kingston or other venues. The nation deserves this, our writers certainly deserve it and the world can certainly stand to receive more great stuff from Jamaica

Sports Life: Confessions of an Autograph Hunter

For the past 33 years, Scott Smith has fanatically hunted the signatures of anyone who has been featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

The 50-year-old retired investment banker owns the world’s largest collection of signed SI covers — approximately 94 percent of the magazines issued weekly since 1954 — which he values at around $2 million.

According to a feature on mademan.com, Smith has obtained 99 percent of these in person.

These are his experiences with the biggest names in sports.Michael Jordan has been featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated 51 times — more than any other athlete.

Smith first started getting Jordan to sign covers back in 1982 when it was relatively easy to get access to the NBA legend.

“Then he became the Michael Jordan we all know: a real big-shot, bigger than (the president) or Pope,” Smith tells manmade.com. “He’s almost untouchable (now); he’s very, very stingy with signing autographs.”

It’s left Smith still chasing MJ’s autograph for 16 covers to complete his set.

“I even offered him $10,000 in cash on a golf course in the Bahamas … and he said, ‘No thank you. You’ve got enough,’” Smith says.

Wayne Gretzky

Smith got his first SI subscription in ’73 and got started on the collection nine years later, but actually not with that ’82 Air Jordan cover. A lifelong hockey fan, Smith found out where the away-team Edmonton Oilers were staying when they rolled into Jersey to play the Devils and had his mom drop him off in the hotel lobby. His mission: getting star center Wayne Gretzky’s autograph. After following some of Gretzky’s teammates into the hotel bar and playing Ms. Pac-Man, the Great One finally emerged.

“I pulled out a couple of Sports Illustrateds, and he gladly signed them,” Smith says.Smith says. “He’s always been one of the classiest superstars ever. Back then, it was no big deal to him.”

The swimsuit models

Each year Sports Illustrated has a swimsuit issue and it’s the models who adorn these covers Smith has found the easiest to hunt down.

“Most of the girls have apartments in New York City, they all go to Fashion Week, they all go to Knicks and Rangers games, they all go to some type of charity event throughout the year, so you just need to keep an eye on their Twitter accounts and find out where they’re going to be,” he says.

Kate Upton

Modal TriggerBut there’s one glamour girl Smith had a bad experience with — Kate Upton.

“She’s an absolute nightmare; just an ugly human being,” he says. “I saw her alone, and she said, ‘F*** me,’ as if it was the worst thing in the world to be asked for her autograph. Those were the words she used, as if I was stabbing her in the heart.”

Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson

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Muhammad AliPhoto: Getty Images

When Smith tracked down Mike Tyson, he was amazed when the bad boy boxer invited him back to his hotel room for a cigar and signed 50 items.

Despite that generosity, there’s one other boxer who tops Smith’s list.

“Muhammad Ali is probably the greatest person I’ve had the chance of meeting,” says Smith, who’s met the legendary boxer 30 times. “He told me it made him happy and one step closer to God every day he signed for people and watched them smile. He’s just a man who just gets it.”

- from the New York Post