HAMILTON, Bermuda — Competitive sports cannot be played without using some sort of equipment. Keeping that equipment in good condition and safe for players to use is the job of equipment managers.

Though they don’t share the spotlight with the players or coaches, equipment managers are some of the most significant members of a team, tasked with responsibilities that vary greatly.

Omar Folkes is one of those individuals whose intangible contribution and commitment in service to Jamaica’s football as equipment manager, has been unwavering.

Folkes has been working with the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) for the past five years, following a lengthy stint with Red Stripe Premier League outfit Portmore United, formerly Hazard United.

Apart from Portmore United, Folkes, affectionately called “Twin” due to the identical resemblance with brother Kemar, also lent a helping hand to Sporting Central and Jamalco FC — barring Portmore, all based in his native parish of Clarendon.

Such was his commitment to his job at the time that it assisted in his employment to the JFF in 2012, where he now works under the supervision of Howard Bell.

“It was always one of my goals to represent my country in any way possible. I have been around football for quite some time and I always sa,y if you are in sports and have no desire to represent your country then you lack vision.

“I may not have been an outstanding player, but I found my purpose in football as an equipment manager,” Folkes told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

The workload of inspecting and cleaning each piece of gear worn by the players, to meet a certain standard, can be strenuous at times, but Folkes’s love and passion for his job bears even more weight.

He pointed out that he becomes even more purpose driven with each thought of his wife Camala and two sons, Kamal and Laquaine.

“If you don’t have a passion for anything you do in life, then it doesn’t make any sense you do it, because you won’t be comfortable and you will eventually give up.

“There are many times when you will have bad days or you might get upset about one thing or the next, especially when the workload is there and things are going bad. So if you don’t have a passion for it then it makes no sense,” the Central High School past student noted.

He continued: “The experience I gained while working at Portmore United kind of laid the platform for me coming to the national set-up, but the workload is more difficult at the national level. It requires a lot more attention than at the club level, and you have to be willing to put in the extra work…..stay up doing extra hours, getting things ready for the next day.

“So every time you complete a training session, you have to sort those things out and then start prepping for the next day, so it can be stressful at times. but I have found ways to make it easier for me.

And the 34-year-old does clock a lot of extra hours, as his job starts before the players take to the field, and continues long after the players have left the pitch.

He is the one who retrieves the balls and attends to the individual needs of each player and the coaches during a training session, while on match days, he departs for the game venue hours before the team in order to prepare everything for the players when they arrive.

“A lot of people wouldn’t know how heavy the workload is, especially when you go on a tour and you have games and training session back-to-back that you have to prepare for. When you are dealing with the national teams you have to deal with stuff at the highest standard in my department.

“So my experience at Portmore United and working with Norman Stone, the JFF senior equipment manager, has taught me a lot in terms of how to do what I do to the best of my ability,” Folkes noted.

“I remember Norman Stone telling me that we are like the groom for the teams and the federation, because we get the least sleep and we have the most workload so we are like the groom in the federation. So over a period of time you get accustomed to it and you eventually understand how to best manage yourself as an equipment manager,” he added.

On this Caribbean CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championships qualifying tour, Folkes, who travels with the junior teams at the Under-15, Under-17 and Under-20 levels, as well as the senior Reggae Girlz team, was often seen up and about late in the night and into the wee hours of the morning, doing laundry and getting gear together.

“We do get our normal vacation, but sometimes, depending on the workload, we just have to keep working until the time allows. It is normally a two-man job but, at the moment, I am the only one doing it at the youth level,” he said in reference to his rest period.

“I have travelled with a lot of head of delegations who are board members of the federation, and they see the amount of work that we do and it is appreciated, but there are people outside that don’t know the level of work that we do,” he ended.