BASSETERRE St. Kitts, March 5th 2013 - National netball has lost its matriarchal figure. Caribbean netball has lost one of its motivational personalities; and the local and regional sport fraternities have lost one of its most enduring and exemplary exponent in mature leadership, namely, Pamela ‘Pammy’ Tyson.
Special Awards Committees and related authorities are often very tentative and nervous about bestowing certain honours, awards and recognition, of any distinctive rank, on individuals who are yet alive or who are not politicians. ‘Pammy’ justifiably put a lie to such a fear. She merited the trust, confidence and ovation reflected in the awards, acknowledgement and recognition she received from all quarters—high and low—while alive. Throughout her years as active community member, church choir director, foster/adopted parent to scores of children, public servant, long-standing president of the St. Kitts Netball Association/St. Kitts and Nevis Netball Association, President of the Caribbean Netball Association—her loyalty, dedication, selflessness and stewardship were unquestionably of the highest quality.
So outstanding was Pammy’s contribution in the field of sport that her experience ushered in a signal shift in focus and emphasis in the authorities’ consideration for recipients of National Awards. No longer were recipients of National Awards predominantly athletes/active sport individuals but now administrators as well.
She lived a life in the service of sport—and more particularly, Netball.
But all sports benefitted from her legacy of leadership. Using netball as the instrument, ‘Pammy’ moulded and nurtured the lives of many a youthful and adult female whose paths crossed hers in the netball precincts and its extended environs. Along the way, many young and adult males were equally and positively impacted. And in this regard, the outcome of her positive stewardship was not just noticeable on the national or federal levels but on the sub-regional and regional scale.
What Lystra Lewis was to the Trinidad and Tobago’s netball, so ‘Pammy’ was to St. Kitts and Nevis netball. In netball, she was the equivalent in impact to what Rex Nettleford was to the cultural landscape of Jamaica. Under ‘Pammy’s’ leadership, netball set the stage, blazed the trail and pioneered the substantive elevation in national pride garnered through the organization and practice of sport in St. Kitts and Nevis.
St. Kitts and Nevis accomplished its highest, most impressive result on the world stage in a team sport while ‘Pammy’ headed the smallest nation to compete in the World Tournament in Trinidad and Tobago (1979). We placed 5th, in what was probably the most competitive World Tournament to date. Three (3) countries tied for first place (Trinidad and Tobago, Australia and England), Wales was next and then St. Kitts and Nevis.
St. Kitts captured the Caribbean Netball Championship on more than one occasion—a fact which would have made ‘Pammy’ and the whole country justly proud. St. Kitts and Nevis played as separate entities at the Caribbean Championship but as a combined unit at the World Championship and all other competitions under the aegis of the International Federation of Netball Associations/Americas Federation of Netball Associations (IFNA/AFNA). You think current day politicians are having the time of their lives trying to forge unity, collaboration and cooperation between entities, institutions, agencies and functionaries in St. Kitts and Nevis? Well, in sports, the challenge to achieve that elusive yet desirable level of unity and team spirit is no less demanding. Netball was the landmark case in this struggle. And, in large measure, the progress achieved in this regard was due to the personality, poise and passion of Pam Tyson. The tangible support Ms. Tyson received from the likes of Ms. Lorna Edwards and later Carmen Versailles and Dr. Kennedy Simmonds—later Prime Minister Simmonds-- in the transformation of national netball is not to be understated. In earlier times, it was nigh impossible to separate the names Pam Tyson and Lorna Edwards from any mention of netball in St. Kitts. The timely partnership with Ms. Dora Stevens on Nevis proved pivotal as well.
Not only did netball, under ‘Pammy’, lead the way in performance on the field, among all other sports—at regional and international levels—but it was netball that raised the bar with respect to the organization and administration (league championships, fund raising, dress code on occasions of national representation etc); excelling beyond the limitations of the facilities available and the lack of access to overseas technical support and coaches.
We recall with mixed feelings back then, but belatedly appreciated now, Miss Pammy’s chastisements which came in very firm but friendly terms, embellished with the signature outstretched and waving left hand, and the pointed index finger for emphasis. Many of us remember very little of what was written on our birth certificates, yet could not help but recognize the outstanding penmanship of Miss Tyson which decorated the document. Every house she occupied, her cohabitants had to share the space with the non-stop traffic of netball practitioners and adherents together with netball paraphernalia.
Personality, productivity and posterity are the three words that come to mind in trying to encapsulate the life and times of Miss Pamela Tyson and her connections with the sport of netball. We have lost a personality which was the essence of approachability and service.
Pammy’s leadership facilitated what must be considered the most productive era of modern netball. The accomplishments on and off the field were exemplary and contagious. Among Miss Pammy’s posterity, are her motivation to strive for excellence, her reminder that size must not be a limitation, her capacity to encourage the balance between school/study, sport and scholarship, her community-mindedness and her immaculate stewardship.
