That Proud Man Called Jack

(Trinidad Guardian)

I could still see the broad grin underneath the mustachioed upper lip as he related the two occasions in 1971, when he 'set up' and bowled Barbadian batsman Seymour Nurse.

For some strange reason, Jack Noreiga rated the performance in that game when he captured 6-67 & 5-86 (11-153), much more than his famous Test figures of 9-95 against the Indians. Included among the batsmen dismissed was one Sir Garfield Sobers, who as far as Jack was concerned, was the 'Greatest.'

To dismiss Sobers (76), who briefly threatened to stop T&T's first win against Barbados in 26 years, was special and Jack would have known that the eventual five-wicket victory which the local team enjoyed, had a lot to do with his controlled spell of off-spin bowling.

I was on the scoreboard that day at the Queen's Park Oval - one of the 18 boys from Queen's Royal College, who worked on the scoreboard and witnessed the game without paying.

I was also there one month later when Jack made history by becoming the first (and only) West Indian bowler to take nine wickets in a Test innings.

It would be more than a decade though, before I would come face to face with Jack. I had moved on from the scoreboard and QRC, to the media and had requested an interview with him at his Ministry of Works office.

The pencil-slim lad who mystified the Bajans and Indians had been replaced by a more rounded individual, certainly around the mid section, and it was obvious that his bowling days were over.

Jack gave me a great story because he loved to talk. He had me in stitches when he related that after his historic performance against the Indians, Sir Gary handed him the ball and gave him the honour of leading the team back to the pavilion.

He must have been about five yards ahead of the team when Grayson Shillingford, who took the only other wicket to fall, ran up to him and started walking alongside. Shillingford turned to him and said: "Don't get no horrors, Jack, we walking in together - we wreck them."

Following that interview, Jack and I met regularly and became really good friends. He liked to lime and so did I. He followed my career and whenever I wrote about older sportsmen, we would discuss it, and he offered advice which broadened my bank on local sport.

He was a serious race fan. Sometimes he would have most of his nine children in tow at the savannah, where the sport was once king. His eldest daughter Jackie, Gary who was a jockey, Nigel who was always with him in recent times and Roxanne also became like family to me.

In the latter years, things were not rosy with him. Had he the finances to look after himself medically, I doubt that he would have died under the circumstances which he did last Friday.

But he was a proud man and one who would not have asked for help. Some may describe that as foolish but you don't distinguish yourself to the extent which Jack did, and then go around the place begging for charity.

There are lessons, of course, in Jack's death. As a society we must address his treatment at the Port of Spain General Hospital; the failure of our sporting administration to have a system in place to deal with our heroes and ensure they don't go out like he did.

But this column today is not about that. It is simply to recognise a national hero, an affable man who loved life and lived it with a perennial smile, despite his ailments.

And to know that for those of us who survived him, that emphatic mustachioed grin, will live on forever!

* Valentino Singh is sports editor of the Trinidad Guardian, where this tribute was first published.