Nearly making the Trinidad and Tobago under-21 side, only to lose out on a place in the final selection was all the motivation Ayanna McClean needed to make it to the top in her umpiring career.
Ayanna, who also holds a sales and marketing position with global giant Coca Cola, is well on her way to becoming the first female umpire from the Caribbean to make it as an FIH World Cup/Olympic List umpire, qualified to blow the whistle at Olympic and World Cup events. If she achieves her goal, Ayanna will also be only the second umpire from the region: Roger St Rose, also from Trinidad and Tobago holds that honour.
“Consider it done.. just kidding,” says Ayanna, who is currently part of the officials team at the Hockey World League Semi-Finals in Valencia. “It is a very competitive field, and there is definitely an additional pressure of not being from one of the powerhouse field hockey countries. But the goal of being the first female representing not only Trinidad and Tobago but also the Caribbean in hockey at the World Cup or Olympics is a goal that I plan on achieving.”
Hockey was always going to be Ayanna’s first love. Her mother, Cherill was a player with Ventures Hockey Club and, like her daughter, also a high-flying umpire – becoming the first female FIH Grade 1 umpire in Trinidad and Tobago.
Much of Ayanna’s umpiring experience has been gained in the USA, where she was sometimes umpiring up to four matches a week. On the international circuit she has umpired at a number of high-profile events, such as the Junior Olympic Games in Singapore in 2010, Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2011, the 2013 Junior World Cup in Monchengladbach, Germany, as well as the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2014.
She was also the neutral umpire at the South American Championships in Santiago, Chile, in 2013 and 2014, and the FIH World League in Trinidad and Tobago in 2012 and the following year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Ayanna is a member of the FIH Development Panel of High Potential Umpires. This is a group of 35 female umpires from all over the world from which FIH will identify and develop a minimum of 17 World Panel Qualified Umpires for the Olympic Games 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.
For the next few months, Ayanna is going to be heavily involved in Olympic qualification events. Here in Valencia she is one of the video umpires at the Hockey World League Semi-Finals, she then flies to Canada to be the neutral umpire in Toronto for the Pan-American Games. At the end of the year she will be blowing the whistle in Argentina at the World League Finals.
Away from hockey, Ayanna is Business Development District Sales Manager with Coca Cola Refreshments in Manhattan, New York, where her responsibilities include leading the team responsible for acquiring all the new business and marketing opportunities in New York city. She says that the ability to work as a team, a skill she learnt on the hockey pitch both as a player and an umpire, has been invaluable in her working life.
How does she find the time to fit it all in? “Well there is 24 hours in the day,” she says cheerfully, “Why not use them all.”
