Like dogs on a leash, they have started to praise and parade our Pan Am Games heroes all across the land. There were there at the airport, shaking hands, rubbing shoulders and wearing broad smiles. And over the next few days, all kinds of functions will be staged in honour of these young, bright stars.

Seven days from today, however, it will all be over - forgotten, just like it was for Hasely Crawford, Leslie “Tiger” Stewart, Gene Samuel, Claude Noel, Jack Noreiga and the hundreds of other national heroes who have distinguished themselves on the international and regional sporting scene.

It took almost 20 years before Crawford’s name was finally given its rightful place at the National Stadium. And I won’t even bother to mention the pressure he got before he finally received a house that was promised to him following his magnificent moment in Montreal in 1976.

It’s moments such as these that I resent. I almost feel to puke when I hear all the praises and promises - the hypocrisy that accompanies these achievements.

When I first started my career in sports journalism, it was a thrill to go to the airport to welcome our successful athletes back home. I actually enjoyed it. I expected some of the promises made in the euphoria of our success to be fulfilled. The reality is that not many were.

Today, the monotony is emphatic and predictable. They are going to sing the praises almost as if the glory is theirs. But I want to ask, would George Bovell III have ever come close to a medal in Santo Domingo, if he did not have the benefit of Uncle Sam’s facilities?

In yesterday’s G-Sport, Kertson Manswell reminded us that he had to go to Cuba for two months, to prepare for his silver medal success. What if he had to stay at home? Are there facilities and expertise here which can sufficiently steer him towards the medal he so diligently pursues at next year’s Olympics in Athens?

Imagine, Minister of Sport Roger Boynes has now decided to meet with Manswell’s handlers to see what could be done for him as he prepares for Greece.

Perhaps he does not know that Odlaniel Solis Fuentes, the Cuban who won gold from Manswell, was using that fight as preparations for Athens. Yep, Pan Am Games was just another stepping stone for the Cuban on his way to Athens.

His Olympic preparations began three years ago. Small wonder that Cuba could win 129 medals. And, if the truth be told, Candace Scott never threw a hammer here before she went to the University of Florida. I won’t even bother to discuss athletics. Remember how we paraded Ato? Boy, how he must be regretting the decision to come back here. Since then, his career has taken a nosedive. But what do we expect from a country in which, most of the times, there are more administrators than athletes at International Games?

What do we expect from a country in which we cannot identify one single association that is without administrative problems - whether it is financial, divisiveness or with people at the top who are more interested in themselves than the athletes? What do we expect from a country in which more jails, police officers and security systems are the order of the day?

Until such time as we recognise that the most effective tool in nation-building is sport, we will continue to have heroes who owe their success more to the Stars and Stripes, than the red, white and black flag with which they drape themselves.

As a society we must find the personnel and mechanisms to address this. No amount of short-term charades when we win a medal or two will do.

Until such time, our sporting community is in for a really “ruff” time.