Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira says Al McDonald’s contribution to basketball was extremely important

Jun 25, 2026 Sports

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Kaieteur Sports – Renowned sports commentator and former Sports Advisor to the Guyana Government Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira is of the view that the late sports journalist and basketball administrator Al Vivian McDonald Chapman “was a great servant of basketball.”

Reached for his reaction on Al’s passing due to a fire to his apartment at his home on May 10 in Florida, USA, Reds opined from his home in St. Lucia when contacted, said, “Al McDonald was a very different style of a journalist. Pleasant personality, not abrasive, didn’t put people under pressure, but his style seemed to suggest that maybe, he came before his time.”

The former OECS Sports Organiser further said, “When I say that, I would like to link that also to Brent Chapman, who was not the average journalist; just looking to file copy but looking to go a little deeper, and a little more investigative at times, and having an opinion and just not writing the straight facts. He certainly was a great servant of basketball. I think that was his pet game, and I can say from my own experience when I was president for a matter of 1969 to 1975, he gave basketball a great deal of mileage, a great deal of interest and inches.”

‘Reds’ Perreira, a former basketball president of the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation, is credited as the one who introduced Al to the demands of reporting on basketball added, “I gather that he was, from all reports, a very influential reporter to the team in 1975 when they went to Santo Domingo. He was a good all-round writer, not saying he only wrote about basketball, but I think his contribution to basketball was extremely important.’

In fact, Reds offered, “I think the basketball association of Guyana, should in fact, look at ways and means of honouring his work in basketball. That association I am sure, if they do their research, they will easily pick up the amount of great stories, the amount of investigative journalism, the amount of articles he wrote on basketball, and I would not want to say what they should do or suggest what they should do, but certainly a major tournament, whether on a knock out basis, or a round robin basis involving the entire nation of Guyana where basketball is played.”

Not wanting to repeat the glowing tributes which were already expressed of Al, Reds, who was most famous for his role as one of the best cricket commentators the Caribbean has produced, remarked, “So much was written from many people who knew him well it’s very hard to not repeat what some people have said. He was gentle, he was not abrasive, and he really respected the role of a journalist. And he represented journalists in a very good way, he was a true professional. Both himself and Brent Chapman worked out of the Chronicle when competition was very high among the media. Guyana Broadcasting Service (GBS) had come on stream to join the competition with Radio Demerara. All the newspapers were surfacing. You had an evening paper and that department in the Chronicle was led by Godfrey Wray, which included Quintyn Taylor, along with good men behind the camera who supported the work of the journalists, that team also played a great part in maybe getting financial assistance with the lottery that the Chronicle ran, and I think they really helped a lot of associations. They could not make decisions, but they probably helped to put ideas in their heads about possible funding. But Al’s passing is a great loss to Guyana.”

In looking back at the early days of sports reporting in Guyana, Reds paid homage saying: “Some outstanding journalists going back to Jake Croker, Charles Chichester, McDonald Dash, Cecil ‘Bruiser’ Thomas, Cedric Wiltshire, that whole generation and of course a very special area of work was in radio by BL Crombie, who for 26 years never missed a programme and kept sports very much alive before other institutions started to take sports very seriously. Which, in fact, led to BL Crombie being brought on not just at 5 to 8 when you have a date, but brought on full time at Radio Demerara. So, there’s a long history of former outstanding journalists.”

The 72 years old Al McDonald Chapman died on May 25 and his body was cremated and ashes brought back to Guyana by his family this past week and there were nights of reflection for him at Linden and in Georgetown in his honour as a reporter and basketball official, before he left these shores in 1984 to live in the United States with his family, after starting his career in journalism in the mid-1970s.

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• Al McDonald, Basketball, Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira

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