Sports community still in shock

Despite a mass of opposition and pledges from event coordinators that it could be done, Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and Department of Community and Cultural Affairs Secretary Daisy Villagomez-Bier announced to a conference room full of hopeful faces on Friday afternoon that the CNMI would no longer be hosting the 2006 Micronesian Games.

Leaders of several athletic associations voiced their dissent and challenged the administration to join them in their search for a solution, to no avail.

In a letter addressed to Micronesian Games Organizing Committee president William Keldermans, the governor stated that Saipan would not be able to host the Games “given the worsening financial condition of the CNMI government,” and offered that “I trust that other jurisdictions within the region, such as Guam or Palau, will be able to host the event in our stead.”

Immediately following the press conference, a number of local sports leaders left the room to explain why they believe that Saipan still can host the Games.

“I’m disappointed not only in the decision that was made and the way that the announcement was handled. It was poorly handled from the very start. Under the Micronesian Games Charter, the Games were awarded to NMASA. We obviously recognize that the Games cannot be conducted without government support and government assistance. We had that commitment from this government. Even though it was a previous administration, it’s still the same government. Unfortunately, the government’s gone back on its word, and I’m just disappointed to think of the adverse effect that it is going to have not only on sports but also on other aspects,” said NMASA president Michael A. White.

The administration cited poverty when explaining its decision to withdraw from its hosting duties.

“I don’t know how that’s possible. With 1,200 people coming in and spending money in the Commonwealth, having to feed that many people coming in and taking care of people spending $50-$100 per day, it would have been a tremendous boon to the CNMI economy had the Games been held. It would have bettered the lives of every individual in the Commonwealth, now we don’t get the benefit of that. I don’t know where we’re going to replace 1,200 lost tours. The governor admits that we have to spend a little money to make money, but I don’t know how we plan ever to do that,” said White.

According to one of the organizers of the original 1969 Micronesian Olympics, money would not have been an issue, and that the people of the CNMI would have gained from the experience.

“I have no doubt that we can still host the Games here. In 1969, we didn’t have a gymnasium on this island and we did a wonderful job. We had a coral track, we had to roll it by hand, and we had to put oil lines down. We took a can of oil and dribbled it along the coral to make a white track with black lines. In 1990, nobody had done anything about the track competition. There were no lines on the track down at Hopwood, and I had to go do it by hand myself. There are always problems with Games, but people come together, pull it off, and they make it a wonderful happening. We should host it. There’s absolutely no reason that we can’t host it. We can get by the money thing. We can get corporate sponsors. Nobody’s done that yet, and I know that there are corporations that want to be a part of this. You just have to get the key people in the organizing committee to do their jobs. Instead of this whining and complaining about this we need to just get it done,” said Northern Marianas Athletics president Kurt Barnes.

Barnes wasn’t the only sage of sport in the room with a contradictory opinion of the administration’s plan to scrap the Games. Frank S. Rosario, who was an athlete in the 1969 Games and one of the organizers of the 1990 Games, said that he believes the CNMI can host in 2006 as well.

“Personally, somebody dropped the ball…In 1990 we didn’t have a track and field, now we have a world class facility. We have a brand new softball field right here, and we still have the Olympic-sized swimming pool in Marpi—we have all of the facilities. Granted we have to do a little work at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium, but you have the Marianas High School Gym which has everything, and the gym at the Northern Marianas College. We have better facilities now in 2006 then in 1990—which we were able to host. I personally think we can do it,” he said.

One of the organizations that has gained the most recognition and the least amount of support lost out on the chance to show the home crowd why they were the CNMI’s stars in Palau. Not long after the announcement, one of the swimmers expressed his feelings about not being able to perform in front of his home town fans.

“I’m shocked. I really wanted to have them held here. I was looking forward to it. It would have been a good opportunity to show people how well we’ve trained and how well we can perform with the other islands. That was a shock. It’s sad,” he said.

With a lump in his throat, he asked if the Micro Games were still going to be held this year. Even though all signs indicate that either Guam or Palau will take over the hosting duties, the swimmer was saddened when he thought about the CNMI’s other athletes who were left unprepared for the announcement.

“Shoot, if there’s no money to host the Games, nobody’s been fundraising for travel, so it’s going to be tough for us now to compete. A lot of sports are going to have a hard time getting money to go—especially to Palau. It’s too bad we have to find this out late,” he said.

Rosario echoed the young swimmer’s concerns, and said that the corporate sponsors would have made the difference for most of the CNMI’s athletes being able to compete against the best from the region.

“We’d go out and ask the private sector to become major sponsors of the Games like we did in 1990. We had three major sponsors and at least one of them paid $100,000 to have their names put on the logo. That’s how we were able to collect a lot of money. Now we have to go out and find money to send our athletes, which will be much less than before. Everybody’s got to go out and collect money—from where?” he said.

Even the regularly reserved president of the Saipan Major League Baseball Association was out of sorts, as Rose Igitol voiced her displeasure with the higher ups.

“I am very, very disappointed and maybe even closer to upset about this whole thing…for me it seemed that we were talking to deaf ears trying to explain our situation and that we can pull this through. We were not being heard as a committee, and it’s unfortunate that, and I’m going to say it, that our own chairperson who should have been representing us well in our desire to host the Games turned around and made her own decisions. While the governor and lieutenant governor may have had some input to this, my personal opinion is that they were ill informed about the progress and how things were going with the Games—the planning and all,” she said.

Igitol said that she still believes that Saipan can host the Games and that she recently received offers from the local business community to pitch in to help the effort and that more are willing to lend a hand.

“I think we can still do it, yes, because of the private companies that are willing to help. Like I mentioned earlier, there’s one company that approached me and offered their assistance to put up the lights and get the field ready for our league that’s coming up and the Micro Games. That’s just one company, and I know that there are more companies out there just waiting for us to approach them,” she said.