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Shaka Hislop and Viv RichardsHe may have hung up his gloves, but former Trinidad and Tobago goalkeeper Shaka Hislop is hardly missing out on all the action.

Now living in the United States where he is a much-respected football analyst with international sports network ESPN, his latest endeavour as an ambassador for Johnnie Walker's "Be a Giant: Don't Drink and Drive" campaign, along with former West Indies cricket captain Sir Viv Richards, brought him back to T&T for a few days earlier this month.

The Express caught up with the six-foot six-inch Hislop at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, and chatted with him about life after football, T&T's chances at World Cup qualifying, his family, and his future plans.

Q: Tell me about your campaign for Johnnie Walker

A: The message they're trying to get across is (to) be a giant in yourself and in decisions that you make and the examples that Viv and I bring (are) what sometimes may seem like tough decisions, what may seem unpopular can pay big rewards in the end. Viv and I are both speaking about our respective paths and some of the things that we've done, some of the decisions that we've made in getting to where we have.

Q: Any footballers in the family?

A: For me I understand how tough it is, and exactly how much pressure parents now in particular, given the rewards of the game, put their kids under. I want my kids to know the game as I did as a ten-year-old, or a seven-year-old, and that was just as a game I played with my friends, and I enjoyed it. I put them under no pressure at all; as long as they're smiling, I'm happy.

Q: What does the near future hold for Shaka Hislop?

A: I'll continue to do what I'm doing with ESPN. I'm enjoying doing the studio shows, the commentary, being involved in the game in that respect. It's an opportunity for me to learn in a field that, admittedly I know very little about, but if it means showing and telling the stories of local athletes, it's exactly what I'd like to be involved in. So I'll continue doing what I'm doing and I'd like to be a part of hearing those stories, and sharing them with the rest of the world.

Q: How do you feel about the current state of T&T football?

A: I just feel that a country as small as ours, as Trinidad and Tobago with as small a player pool as ours, we have to have a more long-term approach. We have to prepare our talented players for the rigours of a World Cup qualification camp...for the trials, the tests that come with being successful, because there is where they will get caught out. It's not easy to do as Dwight Yorke did, as Russell Latapy did, to move abroad at 16, to at times resist the trappings that come with success.

Q: Do you miss being a player?

A: I don't. I get asked this quite regularly, and I retired on my own terms. I started to feel the effects of niggling injuries, but my decision to retire had been made before. I was nowhere near as good as I had been, and I just felt that I could not keep the standards that I had set for myself. I walked away from the game, I wasn't pushed, it wasn't because of injuries, I can still run around in my front yard and play with my kids, so I'm happy. I had a good run of it--15 years in the game is a long time.

Q: Are you satisfied with the players' legal action against the T&T Football Federation (to secure bonus money promised for qualifying for the 2006 World Cup)?

A: Things have gone well and we are satisfied. I've made this point from day one that we wanted a third party's opinion on the dispute. We've got that and some, so we feel justified in our action. It's not come to a close yet, it might be a while before it does, but again we're unmoved from our initial course. We felt we had a case, and now we're pursuing it. Everything that has been said around it at times I think has been desperately unfair. We leave things in the hands of the courts. We trust the courts to rule over this and bring this to an amicable settlement at some point, and we can ask no more than that.

Q: Any interest in a future role in T&T football?

A: I'm always available for Trinidad and Tobago football. Where that opportunity will present itself, I don't know. I'm happy doing what I'm doing. T&T football will always be dear to me...if and when that opportunity presents itself I'll make a decision then. But until it does, who knows? Again, given the standoff with the players who have the TTFF in court right now, and some of the things that have been said over recent months about the motivations and personalities involved, and the fact that there doesn't seem to be any changes in the faces that run this game (locally), I wonder if that will come at all.