FORMER Trinidad and Tobago table tennis players Bellina Barrow and Sherdon Pierre have collaborated with several ex-pro athletes and sport administrators to co-author the book Soul of an Athlete - Stories and Lessons on Life Post-Athletics.
The pair are the only contributing authors outside of the US and combined to write the book’s seventh chapter, entitled Conquering the Racquet World.
The book was launched in September 2023 and “explores the wisdom and invaluable life lessons that lie within athletics. It's not just about the victories or records; it's about the relentless pursuit of personal growth and the resilience forged through triumph and tribulation,” its description read.
[caption id="attachment_1056771" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Soul of an Athlete Stories and Lessons on Life Post-Athletics -[/caption]
Altogether, 14 former athletes share their stories and life lessons about sport and personal reinvention.
In their chapter, Barrow and Pierre share their knowledge and experiences as ex-athletes and administrators, and how they transitioned and built their post-athletic careers. Barrow is now an attorney at a law and Pierre a sports agent and journalist.
Both started their ping pong careers at D’Abadie Youths before Barrow moved to Woodbrook Gladiators.
“We wrote about our life, entry into sport as we would have done different things before we got into table tennis. We tracked our entry, analysed our table tennis and our careers, the personal and administrative challenges and the wins,” Barrow said.
“When you have to make the decision to focus more on academics or your career than sport, and you kind of have to come down on one side. After a while if you’re not going to become a pro athlete you have to be an upstanding citizen and lead a professional life.”
Through LinkedIn, US-based non-profit organisation Athletes Soul put forward their project to Barrow in search of contributing authors. She approached Pierre who was also willing to document his journey.
Athletes Soul is a support system for retiring athletes and its mission is to support athletes as they transition away from sports, raise awareness about the challenges of athletic retirement, and empower athletes to develop beyond sports.
Despite both former talents highlighting some of the ups and downs in their past sporting careers, they hope their collective submissions can serve as real-world examples, and also help to inspire positive change going forward, for athletes, administrators and the sport at large.
“We want do more work beyond this book to help sports in TT, at any level,” Barrow added. “While we did not achieve maybe what we wanted to achieve, if the improvements are made, those coming up can benefit from the improved system and structures, to lessen future casualties, those bringing a short end to their careers. We want to be change makers in that regard.”
Pierre said the writing process was a bit tough, at points, since despite being a journalist, he’d never written about himself to that extent. He
