The fu­ner­al ser­vice for na­tion­al track and field coach Wade "Ba­by" Franklyn will be held on Fri­day (De­cem­ber 5) at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex in Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go, from 10 am.

Franklyn passed away on No­vem­ber 24 af­ter bat­tling can­cer. The 63-year-old served as a coach on sev­er­al na­tion­al teams, in­clud­ing Carif­ta and Com­mon­wealth Games. He was al­so a coach of Par­a­lympic Games cham­pi­on and record hold­er Akeem Stew­art.

​The past stu­dent of Scar­bor­ough Ju­nior Sec­ondary and Sig­nal Hill Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive formed the well-known Zenith Ath­let­ic Club along with his broth­er, Ger­ard. The club pro­duced sev­er­al lo­cal world-class ath­letes, in­clud­ing 2006 World Ju­nior 400-me­tre cham­pi­on Ren­ny Quow, World Se­nior Cham­pi­onships bronze medal­lists Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste and Se­moy Hack­ett, for­mer US Col­le­giate medal­list and na­tion­al men's 400m record hold­er Sherid­dan Kirk, as well as a long list of Carif­ta Games cham­pi­ons–Rhon­da Hack­ett, Tyriq Hors­ford, Mark Lon­don, Ker­ry Ed­wards, Tal­e­na Mur­ray, Veoy­on Joseph, Sher­vorne Wor­rell, Shakeil Wait­he, Em­manuel Stew­art and this year's Girls Un­der-17 1,500m win­ner Os­hea Cum­mings.

​Nu­mer­ous ath­letes from oth­er clubs in To­ba­go were al­so coached by Franklyn. Among them are 2009 World Se­nior Cham­pi­onships bronze medal­list Josanne Lu­cas, and Carif­ta win­ners Chelsea James, Kene­jah Williams, and Safiya John.

​Kirk re­mem­bered the im­pact Franklyn made on him.

He said, "Wade 'Ba­by' Franklyn was more than a coach to me. He was the man who saved my life. I met him at my sec­ondary school sports day in Rox­bor­ough. At that time, I was just an­oth­er teenag­er try­ing to fit in, fol­low­ing friends, and head­ing down a path that of­fered no re­al promise. But Ba­by saw some­thing in me that I could not yet see in my­self. That mo­ment changed every­thing."

The for­mer mul­ti­ple Carif­ta and Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships medal­list cred­its the Franklyn broth­ers for em­brac­ing him.

"These are the mem­o­ries that re­play in my mind when I think about Ba­by: how one sim­ple man, with one sim­ple act of kind­ness, could change the life of a young boy and set him on a path where he could lat­er im­pact oth­ers pos­i­tive­ly. Ba­by Franklyn was fun­ny, nur­tur­ing, and en­cour­ag­ing. He al­ways knew the right words to ig­nite your com­pet­i­tive spir­it. He un­der­stood how to qui­et anx­i­ety and re­place it with be­lief, con­fi­dence, and the dri­ve to per­form at your best."

Kinia John­son, who com­pet­ed at the 2001 Carif­ta Games, in a Face­book post, said Franklyn en­cour­aged her in the sport.

John­son said, "He will al­ways be re­mem­bered. He pro­found­ly im­pact­ed my life. I nev­er imag­ined I would have been in­volved in track and field, but he saw po­ten­tial in me long be­fore I saw it in my­self. He mould­ed me, en­cour­aged me, and pushed me be­yond my lim­its. Be­cause of him, I made na­tion­al teams—some­thing I nev­er en­vi­sioned for my life. What be­gan as some­thing fun, just to sup­port my school team, be­came so much greater through his coach­ing and be­lief in me."

Fel­low coach An­necia Breb­nor praised Franklyn for help­ing nur­ture the ath­let­ic rich­ness in To­ba­go.

"I can safe­ly say that Coach Wade 'Ba­by' Franklyn was a sig­nif­i­cant thread wo­ven in­to the amaz­ing ta­pes­try of ath­let­ic tal­ent we have pro­duced, per­son­al­ly in my life as a coach now, the jour­ney would have be­gun as an stu­dent be­ing en­cour­aged in Track and Field by Coach Franklyn, when iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of ath­let­ic abil­i­ty in our con­text wasn't a big thing as it is now. I'm grate­ful that He was wo­ven in­to my sto­ry," said Breb­nor.