Heroes of the School System

She has been playing rugby for the last five years and is a member of the Royalians rugby club. During those years in the sport, Straker has won several awards and was nominated for player of the year and the future, by the TT Rugby Football Union. She won the female rugby player award in 2004 and captained this country’s rugby team on tour to Barbados recently.

The aspiring rugby player hopes to win a scholarship to England and to open her own graphics studio. Currently pursuing studies at Malick in Art and Design, Technical Drawing and Communication Studies at CAPE, Straker says she balances sport and academics quite comfortably.

"Between training I try to study and my mother and I have an arrangement where I train once a week for the club. In the days I don’t train I study."

Rugby is known as a masculine sport, but for Straker "I try to be me and I just live my life. I try to ignore everything I hear outside the field because I know I am good and I try to focus on my aim and that of my team’s."

She suggests that sport can be used to combat crime, if the Ministries of Education and Sports sponsors year-round tournaments to get mostly young men from areas with high crime to participate. Straker feels that prize money, used as an incentive, will get more youths involved.

Straker also acknowledged that while the Malick community has problems, it was a sporting powerhouse, producing the likes of Dennis Lawrence, Brent Sancho and Jason Scotland. She said she was motivated and inspired by their successes. She said the atmosphere at the school was "great with helpful teachers who care about students, and the interaction with students was great."

Straker recalls her best moment in rugby took place two years ago, when Royalians played Northern’s in a knockout finals. She said her team was winning, then Northern’s scored and tied the match and eventually won the game. She said it was memorable because of the energy on the field and the passion put out by the women during the game. she also said they actually had fun.