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| Sunday, 20 February 2005 |
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American pro soccer duo on relief mission here by Srian Obeyesekere 'What a wave can do' to human lives is the remembrances that two leading American professional football players - Amani Toomer and Tony Richardson, will take of Sri Lanka. Toomer, New York Giants' wide receiver and Richardson, Kansas City Chiefs' fullback, saw on television and heard and were moved of the destruction the tsunami of December 26 had caused to Sri Lanka. And so moved were the duo that on their own initiative they had visited Sri Lanka courtesy the United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) to be physically involved in bringing solace to the worst affected. "Amani and I had never met before but our determination to commit our lives to help the suffering people of Sri Lanka brought us together," said Richardson. "In fact we did not get the true picture of what happened on TV until we arrived here," said Richardson. And the football duo, who in the words of WFP Country Director for Sri Lanka, Jeff Taft-Dick - unknown as they are to Sri Lanka - are to American football fans what Sanath Jayasuriya and Muttiah Muralitharan are to Sri Lanka cricket, manifested their commitment to a humanitarian cause as Richardson reiterated in visiting tsunami ravaged Sri Lanka's southern city of Galle where the 'hardest thing for us was mingling with the refugees from babies to other destitutes which made us so emotionally attached." For as Richardson saw, 'this is all about survival, and we worked to every drop of sweat from area to area with our focus on a school in Galle where we saw the hopeless situation in the aftermath of the tsunami.' Richardson and Toomer, who has his own foundation for voluntary work and was here along with his wife, cut a swathe as to what sports can foster in such circumstances whether it be through football or cricket where what mattered was the 'brotherhood of man.' A fact perhaps best illustrated in the words of Richardson' that is why we are here and were involved in unloading not just a gunny bag or two but truck loads of food stuffs in trying conditions menaced by mosquitoes. But what mattered was bringing solace to those suffering there.' The effort which was manifested through the American National Football League (NFL) saw a total sum of $ 110,000 donated - $ 50,000 from the Indianapolis Colts and $ 60,000 from a game between the Colts and the Devnver Broncos on January 9 with quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Donovan McNabb volunteering their time to record a commercial for WFP aired during five play off games with the airtime valued at millions of dollars donated by NFL. If WFP country Director Taft-Dick struck a chord that Richardson and Toomer are to American football what Jayasuriya and Muralitharan are to Sri Lanka, perhaps the saddest moment of their four-day visit here was that Sri Lanka's champion world record breaking bowler Muralitharan was unable to keep the scheduled meeting with the Americans at the Hilton Hotel yesterday where the WFP was expectant as to its three ambassadors in relief work would be united. |
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