Gregory Wight will soon travel to Germany to watch Trinidad's national soccer team play in its first ever World Cup.
Wight, who owns a flavor additives business, doesn't even like soccer that much. But he promised his teenage son - a Soca Warriors superfan - he would take him to the World Cup if he improved his grades.
"I bought him off," Wight said. "Now look at the mess I am in. I don't know why I opened my big mouth."
The 50-year-old Wight and his son Jeffrey are two of the more than 4,000 Trinidadians headed to Germany to watch the Soca Warriors (named for the national music soca, a fusion of melodic calypso and East Indian rhythms with a backbeat of driving drums).
Trinidad, the smallest country in area and population to ever qualify for the tournament, faces a tough group in the first round. The team plays Sweden on June 10, then England on the 15th and Paraguay on the 20th.
With the odds stacked against Trinidad to make it to the second round, the team's fans have pinned a wide range of hopes on the Warriors.
Jeffrey Wight had been flunking a couple of subjects at school. With World Cup tickets dangling over his head, the 16-year-old turned his grades around, scoring A's in five out of eight subjects. Now comes the payoff.
On Sunday, he and his father will fly to London, rent an RV camper and ride roughshod across England and France with a posse of Trinis - as they refer to themselves - on their way to Germany.
"I've got enough Soca Warrior jerseys to wear a different shirt every day for nearly a month," Jeffrey Wight said.
Wight said he is happy his son pulled up his grades. Still, driving a camper bedecked in Trinidadian flags and Soca Warriors paraphernalia is not his ideal summer getaway.
"I want more wineries and castles instead of football," Wight said.
Jeffrey, on the other hand, is the epitome of a superfan. The earnest teen, sporting braces and sandy blond hair, plays video games into the wee hours of the morning, taking his virtual Warriors to the finals.
He almost always wears the team's signature colors - red and black - and spends more time debating Trinidad's World Cup prospects in Internet chat rooms than doing his homework.
A die hard fan, Jeffrey sees what his father's true hopes are.
"This is bigger than my grades or the World Cup," he said. "My father wants me to do well in school so I can have a better future somewhere else."
Wight said he doesn't see a good future for his son in Trinidad.
"We're murder central here," Wight said.
Oil and gas rich Trinidad and Tobago, one of the wealthiest countries in the Caribbean, has one of the world's highest homicide rates. March was the bloodiest month on record with more than 50 killings in the country of 1.3 million people.
Rock singer and guitarist Gary Hector, also headed to Germany with his teenage son, is hopeful of what the tournament can mean for the country.
"People always ask me if I would rather have a smash hit or for Trinidad to qualify for the World Cup," said Hector, flipping one of his four-foot long dreads over his shoulder. "That's easy. I always say I want them to qualify. A hit can only help me, whereas the team qualifying helps the whole country feel positive about the future."
Like many rock singers, Hector's got a tattoo.
On his left arm is a drawing of a Soca Warriors jersey with the number "10" written on it under the name Latapy, as in Russell Latapy, the midfielder who has played for Trinidad for two decades. Below the shirt the tattoo artist write "16/11/05," the day Trinidad beat Bahrain to qualify for the tournament.
Another superfan, Stacy Hazel, forged her loyalty to the team with tears.
Hazel, a 31-year-old public health researcher, bought her tickets a year ago - before the team even qualified. She remembers the devastating loss to the United States in 1989, when the Americans qualified for the 1990 World Cup instead of Trinidad.
"I remember walking home in a daze and just conking out in the same clothes I wore to the game. I cried myself to sleep," Hazel said.
This year she's all smiles and full of hope.
"We're definitely making it past the first round. I optioned tickets through the whole match," Hazel said.