BOA’s Simmons elected to PanAm board

Veteran Barbados Olympic Association administrator, Erskine Simmons, has described as a “dream”, his elevation to the board of the Pan American Sports Organization.

The long serving Secretary General of the Barbados Olympic Association, Simmons becomes the second Barbadian to sit on the Board of Directors following his uncle, Michael Simmons, who was the first black man elected to PanAm Sports in 1975.

With the appointment as a board member, Simmons ended Barbados’ nearly three-decade for a return to the body and said it was a “wonderful feeling”.

“This is kind of a dream of mine,” Simmons told Barbados TODAY.

“My uncle Michael Simmons also served on this board going back as far as 1975 when he was treasurer so it is kind of a wonderful feeling from the point of view that I have followed in his footsteps in some way.

“I am the second Barbadian to be elected to the Pan Am sports board so I am elated of course.

“The other thing is that it was some two years ago I sought to get the approval of my colleagues within the Caribbean. I worked towards that and here I am a member of the Pan Am board.”

Simmons elevation came during the Annual General Assembly of PanAm Sports held for the first time virtually via Zoom on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic.

Simmons will serve on the Board of Directors for Group 2 – the category into which Barbados falls – and will be joined by Keith Joseph of St. Vincent and the Grenadines who was elected vice president, along with Grenada’s Veda Victor-Bruno and St Kitts and Nevis’ Alphonso Bridgewater.

Both Victor-Bruno and Bridgewater will also serve as board members.

Neven Ilic of Chile was re-elected president.

Simmons, who also serves on the PanAm Sports Technical Commission and is also a member of the Ethics Commission of Centro Caribe Sports – formerly CACSO – said his success in the selection had been as a result of a collective effort.

“I did some canvassing, I spoke to my colleagues and we worked together,” Simmons explained.

“I spoke to them, told them what I wanted to do. I indicated that if I am to be successful my intention is not to serve more than two terms.

“I thought there were others who were quite capable of serving on the board as well. But they gave me their support along with my NOC as well who endorsed my candidacy, and of yesterday was appointed to the Pan Am Games sports board.”

Simmons’s term will run until 2024 and will see him helping steer the organisation which is the Olympic Body responsible for the Pan American continent.

Having already served in several capacities in varying sports bodies in Barbados and throughout the region, Simmons stressed that his new role afforded him yet another opportunity to advance not only national interests, but those of the Caribbean as a collective.

“It certainly gives me the opportunity to have further insight as to how I can assist my NOC (National Olympic Committee) to further funding opportunities not only for Barbados but our Caribbean colleagues,” he stressed.

“It is not just for myself. It covers from Antigua to Jamaica. So, I would like to see how I can assist our Caribbean colleagues with providing every opportunity necessary in terms of providing expertise in coaching, administration, governance, gender equality – you name it.”

Simmons has racked up an impressive resume in nearly 35 years as a sports administrator. He sat on the executive of the Barbados Football Association during the early 1980s before being elected as an Executive Director of the Barbados Olympic Association in 1986.

In 1992, he was appointed assistant Secretary General of the BOA and four years later, assumed his current post of Secretary General.

Simmons also spent nearly two decades serving on the Technical Commission of the Pan American Sports Organization, as well as being a board member of the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC) from 1998 until 2007.

He was a member of the Evaluation Commission for both the 2018 Commonwealth Games and the 2019 Pan American Games and is also a current member of the National Anti-Doping Commission.
(BT)