Lawrence 'Yagga' Rowe's last stand

BY Orville Higgins

"I want the JCA to give me back my character. They have totally defamed me. My earning power throughout the world has been damaged. They have destroyed me at age 62."

Those are the fighting words of Lawrence Rowe, who expressed disgust yesterday about being treated as a cricket pariah. Last Friday, he gave a seven-day ultimatum to Lyndel Wright, president of the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA), to reinstate the honour of naming a players' pavilion at Sabina Park after him.

Rowe has been done a terrible injustice. He has endured public torment over his decision to go to South Africa almost three decades ago. And if that wasn't bad enough, fate has conspired to make him relive the nightmare.

He apologised before taking the honour because he was told that this was a prerequisite. Not long after, the honour was rescinded, causing Rowe embarrassment. This on the spurious basis that the same evening of the award ceremony he went on a radio programme and said he did nothing wrong by going to South Africa.

If Rowe had indeed backtracked on his apology, the JCA would have had a right to be upset that Rowe effectively reneged on the very terms that were crucial to him being honoured in the first place.

Misconception

However, there was one small problem. I have listened to that interview myself, several times in fact, and Lawrence Rowe did no such thing. He never reneged on his apology at all. Indeed, he spent a lot of that interview doing the very opposite, explaining, and indeed justifying, why he apologised prior to the awards!

It sounds unbelievable, given the battering Rowe received in the days after that interview, and given all that was said about his flip-flop character. Rowe spent a lot of that interview explaining that history may well judge him kindly for going to South Africa. He argued that a lot of historical situations that were thought to be negative were later treated as positive events.

Rowe was asked, maybe even grilled, by Dionne Jackson-Miller about the need to apologise at all at the function then, since he clearly felt happy with himself for making the trip. To this, Lawrence said it was just something he felt he had to do. On no fewer than four occasions in that interview she tried to press home the point that there really was no need to apologise at the function if he felt the way he did. Rowe kept saying he apologised because it was the "right thing to do". He didn't explain to her, as he did to me later on radio, that he felt coerced to apologise because people like the sports minister and the JCA president made him feel as if he had no choice.

Still apologising

Mrs Jackson-Miller asked him directly, "Looking back now, as you say, with the benefit of 28 years of hindsight, did you think what you did was wrong?" It's a straightforward question.

Here is Rowe's answer: "I don't want to go into that, because at the time when I did it, I didn't think it was wrong. At the time when I did it, I didn't think it was wrong, but looking back now, if you want to say 28 years later, with how everything has gone down, yes." So here Rowe is stating clearly that he is still apologising for his actions.

Rowe then said he hadn't apologise earlier before because AT THE TIME HE WENT, he really hadn't thought he did anything wrong. He was speaking about the past, clearly, but it seems as if this statement was taken out of context. As the interview was coming to an end, Rowe said that history would be the real judge of how wrong he was, because a lot of historical actions that were said to be wrong were later viewed in a different light.

It is clear to me that those at the JCA didn't take the time to listen to the entire tape. Had they done so, they couldn't have come to the conclusion that Lawrence went back on his apology.

My own view is that 'Yagga' doesn't have a claim to any honour, but he does have a right to protect his reputation and name. What I do know is that Rowe was stripped of his honour on an entirely false premise. He didn't go back on his apology at all.

Now the pavilion name isn't so much Rowe's core issue. Rescuing his reputation is.

Orville Higgins is a sportscaster. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.